Circular Economy and the Transition to a Sustainable Society: Integrated Assessment Methods for a New Paradigm

Abstract

The circular economy concept has recently gained prominence in political debate and corporate discourse around the world as a pathway towards sustainability. The academic debate is characterised by several and sometimes very contrasting definitions of the concept. We claim here that the issue is not finding silver-bullet solutions that will simultaneously support population growth, increasing affluence and environmental resource regeneration. We argue that a clearer definition is needed for the circular economy concept, in terms of strategies, objectives, future states and stakeholders’ needs. Also, assessment methods need to be developed for keeping track of the transition towards a circular economy. Within this context, this paper establishes the need for a multi-stakeholder, multi-dimensional and multi-criteria approach for the evaluation of the transition towards a circular economy across different time and spatial scales, as well as multiple sustainability dimensions.