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The way contemporary capitalism is organised presents a wide range of fundamental contradictions that make it socially and environmentally unsustainable. One main contradiction relates to the tension between the capitalist growth imperative and physical-ecological planetary boundaries. The main source of hope to reconcile this tension lies in the idea of ‘decoupling’ growth from environmental impact, including resource use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite the thin empirical evidence, the idea of decoupling is appealing and has been, in many ways, very successful. There has been a proliferation of advocacy and proposals explicitly or implicitly underpinned by the logic of decoupling, a particularly successful one is the so-called circular economy (CE).

Drawing on Jacqueline Best’s concept of ‘practical life of ideas’ the article aims to explore how the idea of decoupling, through the operationalising concept of CE, is practiced. Examining corporate support of CE for plastics, it explores how the practice of the idea presents a solution to the sustainability/growth tension of capitalism, while simultaneously sustaining that tension.

Despite appearing to disrupt or challenge existing business models and interests, the CE has been embraced by corporations. We argue that the ‘paradox’ of corporate support for the CE can be explained by looking at the exploitation of temporal malleability in this idea, which holds an incrementalist present ‘practical life’ and a radical imaginary future. It is precisely the interplay between present and the future, between the ‘actually existing’ circularity and the CE imaginary, that accounts for its success.

About the speaker

is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at City St George’s, University of London. Her research explores the politics of policymaking in relation to human- and planetary health. She is particularly interested in how knowledge production, the politics of evidence, and the relationship between research and policy, shape the governance of health. Charlotte is one of the coordinators of EUHealthGov, a research network on EU Health Governance funded by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies and the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

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Image credit: Image of blocks with various icons signifying economic activity, circling a larger block with the words ‘circular economy’, by , from , used under .