When Ellen MacArthur set out to live her life-long dream, sailing solo around the world, she knew the journey would be life-changing. What she didn’t know is that sitting alone on a small boat facing the elements, thousands of miles away from home, she would not only feel at one with the world around her, but she would learn first hand what it means to live with finite resources, and what the risks of going without would be. What to do with this newly found awareness?
On her return from her epic circumnavigation of the world as a solo yachtswoman in 2005, Ellen MacArthur set about learning as much as possible about the way world economies work, and how resources are used.
In 2010, after numerous meetings with economy and industry experts in many countries, having understood enough of what’s wrong with a dominant world economic system based on a linear ‘take, make, dispose’ approach – an approach relying on, but also bound by finite resources (such as coal and oil) that sooner or later are going to run out – Ellen founded the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK-based charity organisation that seek to promote the transition to the Circular Economy.
Through the dissemination of cutting edge ideas and research on the Circular Economy, the foundation seeks to inspire schools and education institutions, governments, decision makers and business leaders to rethink the future through the circular economy lens. And now, the foundation has a new tool to help promote an economy that is designed for efficient resource management, and therefore regenerative and restorative, rather than wasteful and destructive: the newly launched Circular Cities Network.
