Keith Skene

Given the multitude of challenges facing humanity at present, an understanding of how the Earth system works and responds to perturbation is central to our prospects. The interconnections between the components of the Earth system, and the role of technology, are understood within this broader context. This paper first examines what a living being represents, before exploring human identity and human intelligence. The concept of more-than-human is explored, along with the historical development of dualism in human-nature relations. Indigenous concepts of identity and relationality are also expanded upon. The paper then assesses what intelligence model should be used in artificial intelligence, challenging the use of Western and Northern thinking, which has contributed to the unprecedented challenges facing the entire planet. Animal, plant and microbial intelligence are considered, before examining Earth system intelligence, focusing on key systems characteristics of emergence, non-linearity, self-organization, sub-optimality and real-time feedback. We explore the implications of these characteristics for artificial intelligence and set out a theory of relational technology, as a means of re-integrating humanity with the Earth system. We consider the ecological, social and economic pluriverse, and the importance of relational ethics, focusing on the gift economy as an example.

There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development, escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings, and exploring its antecedents in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalized in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as “an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being”.