Circular economy: advancement of European Union countries

Ewa Mazur-Wierzbicka

doi:10.1186/s12302-021-00549-0

Abstract

BackgroundCircular economy (CE) is a development priority of the European Union and it is part of the EU industrial strategy. The transition to a more circular economy is an essential contribution to the EU’s efforts to develop a sustainable, low carbon, resource-efficient and competitive economy. The author focuses her CE-related reflections and research in this paper on the macro-level (research subjects: 28 EU countries), the level which is least represented in scholarly publications addressing CE (as follows from the analysis of literature in the Scopus database). This study aims to fill this gap partially. The aim of this paper is to identify and group the EU-28 countries according to their advancement towards circular economy. CE indicators proposed by the European Commission were used for the analysis. Given the research subjects and after an analysis of the literature they were concluded to be the most adequate. The theoretical part was based on an analysis of the literature, whereas the empirical work used the principal components analysis, hierarchical and k-means clustering and a grade correspondence-cluster analysis.ResultsOn the basis of the research, the existence of a “two-speed Europe” was identified in terms of EU countries’ advancement towards CE. Leading countries, those most advanced in pursuing operation according to CE principles, include Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The second pole accommodates EU countries in which transformation towards CE is happening at the slowest pace. This group includes mainly countries of the Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the south of Europe.ConclusionsDifferentiated levels of advancement of individual countries towards CE result inter alia from the adoption by some of the latter of different development strategies for their economies’ transitioning to circular economy (according to recommendations of EU ministers at the Environment Council in June 2016) and also from the differences occurring in social and economic development (it is mostly noticeable between the EU-15 and the EU-13 countries). Unfortunately, as can be concluded from the effects obtained so far, only a few of the adopted development strategies may be considered effective in meeting the challenges of circular economy according to the European Union’s standards.

Highlights

An increased interest of scholars, entrepreneurs and decision-makers in the issues of circular economy (CE) has been observed over the last few years.The ideas of circular economy were developed at the start mainly on the scholarly ground—ecologicalThe term “Circular economy (CE)” is difficult to define
It may be assumed that the countries that are most advanced in their transformation towards the CE began to feel i.a. problems of excessive waste generation, exhaustion of resources, environmental pollution, increasing consumerism or unbalanced consumption much earlier than the economies of European countries which are developing more slowly
We are observing a global population growth and we are experiencing a barrier of a limited amount of raw materials throughout the world, the need to turn towards recycling and towards prevention of waste generation

Summary

Introduction

An increased interest of scholars, entrepreneurs and decision-makers in the issues of circular economy (CE) has been observed over the last few years.The ideas of circular economy were developed at the start mainly on the scholarly ground—ecologicalThe term “CE” is difficult to define. A number of definitions and interpretations of this concept have been established over the years (often very different, sometimes inconsistent) Their analysis shows that CE is considered in the categories of: a strategy [5, 55, 90], a new economic paradigm [45, 47], an industrial model [103], an industrial system [25, 56, 79], an economy system [68], an economic system [78] or a new “business and development model” [50]. The transition to a more circular economy is an essential contribution to the EU’s efforts to develop a sus‐ tainable, low carbon, resource-efficient and competitive economy The author focuses her CE-related reflections and research in this paper on the macro-level (research subjects: 28 EU countries), the level which is least represented in scholarly publications addressing CE (as follows from the analysis of literature in the Scopus database). The theoretical part was based on an analysis of the literature, whereas the empirical work used the principal components analysis, hierarchical and k-means clustering and a grade correspondence-cluster analysis

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