Towards sustainable development through the circular economy—A review and critical assessment on current circularity metrics
By B. Corona, Li Shen, D. Reike, J. Rosales Carreón, Ernst Worrell. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2019
784 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract The circular economy (CE) is perceived as a sustainable economic system where the economic growth is decoupled from the resources use, through the reduction and recirculation of natural resources. In the shift towards the CE, quantifying the circularity of products and services (or their contribution to the CE) is crucial in designing policies and business strategies, and prioritizing sustainable solutions based on evidence. New circularity metrics are being developed for that purpose, but they often present contradiction in both form and content, which contributes to confusion and misunderstanding of the CE concept. This review aims to map methodological developments regarding circularity metrics for products and services, in order to: (1) identify the foundations of circularity metrics used so far and their applications, (2) evaluate the validity of current circularity metrics, based on predefined requirements and a CE definition anchored in the sustainability concept, and (3) provide recommendations on how to measure circularity. The literature search provided a wide variety of CE metrics being developed and applied (seven measurement indices, nine assessment indicators and three assessment frameworks). However, none of them are addressing the CE concept in full, potentially leading to undesirable burden shifting from reduced material consumption to increased environmental, economic or social impacts. Additionally, new metrics under-represent the complexities of multiple cycles and the consequences of material downcycling. Circularity metrics intended to sustainable decision making should be comprehensive enough to avoid burden shifting, and clearly indicate how the benefits of recycling are allocated between the primary and secondary products.
Subfields: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Strategy and Management
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aedee94660ce6dd93bd6a7d771d502f92a0e367b
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In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
In Strategy and Management
Citations in the corpus
- Analyzing Barriers of Circular Food Supply Chains and Proposing Industry 4.0 Solutions (2021, background): “The overall coverage of the Scopus database is wider than in academic journals, and only a small percentage is not indexed in the relevant journals [5,8].”
- A Critical Review of Academic Approaches, Methods and Tools to Assess Circular Economy at the Micro Level (2020, background): “[23] 72 Zooms in on ‘validity’, ‘reliability’, and ‘utility’ of metrics, and connection to existing methodologies (Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)/Material Flow Analysis (MFA), no focus on micro level.”
- Assessing scaling effects of circular economy strategies: A case study on plastic bottle closed-loop recycling in the USA PET market (2020, methodology): “Recently, a plethora of new tools and methods dedicated to CE assessment have emerged in the literature, as reported in recent reviews (Corona et al., 2019; Elia et al., 2017; Iacovidou et al., 2017; Moraga et al., 2019; Parchomenko et al., 2019; Saidani et al., 2018).”
- The Impact of 4IR Digital Technologies and Circular Thinking on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2020, methodology): “Other tools for CI include: Circular Economy Indicator Prototype (CEIP) and Circular economic value (CEV) [16].”