Can Legislation Promote a Circular Economy? A Material Flow-Based Evaluation of the Circular Degree of the Chinese Economy

Yuan Hu,Mark Poustie,Xuan He

doi:10.3390/su10040990

Yuan Hu, Mark Poustie + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su10040990

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Abstract

The circular economy has been widely developed in China and other countries. However, China has been the most proactive country in upgrading its economic model by enacting a Circular Economy Promotion Law (CEPL). Nearly 10 years have passed since the adoption of the CEPL, and it is thus essential to evaluate the progress of circular economy development to see if the targets have been achieved. Although it is extremely difficult to evaluate the role of the CEPL in the development of a circular economy in China, we think that if we can estimate the circular degree of the Chinese economy and identify the changes of some key indicators before and after the adoption of the CEPL, it will be helpful in judging whether the CEPL has played a key role in promoting the transition of the economic development model. Since the existing circular economy indicators and evaluation systems have focused mainly on the recycling of resources, we designed a methodology based on the material flow that can be used to evaluate the circular degree of the whole national economy. Through a detailed observation of the circular economy indicators of China, we conclude that the CEPL has not yet played a significant role in promoting the circular economy as was previously believed.

Highlights

The circular economy is a new economic development model which came to the fore after the emergence of the concept of sustainable development in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development [1,2]
From the results above we can see that, using a quantitative methodology to evaluate the circular performance of a national economy is feasible, and the four-step evaluation methodology can be used to carry out the evaluation
This can help to identify the circular degree of the national economy in the different phases of natural resource utilization during production, consumption, recycling etc

Summary

Introduction

The circular economy is a new economic development model which came to the fore after the emergence of the concept of sustainable development in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development [1,2]. In 2004, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), instead of SEPA, was appointed by the Chinese State Council to take over the duty to promote and implement the circular economy in the country, which meant the Chinese government took the circular economy to be an integrated state strategy rather than an environmental policy [6,9]. In this context, the “Circular Economy Promotion Law of the People’s Republic of China” was enacted in 2008 and came into effect in January 2009 [10]. Major research efforts have been made towards the nationwide implementation of the circular economy in China, especially towards the implementation of a circular economy at corporate, inter-firm and social levels [16]

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