Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CIRCULAR IMPACTS (Measuring the IMPACTS of the transition to the CIRCULAR economy)

Teaser

In a linear economy, natural resources are obtained, turned into products and discarded as waste after a limited time. However, over the years, it has become clear that growth of such a linear economy is not sustainable. To address this issue, the European Commission seeks to...

Summary

In a linear economy, natural resources are obtained, turned into products and discarded as waste after a limited time. However, over the years, it has become clear that growth of such a linear economy is not sustainable. To address this issue, the European Commission seeks to stimulate Member States to make the transition to a more circular economy, as reflected in the Circular Economy Package.

A circular economy addresses the problems that linear economies pose by shifting the focus from a model of “take, make and dispose” to regenerative design and maximizing the potential of natural resources by recycling the re-usable components of products, keeping them longer (or even permanently) in the economic process. However, what the exact environmental, economic and social impacts of such a transition will be remains unclear.

The CIRCULAR IMPACTS project has several objectives:
• Developing a theoretical structure of the circular economy in order to then understand the evidence base needed to conduct impact assessments
• Collecting and unifying current collections and databases of evidence useful for this purpose, making them available to all stakeholders
• Conducting case studies in different Member States and different sectors of the circular economy to understand good practices and the economic, societal and resource-efficiency impacts of transitions to circular economy processes
• Understanding in those case studies the impact of the transition on different sectors and stakeholders and the conditions and limits of the transition
• Using the assembled existing evidence base and the evidence from case studies to estimate the impacts in the short, medium and long-term
• Developing scenarios for mainstreaming and estimating the impacts of mainstreaming.

Work performed

CIRCULAR IMPACTS started in October 2016 and runs for two years. Several main results are already evident in its first 12 months:

Theoretical structure - The project helped to create a theoretical structure for the circular economy that forms the foundation for the rest of the work to be conducted within CIRCULAR IMPACTS. The objective of the first task was to create a theoretical structure of the circular economy and identify the main associated markets. To this end, a review of definitions, processes and impacts was published. By October 2017, the report had already been downloaded over 3,300 times via a project partner’s website.

Policy integration - The project helped establish better insight into the interplay of the European Semester and the circular economy, which was achieved by identifying and interviewing key stakeholders. The results were incorporated into a study elaborating on the position of the European Semester within the EU’s economic governance framework.

Evidence base - The project identified information available on impact assessments for the circular economy which will be developed into an online search tool that makes that information more easily available to policy-makers and other potential users, such as journalists, scientists and NGOs. The database of relevant evidence incorporates reports, indicators, models and other types of evidence.

Case studies - Four case studies are currently underway: car sharing in Germany; recycled
concrete; lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles; and phosphorus recycling. The four case studies will help clarify the different economic process changes that will be the result of specific transitions to circular economy models and to then see what the different economic, social and environmental impacts will be of such a transition. This should provide both policy-makers and the public with a better understanding of not only what the circular economy is, but what its potential benefits are.

Future scenarios - The project also looks at the future of the circular economy, and describes some of the different types of scenario analysis that have been used to predict the economic, social and environmental impacts of different circular economy opportunities. Examples of such are scenarios based on specific technological measures, scenarios based on resource-efficiency targets and scenarios based on specific policy measures.

Final results

The work carried out in the first 12 months of CIRCULAR IMPACTS made it clear that there re-mains a great degree of uncertainty as to what a circular economy comprises, and what the effects will be of shifting away from the linear economy. The project has already made a valuable contribution to the debate by aggregating the available literature combined with interviewing key actors.

The case study methodology can be used by other researchers as a good practice example to explore other policy areas, and they can use their experiences to further develop it. Policies that stimulate or hinder such changes of economic processes will be analyzed. The project will ad-dress how these policies fit into the economic governance framework of the EU.

Website & more info

More info: http://circular-impacts.eu/.