The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy

Abstract

The Circular Economy (CE) is now a key governance framework for a range of institutions including the European Commission, World Economic Forum and Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This framework aims to reconfigure how value is extracted from resources, entailing nothing less than the reformation of economic systems and practices. Despite its potential widespread impacts, CE commentary to date tends towards the descriptive and/or celebratory, although some critical insights have explored the profound challenges of turning CE theory into reality. Here I add to these critical voices, outlining how environmental politics researchers have a great deal to contribute to CE debates. I underscore how current incarnations of the CE are more than a rebrand of 'weak sustainability' frameworks. Rather, they contain mechanisms and assumptions that potentially accelerate resource use. A key part of the problem is how CE proponents frame us all as particular forms of 'user-consumers': accepting or rejecting new business models and optimising gains viafor examplethe Sharing Economy. Such framings fail to account for what is at stake for all of us as part of the CE project: and I conclude by posing several research questions, to encourage more critical environmental politics research on and around issues of CE.

Narrating plastics governance: policy narratives in the European plastics strategy

“…In line with this argument, the resource inefficiency narrative makes it clear that the task of finding solutions is best left in the hands of industry, which has the expertise to deliver on these ambitions. Simultaneously, any blame for plastic pollution is shifted from industry onto citizens (Hobson 2021, Mah 2021.…”

“…In terms of theory, we contribute to the understanding of how an environmental policy paradigm develops through the interaction of multiple policy actors advancing and manipulating competing policy narratives (Gray andRadaelli 2016). In the case of plastics, this paradigm is taking the shape of the circular economy, but, beyond initial agreements on the need for 'circularity', much remains unknown as to what exactly a circular economy implies (Kirchherr et al 2017, Calisto Friant et al 2020 or who stands to gain and lose (Hobson and Lynch 2016, Hobson 2021, Mah 2021. We contribute to the scholarship that focuses on the role of narratives and discourses with respect to the development of the circular economy (Lazarevic and Valve 2017, Fitch-Roy et al 2020, Calisto Friant et al 2020.…”

Power struggles in policy feedback processes: incremental steps towards a circular economy within Dutch wastewater policy

“…Finally, for practitioners involved in enabling a circular economy, the analysis emphasises the importance of power struggles in circular economy-processes, which are often neglected in a field dominated by technological and economic knowledge (Bauwens et al, 2020;Calisto Friant et al, 2020;Hobson, 2020). Specifically, it illustrates that the innovators' struggles to introduce a circular economy faced resistance from established actors.…”

Lessons, narratives and research directions for a sustainable circular economy

“…Competing but complementary approaches need to be critically assessed and integrated, as some focus on single products, materials and business models, whereas others assess the entire economy and its relation to (global) environmental goals and strategies 21,34 . It also calls for the identi cation of societal and political strategies that ensure an adequate distribution of costs and bene ts in society as suggested by Hobson 42 and Simoens and Leipold 43 among others, taking geographical and cultural differences into account 44 . 4.…”