Evaluating Emergy Analysis at the Nexus of Circular Economy and Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Abstract Emergy analysis has been gaining attention in its use as an environmental accounting tool. Its relationships and implications to sustainable supply chains and the circular economy are still not well understood, even with initial investigations into the relationship. Emergy analysis can potentially provide additional profound opportunities to advancing these sustainability-oriented fields. Emergy analysis—as a basis for economic, social and environmental performance measurements—uses donor side valuation approaches. We discuss how sustainable supply chain management and circular economy performance measurement methods can be expanded and effectively utilize emergy analysis using a donor-side evaluation. We provide insights into more effective environmentally sustainable supply chain and circularity performance evaluation, accounting, and appraisal using emergy based performance measurements. Our findings show that there is ample room for further application and theoretical development at the nexus of these topics. Practically, the measures and approaches for emergy analysis can help decision makers in organizations and across supply chains in managing material sourcing, supplier selection, and network and circular economy flow designs. A theoretical synthesis and research gaps are introduced to help guide future theoretical developments and practical investigations. This work is valuable for those seeking to advance research on sustainability and performance analysis for organizational and supply chain levels of analysis.