Towards a Circular Economy Calculator for Measuring the “Circularity” of Companies

Abstract

Abstract Circular Economy (CE) aims to solve resource, waste, and emission challenges confronting society by creating a production-to-consumption total supply chain that is restorative, regenerative, and environmentally benign. A method for evaluating and comparing the “circularity” of different companies or scenarios is vital for effective decision making. A variety of metrics has been developed for measuring different aspects of CE. Despite the availability of metrics, CE has only been measured at the national/regional or product level with the main focus on material flows, while no metric is currently applicable at the company or product supply chain level. This work aims to address this research gap and provide i) a set of indicators and metrics with sector-specific dimensions, ii) a quantitative CE metric, iii) media for data visualization and analysis of CE indicators, and iv) an analytical tool to assess the multi-scale, multi-faceted and interconnected CE supply chains. Companies are able to track their transition towards CE, conduct temporal analysis, and compare their performance against their peers. The applicability and the capabilities of the developed CE methodology is demonstrated through a case study, where the Overall “Circularity” Index and the corresponding “Circularity” sub-indices of an industrial gas company are calculated over a period of 5 years.