The Circular Revolution: Why Linear Thinking is a Recipe for Disaster and How a New Economy Can Save Us

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For centuries, industry has operated on a perilous, one-way street: Take, Make, Dispose. This linear model, the engine of modern progress, has proven to be a devastating, unsustainable recipe. As global greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb—with a staggering 55% stemming from energy production and use, and another 45% tied to industrial and agricultural processes—the stakes could not be higher.

We stand at a critical juncture. The path to achieving net-zero emissions, a goal essential for the survival of our planet, requires nothing short of a radical, system-wide overhaul. The answer isn't just efficiency; it's a fundamental shift to a Circular Economy, an operational model that treats resources not as disposable inputs, but as assets to be endlessly cherished and reused.

The Economic Case for Circularity: $2 Trillion Reasons to Change

The transition to a circular model is often framed as an environmental imperative, but it is also one of the most powerful economic opportunities of our time. Systematic climate and resource efficiency policies could unlock substantial economic benefits, with an estimated $2 trillion in annual savings by 2050. This isn't small-scale greenwashing; this is a grand-scale economic redesign.

The circular economy directly tackles the root cause of environmental damage by reducing the extraction of primary materials, conserving energy, and minimizing waste. To achieve this, companies must adopt the strategic "2Rs" (Redefine and Redesign) over the traditional "3Rs" (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), focusing on fundamentally addressing issues at the entry point of the entire economic model.

The 3 Core Principles: Architects of a New System

The Circular Economy is built on three seismic shifts in how we conceptualize and operate business:

1. Product-as-a-Service (PaaS)

This principle demands a fundamental change in business models, shifting from selling products to selling their function. It means innovating product designs at the source to meet more needs with fewer resources while ensuring the absolute possibility of subsequent circulation.

The Insight: When a company retains ownership of the product, its incentive shifts from designing for obsolescence to designing for durability, repair, and easy recovery. The product becomes a valued asset, not a throwaway commodity.

2. High-Value Utilization

If resources are the lifeblood of our economy, we must stop letting them bleed out. High-value utilization means ensuring resources are kept in closed loops and utilized at their maximum value. The goal is to minimize downcycling—the process of recycling into lower-value materials—and eliminate resource degradation entirely.

The Insight: Every material should have a planned next life. This requires meticulous tracking and innovative processing to maintain purity and quality throughout multiple cycles.

3. Systems Partnership

Achieving a true circular economy cannot be the burden of a single entity. It requires collaboration, achieving mutual symbiosis across enterprises and industries. This principle involves enhancing the opportunities and benefits of resource circulation through robust partnership.

The Insight: Over one-third of Taiwan’s annual greenhouse gas emissions are related to exports. A company’s net-zero goal cannot be met in isolation; it must span the entire supply chain, from the upstream extraction of raw materials to downstream consumption. This necessity gives rise to the critical mandate of Circular Collaboration For Climate (CC4CC).

Redefining Demand: The Behavioral Catalyst

While redesigning industrial supply is crucial, the global consensus, highlighted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is that behavioral changes on the demand side can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70%.

Achieving net-zero demands that everyone—from CEOs to consumers—redefines their needs and questions unnecessary desires. It starts with simple lifestyle changes: choosing to share resources rather than own them.

The Call to Action: Collaboration is Not Optional

Achieving net-zero emissions is not a solo sprint, but a team relay race. Companies often find that their efforts to scope their own emissions (Scope 1 and 2) are insufficient without considering the emissions of their entire supply chain (Scope 3).

The challenge—and the opportunity—is cross-industry and cross-national cooperation. This is the era of CC4CC, where businesses are invited to collaborate with their supply chain partners to accelerate circular economy practices, build a resilient future, and write the compelling stories of this bold new world.

The choice is clear: cling to the dying linear model and risk disaster, or embrace the circular revolution and unlock unprecedented value, sustainability, and resilience for generations to come. The time to act is now.

The Great Pivot: How Taiwan is Forging a Net-Zero, Resilient Future and Leading the World Out of the Linear Trap

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The Climate Abyss: A Call to Action

Since the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 30 years ago, global annual carbon emissions have not merely stabilized—they have surged. As the UN Secretary-General warns, "We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator!" This "accelerator" is the linear economy, a model born of the Industrial Revolution that prioritizes profits and privatizes risks, treating costs as a necessary evil for economic stimulation.

But the planet faces a triple threat: high consumption, high pollution, and high carbon emissions. The traditional linear model—take, make, dispose—is not just unsustainable; it's a profound systemic failure. Just as treating a person's "three highs" (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol) with medication alone fails to address the root cause, so too do piecemeal environmental efforts. We must fundamentally change our economic model.

Taiwan, an island nation densely populated and limited by a shortage of natural resources, understands this existential threat perhaps better than anyone. Nearly 260 million metric tons of raw materials are consumed annually, over 70% of which are imported. And every year, approximately 32 million metric tons of waste are generated.

The time for passive followership is over. It is time for proactive leadership.

The Transformation: Moving Beyond "Taiwan Can Help"

For the past sixty years, Taiwan played the role of a "follower," succeeding by reducing costs and improving efficiency in the global market. But in addressing the climate crisis, the opportunity is to transform from an efficiency engine into a global sustainability pioneer. The new rallying cry isn't just "Taiwan Can Help," it's "Taiwan Can Lead."

In 2017, the Executive Yuan launched the "5+2 Industrial Innovation Plan," signaling a crucial first step toward "circular economy" and "new agriculture" strategies. This national commitment has placed the transformation from the traditional linear model to a circular economy at the heart of its national policy, seeing it as the key to securing long-term environmental and economic competitiveness.

The Three-Pronged Strategy for Resource Circulation

Taiwan's Ministry of Environment, alongside the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture, has adopted a robust "three-major circulation strategies" and "two key facilitation pillars" to reshape its industrial landscape:

Green Designs: Advocating for source reduction and green design at the material usage phase.

Resource Circulation: Developing technologies to expand the potential for waste-to-resource conversion, maximizing resource use efficiency.

Waste Balance and Treatment: Streamlining the resource circulation network across all sectors—upstream, midstream, and downstream industries.

This shift is not merely compliance; it’s a massive economic opportunity. The resource circulation industry is thriving, creating billions in value and generating numerous job opportunities in high-value sectors like recycling systems and advanced manufacturing.

Agriculture: The Front Line of Circularity

Nowhere is the pivot more evident than in agriculture, which is adopting a four-pillar guideline to reduce carbon emissions, promote circular agriculture, enhance carbon sinks, and accelerate net zero by 2040.

Agricultural circularity—a "full cycle and zero waste" model—is the main goal. It is transforming waste streams into high-value resources:

Animal Waste: Converting poultry and livestock manure into biogas and digestate for energy and fertilizer.

Crop Residues: Using materials like rice straw, soybean pulp, and mushroom compost to create high-value products like feed or organic fertilizers.

High-Value Products: Converting soy pulp into raw materials for plant-based meat, and transforming waste into renewable energy sources.

The goal is to secure a win-win situation: a balanced economic benefit paired with environmental sustainability, proving that prosperity and responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

The Industry Revolution: Innovating Waste into Wealth

Across industries, Taiwan is demonstrating its leadership:

ITRI’s Breakthrough: The Industrial Technology Research Institute has perfected high-strength, rut-resistant asphalt concrete using combined waste asphalt and steel slag, extending the service life of roads.

BenQ Dialysis Technology: Improving the production and manufacturing of hemodialyzers using automatic rejection equipment to sort reusable materials.

CPC/VP Developments: Joining forces to implement resource recovery facilities to recycle discarded PP plastic from industrial scraps and household plastic waste into new pedals.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is actively supporting this shift by promoting the effective utilization of resources through "turning waste into treasure" programs. This innovation is foundational to developing and expanding the circular economy's footprint in product design, manufacturing, consumption, and waste management.

A Future Forged in Resilience

In fact, Taiwan is already a global leader in many sectors, such as semiconductors and AI, and is among the best in the world in resource recycling and circulation. However, this is not a time for complacency.

We cannot afford to waste the opportunities presented by this crisis. We must leverage the successes and failures of the past to fundamentally change five crucial aspects of people’s lives: livelihood opportunities, production models, ecological balance, and value of life.

A circular economy is the collective effort of all sectors, a social contract that brings together the contributions of public, private, and civil society. Taiwan is extending an open hand, sharing its exemplary models and hard-won expertise to build a greener, more resilient, and sustainable world.

Let us embrace this future full of hope. Let us move forward, not as followers, but as the leaders who chose to leave the linear economy behind, ensuring a prosperous future for generations to come. Taiwan Can Lead.

DepEd reports 312 damaged schools; Bicol, CALABARZON schools heavily hit by ‘Uwan

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MAKATI CITY, 10 November 2025 — The Department of Education (DepEd) reported that at least 312 public schools sustained infrastructure damage following the onslaught of Super Typhoon Uwan, with Bicol and CALABARZON among the hardest hit regions.


The November 10, 12pm Situation Report from the DepEd Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Service (DRRMS) showed that 1,182 classrooms suffered minor damage, 366 classrooms were majorly damaged, and 261 were totally damaged. These figures are still being verified as additional reports continue to arrive from regional and division offices.


Echoing President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s call for all agencies to remain on full alert and safeguard the safety of their constituents, Education Secretary Sonny Angara assured affected communities that the department is committed to the immediate protection of students, teachers, and school personnel as well as the long-term continuity of learning.


“Mabigat ang pinagdadaanan ng ating mga guro, magulang, at mag-aaral sa nagdaang Bagyong Uwan at Tino. Nakikiramay tayo sa ating mga kababayan at tinitiyak namin sa DepEd na kasama ninyo kami sa bawat hakbang ng pagbangon at muling pagbuo ng pag-asa sa bawat silid-aralan,” Secretary Angara said.


Bicol, CALABARZON, and CAR recorded the highest numbers of damaged classrooms due to Uwan.


DepEd also reported that 5,572 classrooms in 1,072 schools across 11 regions are being used as evacuation centers, temporarily sheltering displaced families. The department continues to work closely with local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Councils (DRRMCs) for rapid assessment and relief coordination.


To address immediate recovery needs, DepEd has identified funding requirements of ₱20.2 million for clean-up and clearing operations and ₱57.9 million for minor repairs