Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek has announced the formation of the Ministerial Advisory Group on the Circular Economy.
The new group, announced at the Circularity 2022 Conference in Sydney, has been established to guide Australia as it transitions to a circular economy by 2030.
The group will be chaired by Professor John Thwaites AM, with membership including Australia’s chief scientist, Dr Cathy Foley and outgoing CEO of CSIRO, Dr Larry Marshall.
The group will look at how products are designed, manufactured, and used across all sectors of the economy.
It will identify meaningful and direct changes the government and industry can make to drive the transition to a circular economy.
The decision to establish the new Ministerial Advisory Group on the Circular Economy follows the Environment Ministers Meeting in October, where all Australian environment ministers agreed to work with the private sector to design out waste and pollution, keep materials in use, and foster markets to achieve a circular economy by 2030.
Plibersek said better waste management and more effective recycling are important – but they aren’t enough on their own.
“As a country we must do more to design-out waste in the first place and make better use of recovered resources. We know that Australians want to reduce their waste and use less disposable items in the first place – but we have to set up our economy to help them do this.
“More than 70 per cent of a product’s environmental impact is locked in at the design stage, before a customer ever looks at it. This means we need to get things right at the start, well before we deal with its disposal.”
Minister for Science and Industry, Ed Husic, said reaching Australia’s net-zero goals requires an urgent systems-wide change to how we live and work.
“A circular economy will ensure that we are on track to make these changes and support the energy transformation.
“It’s a great opportunity to create manufacturing systems that are optimised to be less resource intensive, produce less waste, and have less impact on the environment.”
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