BACK IN 1966, renowned English-born American economist Kenneth E. Boulding described the closed economy of the future as a spaceman economy, one in which the Earth "has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or for pollution […]." He contrasted this with the cowboy economy of the past, in which resources appeared infinite and illimitable.The evidence is clear that we have now entered this new economic phase: Unless we clean up our act urgently and stop acting like cowboys, we will soon have to abandon ship and search for a new planet. Today, 91 percent of material flows in the economy are linear, meaning that they are mined, used and disposed of in a single flow. Our unidirectional produce-to-waste approach destroys socio￾ecological systems and the complex and interdependent network of ecosystems that we inhabit. The extraction and processing of natural resources for the production of goods is responsible for an estimated 50 percent of global greenhouse gases (GHG), and sooner or later these resources will become unavailable. For example, the European Chemical Society foresees that half of the 92 naturally occurring elements on Earth are at risk of future shortage – with 17 of the roughly 30 elements currently used in smartphones already facing prospective supply concerns.