Factors of uneven progress of the European Union countries towards a circular economy
-
DOIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.19(3).2021.27
-
Article InfoVolume 19 2021, Issue #3, pp. 332-344
- Cited by
- 857 Views
-
182 Downloads
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
The increased final consumption exacerbates the problem of the scarcity of natural resources and leads to environmental pollution. The concept of circular economy, which implies the formation of closed-loop chains of production and consumption with maximum regeneration and recycling of materials, is considered as an alternative to the firmly established “linear economy” (take-make-dispose). As a part of sustainable development strategy, the European Union adopted a general policy on the transition to a circular economy. However, for objective reasons, such transition is quite uneven at the level of member countries, which adversely affects the total progress. Therefore, the need arises to assess the positions of individual countries and identify major reasons for the uneven transition to support the countries that are lagging.
The goal of the study is to identify the factors of uneven progress of the EU countries towards a circular economy. For that reason, a set of empirical data (20 indicators) has been compiled; cluster, classification, and parametric analyses have been conducted. As a result, three clusters of the EU countries have been obtained and six indicators, included into combinations that make all clusters different, have been identified. These indicators can be interpreted as the key factors contributing to the uneven progress of the EU countries towards a circular economy. The difference in harmonic means by clusters allowed quantitatively estimating a “circular gap”. It is of practical value for the EU policy aimed at bridging the gaps between member countries during the transition to a circular economy.
- Keywords
-
JEL Classification (Paper profile tab)F15, O52, P52, Q01
-
References39
-
Tables5
-
Figures0
-
- Table 1. List of the key indicators of circular economy in the EU member countries
- Table 2. Clusters of the EU member countries according to the circular economy development indicators
- Table 3. Combinations of circular economy indicators, which absolutely separate the clusters of the EU countries
- Table 4. Results of parametric analysis by the indicators included in the combinations, which separate the clusters of the EU countries
- Table 5. Difference between the harmonic mean of the indicators, included in the combinations of IGF, as an assessment of “circular gap” between the clusters of the EU countries*
-
- Androniceanu, A., Kinnunen, J., & Georgescu, I. (2021). Circular economy as a strategic option to promote sustainable economic growth and effective human development. Journal of International Studies, 14(1), 60-73.
- Barros, M.V., Salvador, R., Do Prado, G.F., De Francisco, A.C., & Piekarski, C.M. (2021). Circular economy as a driver to sustainable businesses. Cleaner Environmental Systems, 2, 100006.
- Bassi, F., & Dias, J.G. (2019). The use of circular economy practices in SMEs across the EU. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 146, 523-533.
- Domenech, T., & Bahn-Walkowiak, B. (2019). Transition towards a Resource Efficient Circular Economy in Europe: Policy Lessons from the EU and the Member States. Ecological Economics, 155, 7-19.
- Enyoghasi, C., & Badurdeen, F. (2021). Industry 4.0 for sustainable manufacturing: Opportunities at the product, process, and system levels. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 166, 105362.
- Eurostat Database (2021). Circular economy indicators. Eurostat.
- Everitt, B., Landau, S., Leese, M., & Stahl, D. (2011). Cluster Analysis. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
- Fidélis, T., Cardoso, A.S., Riazi, F., Miranda, A.C., Abrantes, J., Teles, F., & Roebeling, P.C. (2021). Policy narratives of circular economy in the EU – Assessing the embeddedness of water and land in national action plans. Journal of Cleaner Production, 288, 125685.
- Friant, M.C., Vermeulen, W.J.V., & Salomone, R. (2021). Analysing European Union circular economy policies: words versus actions. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 27, 337-353.
- Geissdoerfer, M., Pieroni, M.P., Pigosso, D.C., & Soufani, K. (2020). Circular business models: A review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 277, 123741.
- Geissdoerfer, M., Savaget, P., Bocken, N.M.P., & Hultink, E.J. (2017). The Circular Economy – A new sustainability paradigm? Journal of Cleaner Production, 143, 757-768.
- Grafström, J., & Aasma, S. (2021). Breaking circular economy barriers. Journal of Cleaner Production, 292, 126002.
- Hartley, K., Van Santen, R., & Kirchherr, J. (2020). Policies for transitioning towards a circular economy: Expectations from the European Union (EU). Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 155, 104634.
- Hughes, R. (2017). The EU Circular Economy Package – Life Cycle Thinking to Life Cycle Law? Procedia CIRP, 61, 10-16.
- Hysa, E., Kruja, A., Rehman, N.U., & Laurenti, R. (2020). Circular Economy Innovation and Environmental Sustainability Impact on Economic Growth: An Integrated Model for Sustainable Development. Sustainability, 12(12), 4831.
- Iacovidou, E., & Gerassimidou, S. (2018). Sustainable Packaging and the Circular Economy: An EU Perspective. Reference Module in Food Science.
- Kern, F., Sharp, H., & Hachmann, S. (2020). Governing the second deep transition towards a circular economy: How rules emerge, align and diffuse. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 37, 171-186.
- Kirchherr, J., Piscicelli, L., Bour, R., Kostense-Smit, E., Muller, J., Huibrechtse-Truijens, A., & Hekkert, M. (2018). Barriers to the Circular Economy: Evidence from the European Union (EU). Ecological Economics, 150, 264-272.
- Korhonen, J., Honkasalo, A., & Seppälä, J. (2018a). Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations. Ecological Economics, 143, 37-46.
- Korhonen, J., Nuur, C., Feldmann, A., & Birkie, S. E. (2018b). Circular economy as an essentially contested concept. Journal of Cleaner Production, 175, 544-552.
- Krysovatyy, A., Zvarych, I., & Zvarych, R. (2018). Сircular economy in the context of alterglobalization. Journal of International Studies, 11(4), 185-200.
- Lazarevic, D., & Valve, H. (2017). Narrating expectations for the circular economy: Towards a common and contested European transition. Energy Research & Social Science, 31, 60-69.
- Marino, A., & Pariso, P. (2020). Comparing European countries’ performances in the transition towards the Circular Economy. Science of The Total Environment, 729, 138142.
- Martins, F., & Castro, H. (2019). Significance ranking method applied to some EU critical raw materials in a circular economy – priorities for achieving sustainability. Procedia CIRP, 84, 1059-1062.
- Matthews, C., Moran, F., & Jaiswal, A.K. (2021). A review on European Union’s strategy for plastics in a circular economy and its impact on food safety. Journal of Cleaner Production, 283, 125263.
- McDowall, W., & Geng, Y. (2017). Circular economy policies in China and Europe. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 21(3), 651-661.
- Momete, D.C. (2020). A unified framework for assessing the readiness of European Union economies to migrate to a circular modelling. Science of The Total Environment, 718, 137375.
- Pakurár, M., Khan, M.A., Benedek, A., & Oláh, J. (2020). The impact of green practices, cooperation and innovation on the performance of supply chains using statistical method of meta-analysis. Journal of International Studies, 13(3), 111-128.
- Peiró, L.T., Polverini, D., Ardente, F., & Mathieux, F. (2020). Advances towards circular economy policies in the EU: The new Ecodesign regulation of enterprise servers. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 154, 104426.
- Ranta, V., Aarikka-Stenroos, L., Ritala, P., & Mäkinen, S.J. (2018). Exploring institutional drivers and barriers of the circular economy: A cross-regional comparison of China, the US, and Europe. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 135, 70-82.
- Schot, J., & Kanger, L. (2018). Deep Transitions: Emergence, Acceleration, Stabilization and Directionality. Research Policy, 47(6), 1045-1059.
- Schroeder, P., Anggraeni, K., & Weber, U. (2018). The relevance of circular economy practices to the Sustainable Development Goals. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 23(9), 77-95.
- ScienceHunter. (n.d.). Main page. (In Russian).
- United Nations Environment. (2011). Towards a green economy: Pathways to sustainable development and poverty eradication. Nairobi, Kenya.
- Valenzuela, F., & Böhm, S. (2017). Against wasted politics: a critique of the circular economy. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 17(1), 23-60.
- Vasylenko, Y.A., & Shevchenko, H.Y. (1979). Analytical Method for Test Finding. Avtomatyka, 2, 3-8.
- Velenturf, A.P.M., & Purnell, P. (2021). Principles for a Sustainable Circular Economy. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 27, 1437-1457.
- Velenturf, P. M., Purnell, P., Macaskie, L. E., Mayes, W. M., & Sapsford, D. J. (2019). A New Perspective on a Global Circular Economy. In L.E. Macaskie, D.J. Sapsford & W.M. Mayes (Eds.), Resource Recovery from Wastes: Towards a Circular Economy (pp. 1-22). Royal Society of Chemistry.
- Zielińska, A. (2019). Comparative Analysis of Circular Economy Implementation in Poland and other European Union Countries. Journal of International Studies, 12(4), 337-347.