Sustainability of Circular Economy Indicators and Their Impact on Economic Growth of the European Union

Bușu, Mihail; Trică, Carmen Lenuţa

doi:10.3390/su11195481

Cited by 96 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…These factors are the levels of pollution stemming from using the polluting input, the expenses incurred from using the polluting input, the recycling ratio, and recycling input in the sense of its marginal product [63]. A methodology was proposed by Busu and Trica that enables the evaluation of a circular economy model's sustainability by monitoring various indicators pertaining to the environment in order to determine the model's effect on the economic growth of the EU [64].…”

Section: Analysis Of Circular Economy Indicators and Indicators Of Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Circular Economy Concept in the Context of Economic Development in EU Countries

2020

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The need has arisen to implement a circular economic model that enables economic growth and prosperity in accordance with environmental protection and sustainable development because of the current unsustainable linear means of production in the economy. The aim of this paper is to determine the application of the circular economy concept in member countries of the European Union from 2008 to 2016. The purpose is to analyse whether economic development measured by GDP (gross domestic product) affects the analysed circular economy variables. Based on the hypotheses set, an econometric model was formed where GDP was identified as an independent variable, while the dependent variables were the production of municipal waste per capita, the recycling rate of municipal waste, the recycling rate of packaging waste by type of packaging, the recycling of bio-waste, and the recycling rate of e-waste. The first part of the statistical analysis conducted using the Stata software package shows the Pearson correlation between the abovestated variables, while the second part explores the univariate regression model. The results point towards the conclusion that the application of the circular economy concept can ensure economic growth and GDP growth while reducing the use of natural resources and ensuring greater environmental protection.

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Section: Analysis Of Circular Economy Indicators and Indicators Of Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Circular Economy Concept in the Context of Economic Development in EU Countries

2020

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“…This idea is one of the main premises of Circular Economy, a resource utilization system that seeks to minimize the accumulation of waste and fosters its reincorporation into the production cycle as a substitute for raw materials [3]. This reduces the magnitude of environmental impacts and production and sales costs, which results in benefits for companies, users and the environment [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fostering Circular Economy Through the Analysis of Existing Open Access Industrial Symbiosis Databases

Jato-Espino

Ruiz-Puente

2020

Sustainability

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Digital evolution underwent great progress in the late 20th century, democratizing the use of the Internet and, therefore, access to public sources of information. This technological shift caused great impacts on different fields, including Industrial Symbiosis (IS). IS stems from the concept of Circular Economy and requires well-structured information to encourage waste reuse. Under these premises, this investigation aimed at processing and analyzing existing open-access IS databases from several perspectives, including types of business areas, waste and new uses involved. In addition, existing IS data were explored with the support of different tools, such as correspondence, network and correlation analyses. The application of this methodology to a set of 496 shortlisted IS exchanges led to several findings, highlighting the strong relationship between metallurgy and the production of cement, the key role played by the electricity production sector both as a donor and a recipient, the versatility of the agriculture area due to their capacity for reusing a variety of waste as fertilizers and the importance of chemical products and steam and hot water as new uses. Overall, these results provide companies with efficient and understandable knowledge to donate or receive materials.

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“…Companies usually employ a great number of indicators and tools for the measurement of their operations, since the collected information helps in the decision-making. To cover this aspect, several initiatives on national and international levels have recently focused on the definition of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to efficiently estimate the transition from a linear to a circular economy, basing the evaluation on the products or on the companies [95][96][97]. Eurostat, OCSE, Granta, and EMA Foundation are only a few studies that have the objective of measuring circularity.…”

Section: C4: Quantification Of the Circularity Grade Of The Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overcoming the Main Barriers of Circular Economy Implementation through a New Visualization Tool for Circular Business Models

2019

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There is a huge gap between the broad concept of circular economy (CE) and its practical implementation in the industrial sector due to several types of barriers, which shall be led back to the lack of consistent and precise information about resources, products, and processes. Without a proper information flow, it is impossible to quantify circular initiatives, both in comparison with the actual linear situation or with circular alternative opportunities. A proper quantification of circular initiatives allows the assessment of economic, environmental and social benefits and the preventative identification of potential barriers and relative solutions, monitoring the risk associated with circular investments and supporting the decision-making process. This paper describes a new tool to ensure the quantification of circular initiatives and the method to define it. It is a new Circular Business Model (CBM) visualization tool, which overcomes the main limitations of the existing models able to explain CE concepts but not to boost its practical implementation in industry. The new CBM visualization tool can be adopted in every industrial sector to highlight circular opportunities that are still hidden or unexploited or to select the best CE strategy. The proposed CBM visualization tool differs from the previous diagrams in two main characteristics: (i) the possibility to quantify resource flows and important indicators representing energy consumption, environmental and social impact, and (ii) the focus, which is not only on the product, but on the whole system, involving also the process, the company and the entire supply chain. The methodology to adopt and adapt the proposed model to different scales is described in detail. To provide a practical example, the model was qualitatively applied to a generic technical product to highlight its potential in the identification and quantification of circular activities.

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Sustainability of Circular Economy Indicators and Their Impact on Economic Growth of the European Union

Cited by 96 publications

References 31 publications

Circular Economy Concept in the Context of Economic Development in EU Countries

Circular Economy Concept in the Context of Economic Development in EU Countries

Fostering Circular Economy Through the Analysis of Existing Open Access Industrial Symbiosis Databases

Overcoming the Main Barriers of Circular Economy Implementation through a New Visualization Tool for Circular Business Models

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