Circular economy – From review of theories and practices to development of implementation tools

By Y. Kalmykova, Madumita Sadagopan, L. Rosado. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2017

1,176 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The paper provides an overview of the literature on Circular Economy (CE) theoretical approaches, strategies and implementation cases. After analyzing different CE approaches and the underlying principles the paper then proceeds with the main goal of developing tools for CE implementation. Two tools are presented. The first is a CE Strategies Database, which includes 45 CE strategies that are applicable to different parts of the value chain. The second is a CE Implementation Database, which includes over 100 case studies categorized by Scope, Parts of the Value Chain that are involved, as well as by the used Strategy and Implementation Level. An analysis of the state of the art in CE implementation is also included in the paper. One of the observations from the analysis is that while such Parts of the Value Chain as Recovery/Recycling and Consumption/Use are prominently featured, others, including Manufacturing and Distribution, are rarely involved in CE. On the other hand, the Implementation Levels of the used Strategies indicate that many market-ready solutions exist already. The Scope of current CE implementation considers selected products, materials and sectors, while system changes to economy are rarely suggested. Finally, the CE monitoring methods and suggestions for future development are also discussed in this paper. The analysis of the theoretical approaches can serve as an introduction to CE concept, while the developed tools can be instrumental for designing new CE cases.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ef7aebfaabac887a63cdd4b4a9728d9d019878fb

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Citations in the corpus

Restorative and regenerative: Exploring the concepts in the circular economy (2020, background): “…researchers in the CE community link regeneration and resources, whether as energy or materials (e.g., EMF, 2015a; Geisendorf & Pietrulla, 2018; Kalmykova et al., 2018; Smol, Kulczycka, & Avdiushchenko, 2017), either because of resource scarcity (Lieder&Rashid, 2016), a general need for…”
A taxonomy of circular economy indicators (2018, background): “Specifically in regard to the CE, C-indicators can function as a springboard for a transition toward more CE practices (Kalmykova et al. 2018), thanks to their different potential uses (Linder et al.”
Targets for a circular economy (2020, background): “have classified and synthesised scattered theoretical and empirical studies along various criteria: by origins, principles, and models/implementations (e.g. Ghisellini et al., 2016; Kirchherr et al., 2017; Kalmykova et al., 2018; Prieto-Sandoval et al., 2018; Homrich et al., 2018); by CE business mo”
Prioritization of sustainability indicators for promoting the circular economy: The case of developing countries (2019, background): “barriers [8,28] to enablers and implementation tools [22,29].”
Lignocellulosic biorefineries: The current state of challenges and strategies for efficient commercialization (2021, background): “Traditional fossil fuels are energy dense and have proven to be an effective resource as energy sources for the growth, development and industrialization of this planet [20].”