Influence of Recycling

In this last unit of Economic: Risking Value we wanted to dive even deeper into the topics we were learning about. For this unit, we read and interpreted the book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth. Doughnut Economics has seven chapters. These seven chapters contain different topics about a framework of a different way to look at economics from a more global and sustainable perspective. Raworth also included her own original theories for “growth” in the economical world. For example, chapter seven of the book was titled, Be Agnostic About Growth. This specific chapter had stuck out because my group had presented and summarized the chapter for the class. Raworth carried these unique ideas of hers throughout the book in a more humanitarian stance. For this action project, we were prompted to continue on Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist and create our own chapter 8! We wanted to think of another principle we were able to create in the way Raworth would think and speak. I personally decided to touch on the topics of small business owners/entrepreneurs and how they are able to use their platform for changing the way we waste products in the economy.

SR.ECON.2020

                           

ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE 

Entrepreneurs have so much of an impact on the economy, so are they truly being mindful of what are they demonstrating to their audience? Let’s think about the limited resources, the conflicts of overproducing, and the waste that is being made from businesses worldwide. These environmental decisions can greatly affect large matters such as climate change, air pollution, and oil spills. 

I’m proposing that entrepreneurs and small businesses take part in influencing and demonstrating how they can reuse their products and speak upon how it supports the environment by saving those resources. When having a community that is supporting your business there are a number of options when trying to get your messages across. We shouldn’t only be thinking about how we rapidly gain attention to sell productions, we should also be thinking of what would communication look like in this sense of including these Sustainable Development Goals. The idea for a new system will allow these entrepreneurs and small businesses to embed a sustainable system into their products and speak upon how they are specifically prioritizing that. The outcome and influence are to show their buyers that they are reusing resources to touch base on how that can sustainably grow in the economic world. 

When using this principle, it won’t only allow others to be influenced by the same behavior of reusing and recycling or being aware of how your actions affect the environment, but it also contains a good perspective for small businesses. It will be a different way to not only market your own products but another way to encourage others to do the same. It will be a win/win in the case of helping the economy for a more sustainable establishment as well as helping the environment, saving money since you are reusing products, and since there will be less overproduction and wastes products businesses will behave enough resources.

DISCUSSION - How do small businesses/influencers/entrepreneurs bring awareness to humanitarian crises in the economic world?

As we can see with large businesses and platforms that are held by online influencers, there’s this sense of lack of concern with social changes, the value for the economy, or the results of profiting. For example, corporations that are not concerned about environmental products such as Amazon, Salesforce, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Let’s think about how small and independent businesses and influencers may or may not use their platforms responsibly and actually think about the environmental issues, humanitarian issues, climate change which is affected, and the Sustainable Development Goals that can be caused by the misuse of their actions and how that all ties into the economy. For example, a brand called Net Zero Co. is solely based on selling reusable/recycled products. This method can be used by other small and independent businesses! It can be as simple as reusing products for packaging and marketing. 

According to, eesi.org “In addition to generating income, recycling saves money by reducing spending on landfills (which charge tipping fees and require significant amounts of land)." We see here that this act of innovation is very universal in the sense of helping both sides of the party. We are not only looking at the improvement of environmental needs but how this accessible action can also help the business. This can be an opportunity for the business to change their habits of recycling to also encourage customers and visitors to do the same.

Raworth states, “I consider the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be an essential step. They comprise the systems that sustain life on earth and are designed for all countries, not just the South.” As the economy excels the Sustainable Development Goals are a prominent voice within how we can globally stretch these ideas to not only better our nation but others where we can take a turn into creating an innovative foundation in the economy and the health of our world.

In conclusion, this term really got me thinking about the global and humanitarian side of economics. When reading the book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth it gave me a larger perspective on what actually affects the economy and how we are able to use the Sustainable Development Goals to do so. I wanted to focus on small businesses and entrepreneurs because I actually opened up my own online art business, so being able to think about what decisions I can make to influence my viewers to think more about climate change and humanitarian needs is extremely important and crucial to me. Overall, I absolutely loved this action project! It really got me actively thinking and analyzing what we can do as global citizens. I loved reading the perspective of Raworth and what she had to say about how we should be thinking as a 21-century Economist. By applying these principles globally we can create an impact on the economy as not only a nation but as a worldwide community.