Beyond oil: Can Saudi Arabia’s nascent private industries use circular economy practices to help them achieve the Sustainable Development Goals?

Abstract

For the past two decades, Saudi Arabia has been undergoing a transformation in terms of sustainable development that is now being fast-tracked through the country’s Vision 2030 plans. At the core of Vision 2030 is a shift away from reliance primarily on the public sector for both social and economic benefits, toward a more balanced environment in which the private sector plays a much greater role. The initial part of this strategy is a move away from oil as the main source of income for the country, accompanied by a strengthening of the new industries within the private sector. Given this new direction, and Saudi Arabia’s prioritization of the Sustainable Development Goals, it seems timely to examine ways in which these nascent industries – tourism, manufacturing, transportation, and waste management – can, from the outset, be designed or adapted so as to contribute to Saudi Arabia’s achievement of the SDGs. Accordingly, this study reviews the extant literature on sustainability practices by businesses in the G20 countries, and on the impact of the private sector on the SDGs, and links these strands to the issue of sustainable development in Saudi Arabia. It was found that within G20 the adoption of circular economy practices by the private sector, ranging from small businesses to large multinationals, delivers on sustainability objectives without compromising on commercial success. Recommendations are therefore made, for each of the four industries and for governmental involvement, as to ways in which circular economy practices can be adopted by Saudi Arabia’s private sector and thus contribute to the country’s achievement of the SDGs.