In this chapter, I make a case that the core objective for (environmental) law researchers in the coming decades, especially in developed and emerging economies, must be to actively contribute to radically transforming the dominant unsustainable linear take–make–waste economic model. The current economic system is based on unsustainable natural resource and material demand perpetuated by an entanglement of laws and regulations woven by powerful elites, especially in the Global North, since colonialism. By 2019, more than 100 billion tonnes of resources – everything from metals, minerals and fossil fuels to organic materials from plants and animals – entered the global economy; equivalent to 1.7 Earths. Meanwhile, approximately 2.12 billion tonnes of waste has been generated throughout the supply chain from extraction to end of use. Current predictions do not anticipate a significant reduction in demand for either the extraction of resources or the generation of waste globally in the coming decades.