At WMRR’s Circular Economy Conference (ENVIRO 2026), we were privileged to host Iain Gulland and Andrew Morlet – between them, they have helped shape global thinking on the circular economy, influencing governments, business and international climate policy. Among the many insights they shared, one message resonated strongly with me – Australia’s climate conversation is incomplete.
Don’t get me wrong. The transition to renewable energy is essential. Decarbonising our electricity, transport and industrial sectors must remain at the centre of Australia’s pathway to net zero. But climate policy isn’t just about energy. It’s also about materials.
Globally, around 70 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions are associated with the extraction, processing, manufacture, transport, use and disposal of materials.
To seriously tackle climate change, we must think beyond generating cleaner energy to how we design, make, use and recover the products and materials that underpin our economy.
As we prepare to co-host COP31 – where halving waste features on the agenda – Australia has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help shape the next chapter of climate action.
Leadership on the international stage, however, starts with leadership at home, which means recognising that climate policy, industrial policy, productivity, manufacturing and the circular economy are not separate conversations.
They are all connected by one simple question: how do we create more value while using fewer virgin resources?
For too long Australia has viewed waste as an environmental issue that begins when a product is thrown away.
It doesn’t. It begins much earlier – at the drawing board, on the factory floor and in the decisions made about what products are made from, how long they last, whether they can be repaired or reused, and what happens to them when they eventually reach the end of their useful life. That is the essence of a circular economy.
A circular economy is not a waste strategy. It is an economic model that designs waste out resources. It creates value through better design, smarter manufacturing, responsible consumption and markets for recovered materials. This is why WMRR has consistently advocated for sustainable product design and policies that prevent waste before it is created.
But prevention is only part of the story. No matter how well products are designed, every product will eventually reach the end of its useful life. That is why Australia’s WARR sector is critical. We provide the infrastructure that allows circularity to happen in practice. We collect, sort and recover materials. We produce high-quality recycled feedstocks for Australian manufacturers. We divert organics from landfill, recover nutrients and renewable energy, and responsibly manage the residual materials that cannot yet be recycled.
In other words, the circular economy is the strategy. Resource recovery is the enabling infrastructure that makes it work.
That is why WMRR deliberately incorporated “Resource Recovery” into our name in 2019. It reflects the breadth of our sector – not just managing waste, but recovering valuable resources, supporting local manufacturing, reducing emissions and building a more circular economy.
It also highlights why climate policy, and circular economy policy are not separate silos.
One of the strongest reflections from my conversations with both Iain and Andrew was that we cannot recycle our way to a circular economy.
Recycling remains essential and often does the heavy lifting in keeping materials circulating. But the greatest environmental and climate benefits come much earlier – through designing products that last longer, can be repaired, reused and remanufactured before recycling is ever required. That is systems thinking. It is also industrial policy and climate policy.
In my view, we do not talk enough about the relationship between Sustainable Development Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production – and SDG 13 – Climate Action.
Read more: Turning landfill gas into long-term value
The two are inseparable. How we consume determines what we produce, how much energy we use, whether valuable materials are recovered or lost. Every product carries an embedded carbon footprint long before it reaches our homes, and every product discarded prematurely represents wasted materials, wasted energy, wasted investment and unnecessary emissions.
This isn’t about asking Australians to stop buying things. It is about buying, and valuing, products differently.
Choosing products designed to last, which can be repaired instead of replaced, and made with recycled materials. Supporting businesses that design for durability rather than disposability.
It’s also about creating policy settings that reward responsible production instead of encouraging a throwaway economy. These are not simply consumer choices. They are climate choices. They are also productivity choices.
Australia spends a great deal of time discussing productivity, yet we rarely consider the role that resource efficiency, innovation and better product design play in improving it.
Take housing – the Productivity Commission reported that housing construction productivity has declined over recent decades. While Europe and Asia embrace modular construction, digital design, industrialised manufacturing and greater material efficiency – including recycled materials – Australia continues to build homes largely the same way it did thirty years ago. We shouldn’t be surprised that productivity has stalled if our approach to innovation has too. Housing is just one example.
Australia has never lacked ideas. What we have often lacked is the confidence to integrate them. We continue to develop climate policy, manufacturing policy, housing policy, productivity policy and waste policy in separate portfolios, even though the challenges they seek to solve are fundamentally connected.
The circular economy is an economic framework that delivers greater value from fewer resources. WARR is fundamental to this, given we ensure materials continue circulating instead of being lost. Around the world, governments are increasingly recognising that resource efficiency is not simply an environmental objective. It is an economic, manufacturing, productivity and climate strategy!
Australia now must build on that momentum – everyday our sector reduces emissions by recovering valuable materials, producing quality recycled feedstocks, generating renewable energy from genuine residual waste and supplying Australian manufacturers with secondary resources. We are climate infrastructure.
Yet our contribution is still too often measured through the lens of landfill emissions, rather than the broader role we play in decarbonising manufacturing, reducing resource extraction and supporting Australia’s transition towards a circular economy, which will ultimately build a stronger, smarter and more resilient Australia. One that creates more value from every tonne of material, strengthens domestic manufacturing, creates skilled jobs, reduces reliance on imported virgin resources and drives innovation across the economy.
Environmental responsibility and economic prosperity are not competing objectives. They are the same.
As we prepare for COP31, Australia can redefine what climate leadership looks like. Not simply cleaner energy. But smarter design. Better production. Responsible consumption, and a genuine commitment to keeping valuable materials in productive use for as long as possible.
Climate policy doesn’t begin at the power station, it begins with every product we design, every material we choose, every purchasing decision we make, and every opportunity we create to recover those materials for another life.
If Australia is to leave a legacy from COP31, this is the conversation we must lead. Not simply how we decarbonise our energy systems, but how we build a truly circular economy that reduces emissions across the entire life of every product.
That is the complete climate conversation we should be having– there has never been a better time to start.