The Circular Economy: Case Studies about the Transition from the Linear Economy

The Circular Economy

Case Studies about the Transition from the Linear Economy

Mika Sillanpää

Chaker Ncibi

Department of Green Chemistry, LUT University, Finland

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Preface

Chapter One. Getting hold of the circular economy concept

1.1. Historical background

1.2. Defining circular economy

1.3. Circular supply chain: closing the loop, retaining the value

1.4. Conclusions

Chapter Two. Circular economy: Here and now

2.1. Introduction

2.2. Why now?

2.3. Circular economy: here and there

2.4. Conclusions

Chapter Three. Accelerating the implementation of circular economy

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Conceptual change: rethinking the wheel

3.3. Materialistic change: reinventing the wheel

3.4. Conclusions

Chapter Four. Circular economy in action: Case studies about the transition from the linear economy in the chemical, mining, textile, agriculture, and water treatment industries

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Overview of circularity in the industrial sector

4.3. Circular economy in the chemical industry

4.4. Circular economy in the mining industry

4.5. Circular economy in the textile industry

4.6. Circular economy in the agricultural sector

4.7. Circular economy in the water sector: treatment and reclamation

4.8. Conclusions and outlook

Chapter Five. A circular world: Reconciling profitability with sustainability

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Circular economy in Europe

5.3. Circular economy in North America

5.4. Circular economy in China

5.5. Conclusions and outlook

Chapter Six. Circular economy and sustainable development

6.1. Introduction

6.2. Sustainability

6.3. Addressing environmental considerations

6.4. Reflecting on the societal factor

6.5. Conclusions

Chapter Seven. Full circular ahead

7.1. Introduction

7.2. The future is circular and digital

7.3. R&D: fundamentally innovative

7.4. Education system: sustainable and circular thinking

7.5. Concluding remarks

Index

Copyright

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Preface

Circular economy (CE) is a holistic concept gradually and steadily positioning itself as a reliable and viable alternative to the unsustainable linear economic model, based on the take, make and dispose paradigm. Why this book now? Because it is the right time, and because too much is at stake either to continue business as usual based on the predominantly linear economic model, to postpone the transition to CE, or even to limit the extent of its implementation strategies and modalities.

Straightforwardly, this book is promoting CE as the most comprehensive and mature economic model able to reconcile economic growth with sustainability, thus simultaneously ensuring momentous benefits for stakeholders and welfare to societies and the environment. Accomplishing the paradigm shift from linearity to circularity will have planetary repercussions, as most of UN's sustainable development goals could be achieved, and several plenary boundaries could be preserved and others mitigated.

In such a challenging global context, this book analyzed national strategies and position papers, showcased circular business opportunities, assessed various economic, societal, and environmental impacts, discussed latest R&D findings, presented achievements from around the world, and recommended future measures to be taken to speed up the implementation of CE on a global scale. Our main mission was to provide our broad audience with a comprehensive book on CE, answering questions such as what is it? what do we need it for? how can we benefit for it? how can we implement it on the ground? what are the others doing? can we do it together? etc.

Our conviction is that CE, and the diverse implications of its implementation (economic, societal, and environmental), can only be presented and discussed in a broad and comprehensive manner. The most efficient format to enable readers getting hold of such holistic concept is in a single authoritative book, and we endeavored to make this volume that book.

Thus, the content of the present manuscript was divided into seven chapters. In Chapter 1 , the origins of the CE concept and the various definitions established around it were presented and critically analyzed, as well as related contributions from many key actors. Such joint effort is highly important for a wider adoption, promotion, and implementation of CE. Various other green concepts were also presented in this chapter, along with the linear economic model and its numerous limitations.

After making the case for CE by illustrating the heavy legacy of the current unsustainable fossil-based linear economy in the one hand and briefly presenting the opportunities of adopting circular principles on the economy, society, and environment at local and global scale on the other hand, Chapter 2 emphasized the urgent need to embrace circularity here and now by local cities and regions and national and international companies. Then, in Chapter 3 , we presented, analyzed, and, when relevant, criticized the various strategies developed and applied to accelerate the local and global adoption of CE from both conceptual and materialistic perspectives.

The main objective of Chapter 4 was to illustrate the various modalities to apply CE principles in key and strategic economic sectors including various highly profitable production and manufacturing activities in the chemical, mining, and textile industries. Furthermore, introducing circular principles and business models in the vital water and food sectors was also discussed.

In Chapter 5 , the focus was on showcasing CE visions in various countries around the world, as well as the associated implementation strategies. The studied countries were selected based on their pioneering decision to embrace circularity including many European counties. Also, the two largest economies in the world, the United States and China, were studied with respect to their national CE strategies and implementation scenarios and the involvement of their governmental agencies and private sector in such effort.

Since the sustainability of CE is still being debated, we stressed in Chapter 6 on environmental and societal factors in terms of designing and implementing a holistic and genuinely sustainable CE. In this regard, the intertwined relationship between the two holistic concepts of CE and sustainable development was analyzed, along with the modalities to monitor and reinforce CE's sustainability. As well as, the impacts of implementing CE on key sustainable development issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, land and soil management, poverty, and employment were also presented.

In the last Chapter 7 , in order to incite active and efficient contributions to the expansion of CE and its sustainable strategies and principles in our communities, cities, companies, universities, etc., several enabling tools and initiatives were highlighted including digitalization, innovative R&D, and the highly influential and overreaching education system.

Finally, we can confidently say that CE will boost the competitiveness of countries and corporations implementing it, by protecting businesses against scarcity of resources and volatile prices, helping to create innovative business opportunities and more efficient ways of producing and consuming. It will create local jobs at all skills levels and opportunities for social integration and cohesion. At the same time, it will save energy and help avoid the irreversible damages to climate, biodiversity, air, soil, and water caused by the unsustainable exploitation of resources. Yes, CE can make all this is happen, but we need to promote it, educate it, coordinate it, incentivize it, regulate it, protect it, and above all believe in it.

Mika Sillanpää

Chaker Ncibi

Chapter One

Getting hold of the circular economy concept

Abstract

With the global worsening of environmental, geopolitical, and socioeconomic conditions, we became more than ever aware that the current economic model, predominantly based on fossil resources, is inherently unsustainable, and its limitations are being widely witnessed including recurrent economic crisis, global warming, huge amounts of wasted resources, and pollution.

In response to such an alarming situation, a general agreement was reached among scientists, industrialists, and actors in the governmental and financial sectors, namely, the necessity to rethink humanity’s wasteful approach of managing resources, and reestablish a nature mimicking, waste recycling, and value retaining paradigm: Circular economy (CE).

In this first chapter, the origins of the CE concept and the various definitions established around it are presented and critically analyzed, as well as the essential contributions from many key actors. Such joint effort is highly important for wider adoption, promotion, and implementation of this emerging economic model. Various other green concepts are also presented in this chapter, along with the linear economic model and its numerous limitations.

Keywords

Circular economy; Closed loops; Definitions; Green concepts; Origins

1.1. Historical background

1.1.1. Roots of CE

In the last couple of decades, Circular Economy (CE) emerged as a reliable alternative economic concept able to cope with the imminent global sustainability issues, created by the current unidirectional economic model, Linear Economy (LE). The former is often referred to as the take, make, and dispose triptych by many scientists and authors discussing or promoting the concept of CE [1–4]. Suh designation, although summarizing the main features of the current production/consumption schemes, is missing key elements in the whole process, which are equally important in generating unsustainable activities such as transportation of resources or goods and the distribution of the end products. We will develop and discuss this matter in Chapter 3 (the conceptual change section).

Historically, although the term circular economy is relatively new, the concept itself is well known to humanity for centuries, if not millennia, and it was instinctively and naturally implemented during times when humans and human societies lived in full synergy with nature. Back then, we considered ourselves as part of nature, and we used our curiosity and genius to live better, with the rest. Then, with the sedentary way of life, the fabric and state of mind of human societies profoundly changed, especially with respect to nature. Indeed, we started thinking of domesticating those beasts around us, then why not taming nature altogether. Thus, we started developing new tools and processes for that end, and the more we tamed nature, the more civilized we thought of ourselves. From that point, we became the masters and nature our subject, and since the second half of the 18th century onwards, humanity reached a new level of virtual mastership over nature through successive industrial, agricultural, and technological revolutions.

The emergence of new political and economic philosophies, along with new societal aspirations (slowly being adopted as global standards of living), further deteriorated, not only our affiliation with nature but also the relationship between humans. Indeed, with the almost holy pursuit of happiness for oneself, the tribe, the country, etc., serious animosities started to emerge around the world as groups of humans thought that they have the right to control the resources of other groups (not without pretexts and brutal force if necessary). Thus, in recent times, the pursuit of one’s happiness, notwithstanding the inflicted misery on others, humans and the environment alike seems to be the best recipe for economic development.

Such a brief historical account might sound a bit dark and biased (more on the negative side of the story, often mediatized as a success story), but if we analyze the course of human history and its relation with nature (mining, intensive agricultural practices, various pollution incidents, landfills, overfishing, and overexploitation of resources in general) and between humans themselves (slavery, colonialism, armed conflicts, etc.), we can agree that the damaging impacts of such economic development schemes, on the environment and societies alike, are too obvious to be ignored and will seriously compromise the survival of future generations on earth if we continue implementing the current economic model, especially in the energetic, industrial, and agricultural sections. We frequently and purposely have used the personal pronoun we throughout this section and if one still wonders who we are? We are humanity as a whole.

In response to this alarming global sustainability issue, sporadic wake-up calls tried to alert decisions makers, industrialists, and the general public about the dark side of the story and the urgent need to tackle the serious and, back then, the emerging, economic, and environmental issues related to the various industrial and agricultural activities conducted in their times (mainly, related resources availability, and soil, air, and water contamination by anthropological activities). Such wake-up calls include:

• Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), in which the American scientist and writer concluded that DDT and other pesticides had irrevocably harmed animals and had contaminated the world’s food supply, and accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation and public officials of acting indifferently, despite the seriousness of the matter [5].

• The Limits to Growth, published in 1972 by MIT’s Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III [6]. In this book, the authors tried to build a model to investigate the consequences of five major trends of global concern including accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment.

• In 1983, former Norwegian Prime Minister and Director-General of the World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland headed a commission with the main objective of exploring long-term strategies to achieve sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond. The official mission of the Brundtland Commission ended officially in December 1987 after publishing its report Our Common Future (released in October 1987) [7].

After many decades of these, and much more, wake up calls, many scientists are still far from being satisfied with the global movement toward sustainability. Some of them even believe that the already precarious situation back then was further aggravated by insisting on relying on unsustainable mass production and consumption schemes. The reasons for such odd behavior are often related to side effects of global phenomena such as the globalization of markets, the emergence of highly populated nations, which is causing an increasing pressure on resources, the deregulation in the financial sector, the development of new and highly efficient extraction and processing technologies, the increasing trend of offshoring to reduce production costs (and sometimes to escape environmental regulations which, although being enforced to promote sustainability, are often perceived as impediments to competitiveness), etc. [8–11].

Overall, the abovementioned pioneering effort was conducted in times when economic growth, national pride, and most of all greed, seemed to have blinded humanity for a while (a century and a half or so), which was enough to cause serious global environmental and societal repercussions (externalities in the economic terminology). Even the main objective, for which such sacrifice was made, was not achieved, as global and recurrent economic crises still occur. The same is the observation for armed conflicts fueled by animosities and rivalries (mainly over monopolizing their extraction and/or trading of resources).

1.1.2. Founding fathers of modern circular economy

Many scientists from various backgrounds, environmental activists, architects, politicians are proclaimed to be the instigators of the modern circular economy concept. Why modern? Because, stating that someone developed or originated the concept of CE is simply not possible, considering the short historical account developed earlier. Thus, it is more correct and fair to say that these respected scientists or other professionals developed the term of CE or the modern concept.

The science of Environmental Economics is the real incubator of the CE concept. Indeed, since the early 1960s, this subdiscipline of economics combines conventional studies in the field of welfare economics and the theory of economic growth with more prominent input from the philosophy of sustainable development [12]. In practice, the scientific research effort in Environmental Economics deals with issues such as the various ways to dispose wastes, the quality of air, water and soil resulting from industrial and agricultural activities, the conservation of natural capital and biodiversity, and the promotion of sustainability. Other fields such as industrial ecology, chemistry, architecture, forestry, and agriculture captured the concept in its infancy and contributed to its development and emergence.

Based on the related publications and activities, several personalities from various backgrounds could be considered as the founding fathers of modem circular economy. The far from extensive list includes:

• The English-born American economist Kenneth E. Boulding, who published in 1966 his famous article entitled The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth [13], in which planet earth became a single spaceship with only limited resources, to be continuously reproduced or recycled.

• The Swedish economist Karl-Göran Mäler, who focused his scientific work on the economics of nonlinear, nonconvex dynamics of ecosystems, within the general field of Ecological Economics. In 1974, he published a book entitled Environmental Economics: A Theoretical Inquiry [14], in which he discussed the relationships between economic growth, the quality of the environment, consumption, and welfare.

• Timothy O’Riordan, the prominent British geographer, writer, and thinker actively contributed to the environmental governance and policy analysis, and the development of sustainability science. In his book Environmentalism published in 1981[15], he developed the green ideology of environmentalism, thus providing policy and decision makers with a valuable reference on environmental planning, resources management, and pollution control.

• Tom Tietenberg, an American Professor of Economics, who made a sustainable contribution in the field of environmental economics with his book entitled Environmental and Natural Resource Economics [16]. The first edition was published in 1984, and the book was reedited many times since. In these volumes, the author correlated economics to environmental issues by addressing basic theoretical economics and their application to global challenges such as the increasing population, depletable and nonrecyclable resources (mainly energy and mineral resources), waste disposal, and water and air pollution.

• The Swiss architect Walter R. Stahel had raised fundamental questions about the unsustainability of the current linear economic model under growing waste volumes and limitations in resources’ availability in his piece entitled Product life as a variable: the notion of utilization published in 1986[17]. He advocated the need to develop new "spiral-loops that minimizes matter and energy flow, and environmental deterioration without restricting economic growth or social and technical progress such as the service-life extension of goods, and reuse, repair, and remanufacture. Stahel’s work on the notion of cradle to cradle and the concept of performance economy" (to be detailed later in Section 1.2.), made a substantial contribution in the emerging field of circular economy.

• The American scientists Robert A. Frosch and Nicholas E. Gallopoulos, then working at the General Motors (GM) Research Department, with their article entitled Strategies for Manufacturing published in the Scientific American in 1989[18]. In their paper, the authors advocated the urgent necessity to develop and implement an alternative integrated manufacturing system, termed as the industrial ecosystem. In such model "the consumption of energy and materials is optimized, waste generation is minimized and the effluents of one process … serve as the raw material for another process. Robert Frosch, fifth administrator of NASA and later the vice president for research at GM, is often referred to as the father of industrial ecology [19], especially after the publication of his 1992 article Industrial ecology: a philosophical introduction" [20].

• The British scientists David W. Pearce and R. Kerry Turner with their book Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment [21], in which they gave a detailed description of the interactions between economics and the environment, including the need to account for environmental services, and the economics of pollution and depleting natural resources. The second chapter of this book published in 1990 was explicitly entitled circular economy.

• In 1992, American economist and ecologist Herman E. Daly published his paper Allocation, distribution and scale: toward an economics that is efficient, just, and sustainable to express his worries about inefficient, unjust and unsustainable economics [22], using the metaphor of a boat which would sink if it is overloaded, no matter how well the cargo is balanced.

• the American environmental scientist Braden R. Allenby contributed to the development of the concept of industrial ecology through the publication of his two articles Achieving sustainable development through industrial ecology [23] and Industrial ecology: The materials scientist in an environmentally constrained world [24], both published in 1992. Two years later, he coedited a book with fellow Yale professor Deanna J. Richards entitled The Greening of Industrial Ecosystems [25].

• John T. Lyle, an American professor of landscape architecture who developed the concept of regenerative design with the publication, in 1994, of his book Regenerative design for sustainable development [26], in which he advocates the recourse to proven regenerative theories, practices, and strategies for the utilization of water, land, and energy resources, and waste valorization. The faculty, staff, and students of the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies in California State Polytechnic University’s Pomona campus are following the footsteps of the Late Dr. Lyle toward "a future in which all people live with dignity in safe, healthy, and sustainable environments" [27].

• More recently, the coordinated work of the American architect William A. McDonough and The German chemist Michael Braungart gave a real momentum to the CE movement with the publication, in 2002, of their first book on the subject entitled Cradle to Cradle:Remaking the Way We Make Things [28]. In this book, they developed several circular principles and came about with the catchy notion of waste equals food referring to the need to design and manufacture products so that they would remain valuable after their primary useful life by providing either biological nutrients which could be safely reincorporated by nature, or as technical nutrients able to be recirculated within closed-loop industrial cycles without being downcycled into low-grade utilization schemes. McDonough and Braungart also formed the McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, a company closely working with businesses and governments to design products which eliminate the concept of waste, use clean energy, value clean water and celebrate diversity [29]. It has to be noted that the cradle to cradle designation is believed to be first coined by Walter Stahel during the 1970s [30,31].

The genuine effort made by Ellen Macarthur, the former English sailor, has to be also mentioned in this section. Indeed, although she is not among the modern founders of CE, the initiatives and joint actions conducted by her Foundation, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) [32], to promote, popularize and accelerate the transition to CE are globally appreciated as expressed by many participants of the World Economic Forum session entitled Toward the circular economy: Accelerating the scale-up across global supply chains, held in Switzerland in 2014 [33]. Many reports where published by the foundation starting with the first volume published in 2012 and entitled Toward the Circular Economy Vol. 1: an economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition [34], followed by volume 2 opportunities for the consumer goods sector in 2013 [35] and volume 3 Accelerating the scale-up across global supply chains in 2014 [36].

The foundation also published several books such as Ken Webster’s The Circular Economy: A Wealth of Flows (first edition in 2015 [37] and second edition in 2017 [38]) and the book A New Dynamic: Effective Business in a Circular Economy [39], which is a compilation of contributions made by prominent authors such as Amory Lovins, Michael Braungart and Walter Stahel. A new edition of this book was published in 2016, entitled A New Dynamic 2: Effective systems in a Circular Economy [40]. All the reports published by EMF are downloadable for free [41].

One of the most utilized presentation to illustrate the CE concept is the EMF’s butterfly diagram depicting the continuous flow of technical and biological materials through the value circle’ [42].

1.2. Defining circular economy

Before presenting, analyzing, and discussing the concept of CE and its implementation in many case studies, the notion itself should be defined. The importance of this first and fundamental step is mainly related to the fact that this emerging concept will be globally applied to deal with urgent and very challenging issues such as worldwide population growth, depleting fossil raw materials, climate change, and many environmental problems.

In the related literature, many perceptions and viewpoints about CE were formulated into various definitions, since originating from various scientists, professionals, governmental bodies and international institutions, echoing their specific aspirations from such concept, which could be grouped into the economic, environmental, and social dimensions. The critical aspect of defining CE is the fact that legislations, development strategies, and policies will be developed and later implemented based on those definitions. The challenge at this point is that CE is a holistic and multidimensional concept, and its definition basically depends on who’s defining it.

Economists, industrialists, chemists, farmers, strategists, ecologists will have distinct definitions of CE. Imagine government officials enforcing specific legislations and adopting action plans for years ahead based on the official definition of CE, but industrialists, on the other hand, will develop another vision of the whole concept. The implementation, in this case, will be very difficult, especially within an international network involving players from various nations, scientific or professional backgrounds and, more importantly, with various objectives (sometimes conflicting ones).

In the following section, several definitions of CE will be presented and evaluated, along with the ones on related concepts such as bioeconomy, green economy, industrial ecology etc. The linear economic model will also be defined since the notion is always used on CE lexicon as the antonym of CE.

1.2.1. How to define circular economy?

In this key segment, we will present and evaluate the various proposed definition of CE from selected official bodies, nongovernmental organisms, as well as scientists and professionals focusing their research studies and business activities on the CE concept. We will also discuss some missing aspects in those definitions (especially the social factor) and the need to reach a consensus on a globally accepted definition of CE.

1.2.1.1. Definitions from official and nonofficial bodies

The selected definitions were taken from authoritative sources on CE from both official (governments, parliaments or independent public) institutions and nonofficial (nongovernmental, nonprofit, etc.) organizations and associations.

- On 2 December 2015, the European Commission put forward a package to support the EU’s transition to a circular economy entitled closing the loop - An EU action plan for the Circular Economy [43]. As a document of legislative proposals for action plans on matters such as raw materials and wastes, no clear definition of CE was proposed in this report. Most of the discourse was on the benefits generated from the transition to CE, including economic gains, energy savings, environmental benefits, local jobs, and opportunities for social integration. In other EU official documents, some practical definitions of CE were provided including the one used in the EU parliament publications stating that CE is "a production and consumption model which involves reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products to keep materials within the economywherever possible … waste will itself become a resource, consequently minimising the actual amount of waste. It is generally opposed to a traditional, linear economic model, which is based on a ‘take-make-consume-throw away’ pattern" [44,45].

- Since 2015, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation is focusing its Sustainability Forum on the concept of CE to explore "the powerful impact of the circular economy … how to make the circular economy work for businesses, examine how innovative business models can accelerate cost savings, and explore new advances in cradle-to-cradle design. In the 2015 forum entitled The Circular Economy: Unleashing New Business Value, CE was defined as "a model that focuses on careful management of material flows through product design, reverse logistics, business model innovation, and cross-sector collaboration" [46]. Since 2017, the organizers changed the title of their annual event from Sustainability Forum to Sustainability and Circular Economy Summit [47], which echoes the growing interest in CE in the United States.

- In the report Toward the Circular Economy - Economic and Business Rationale for an Accelerated Transition, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation proposed the following definition of the concept of CE: "an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. It replaces the end-of-life concept with restoration, shifts toward the use of renewable energy, eliminates the use of toxic chemicals, which impair reuse, and aims for the elimination of waste through the superior design of materials, products, systems and business models" [34]. In a report published in 2014, the World Economic Forum used this definition developed by EMF [33].

- Circular Economy European Summit is an annual gathering of scientists, industry experts, and professionals from different backgrounds to debate the global challenges related to sustainability and the role of CE to address those global challenges. The first congress was held in Barcelona in 2016. The organizers of this summit are defining CE as a "conceptual framework of sustainable development. Its goal is the production of goods and services while at the same time reducing the consumption and wastage of raw materials, water and energy sources" [48].

- The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra is an independent public foundation aiming at promoting sustainability in Finland and around the world. One of its pioneering effort related to CE is the organization of the first-ever World Circular Economy Forum in Helsinki on June 2017. In one of its publications, Sitra stated that CE "is based on the sustainable use of resources. This means monitoring, minimising and eliminating waste flows by circulating, rather than just consuming, materials. In practice, this could mean not adding substances to raw materials that couldprevent recycling at the end of the product life cycle, or product design that facilitates the efficient end-of-life sorting of constituent materials. The circular economy seeks to base itself on renewable energy. It goes further than the production and consumption of goods or services" [49].

- WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Program) was set up in the United Kingdom in 2000, to promote sustainable waste management in the United Kingdom, and to accelerate the move to a sustainable, resource-efficient economy. For WRAP, CE "is an alternative to a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life" [50].

1.2.1.2. Definitions from scientists and professionals

The increasing interest in CE from the academic and professional spheres generated several proposals to define this emerging and highly anticipated economic model, including:

- A team of Finnish researchers, in their article Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations [51], proposed the following definition: "Circular economy is an economy constructed from societal production-consumption systems that maximizes the service produced from the linear nature-society-nature material and energy throughput flow. This is done by using cyclical materials flows, renewable energy sources and cascading1-type energy flows. Successful circular economy contributes to all the three dimensions of sustainable development. Circular economy limits the throughput flow to a level that nature tolerates and utilises ecosystem cycles in economic cycles by respecting their natural reproduction rates."

- According to the Dutch Council for the Environment and Infrastructure, an independent strategic advisory board for the government and parliament on sustainable development issues, CE "stresses the following focal points: reducing the consumption of raw materials, designing products in such a manner that they can easily be taken apart and reused after use (eco-design), prolonging the lifespan of products through maintenance and repair, and the use of recyclables in products and recovering raw materials from waste flows. A circular economy aims for the creation of economic value (the economic value of materials or products increases), the creation of social value (minimization of social value destruction throughout the entire system, such as the prevention of unhealthy working conditions in the extraction of raw materials and reuse) as well as value creation in terms of the environment (resilience of natural resources) " [52].

- UK researchers and scientists from different business schools suggested a definition which reads: "The Circular Economy is an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being"[8].

- Other scientists from manufacturing and industrial design backgrounds defined CE as "a regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimised by slowing, closing, and narrowing material and energy loops. This can be achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling" [53].

- Researchers from the Swedish KTH Royal Institute of Technology, demonstrated that CE is an essentially contested concept, and defined it as "a sustainable development initiative with the objective of reducing the societal production-consumption systems" linear material and energy throughput flows by applying materials cycles, renewable and cascade-type energy flows to the linear system. CE promotes high value material cycles alongside more traditional recycling and develops systems approaches to the cooperation of producers, consumers and other societal actors in sustainable development work" [54]. The authors objectively and justly stated that "the definition that we give here is only a ‘build-up’ for what comes after, i.e., it is not intended as a universal and absolute definition."

This is only a small account of the numerous proposals to