The circular economy: New or Refurbished as CE 3.0? — Exploring Controversies in the Conceptualization of the Circular Economy through a Focus on History and Resource Value Retention Options

By D. Reike, W. Vermeulen, S. Witjes. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2017

1,458 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Over the last decade, the concept of the circular economy has regained attention, especially related to efforts to achieve a more sustainable society. The ‘revival’ of the circular economy has been accompanied by controversies and confusions across different actors in science and practice. With this article we attempt at contributing to advanced clarity in the field and providing a heuristic that is useful in practice. Initially, we take a focus on the historical development of the concept of circular economy and value retention options (ROs) for products and materials aiming for increased circularity. We propose to distinguish three phases in the evolution of the circular economy and argue that the concept – in its dominant framing – is not as new as frequently claimed. Having established this background knowledge, we give insights into ‘how far we are’ globally, with respect to the implementation of circularity, arguing that high levels of circularity have already been reached in different parts of the globe with regard to longer loop value retention options, such as energy recovery and recycling. Subsequently, we show that the confusion surrounding the circular economy is more far reaching. We summarize the divergent perspectives on retention options and unite the most common views a 10R typology. From our analyses, we conclude that policymakers and businesses should focus their efforts on realization of the more desirable, shorter loop retention options, like remanufacturing, refurbishing and repurposing – yet with a view on feasibility and overall system effects. Scholars, on the other hand, should assist the parties contributing to an increased circular economy in practice by taking up a more active role in attaining consensus in conceptualizing the circular economy.

Subfields: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5ca2e5133679371c6b0ce9a5330f75de0d22d5f2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

1. Piero Morseletto
2. N. Ferronato
3. Vincenzo Torretta
4. Robert Salomone

In Strategy and Management

1. P. Yatim
2. Piero Morseletto
3. Robert Salomone

Citations in the corpus

• Waste Mismanagement in Developing Countries: A Review of Global Issues (2019, background): “Therefore, the inclusion of the informal sector represents a key strategy for improving the CE concepts, improving social, environmental and economic sustainability [143].”
• Adopting the circular economy approach on food loss and waste: The case of Italian pasta production (2019, background): “Moreover, scholars should contribute by showing relevant results obtained by applying CE principles (Reike et al., 2018), thus helping companies to reduce their food losses and waste.”
• Prioritization of sustainability indicators for promoting the circular economy: The case of developing countries (2019, background): “In the research front end, there are increasing number of papers published regarding on CE, ranging from its historical development [11,14], analysis of CE definition [7], application on CE [16,27], explanation on the needs for CE [17], limitation and barriers [8,28] to enablers and implementation t”
• Targets for a circular economy (2020, methodology): “Despite the relevance of CE in the current policy and economic debate, the concept of a CE remains open to interpretations (Ghisellini et al., 2016; Kalmykova et al., 2018; Laurenti et al., 2018; Reike et al., 2018).”
• A Critical Review of Academic Approaches, Methods and Tools to Assess Circular Economy at the Micro Level (2020, background): “In literature on CE, such hierarchical resource management options are often referred to as ‘R-strategies’ or simply ‘Rs’: Resource value retention options [3].”