This paper reviews digital tools that support the transition to a circular economy in the built environment.
It explores how computer-aided design, building information modeling and computational plugins can assist architects and engineers in creating more sustainable buildings. While Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) remains the main approach for evaluating environmental impacts, the study highlights other methods and tools that can help assess circular design strategies, such as computational methods to design with reused elements and circularity indicators. The paper identifies both the strengths and limitations of these digital tools.
This research is useful to academics and to practitioners designing buildings aligned with circular economy principles.
With progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) badly off track, solutions are needed - and the circular economy has clear potential.
This Chatham House paper explores how the circular economy could support each of the 17 SDGs and argues for this concept to be put at the heart of emerging plans to drive sustainable development towards 2050.
It identifies five priorities for action: embedding principles of justice and inclusivity into the circular transition; increasing international policy coordination; reforming the financial architecture to ensure the circular economy gets the investment it needs; rewiring the global system of trade to make it easier to trade circular products and services; and developing common standards and metrics.
The Global Circularity Protocol for Business is a new global initiative spearheaded by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in collaboration with the One Planet Network (OPN). It will engage partners from academia, cross-sectoral businesses, NGOs and policymakers to address accountability and policy gaps currently impeding the scaling of circularity.
This landscape analysis provides guidance on how metrics and indicators can improve circularity performance aligned with a sustainable future, starting with gaps in policies, standards and frameworks. It is the first milestone in the Circular Transition Impact Analysis workstream, aiming to identify the key impacts of a circular transition for climate, nature and social indicators and improved value chain performance.
The Netherlands aims to be fully circular by 2050, halving resource consumption by 2030. Waste prevention will be key, since the country's waste generation exceeds the European average. Large or small, cities are instrumental in managing waste prevention as they are both consumption hubs and waste generators.
Circle Economy was asked by the executive agency of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management to identify the tools available to local government to prevent waste and explore how cities can be designed to help people reduce waste. This study sets out their findings.
Since 2019, Circle Economy Foundation's Circularity Gap Reports have been providing analysis and theory on the global state of circularity. According to the Circularity Gap Report 2024, the circular economy is becoming more popular but failing to deliver.
The 2024 report lays out a roadmap for ambitious change to unlock capital, roll out bold policies and close the skills gap.
The circular economy is now extremely well known: the volume of discussions, debates and articles on it has almost tripled over the past five years. Unfortunately, the rate of global circularity is falling. The share of secondary materials consumed by the global economy actually decreased from 9.1% in 2018 to 7.2% in 2023 - a 21% drop in five years.
Please note: personal data must be given to download the report.
The Circularity Gap Report Munich is the first study measuring the Circularity Gap of a city. It assesses the city’s material consumption, material cycling, consumption-based carbon footprint and other indicators. It uses a consumption-based carbon accounting approach for emissions from goods and services consumed by residents of a locality. On average, each Munich resident consumes 32 tonnes of virgin materials annually.
The study acknowledges the successes of Munich’s circular economy strategy with initiatives like investment in public transport, community gardens and remanufacturing activities, but calls for bolder action to accelerate the circular transition
This report explores the potential of circular business models within the electronics industry, examining three models across four industry segments and throughout six lifecycle stages. The data utilized in the analysis stems from diverse sources: research papers, public databases, internal benchmarking, collaboration with external/internal partners etc.
Projections and estimations are grounded in a comprehensive approach, blending historical data extrapolated with logarithmic adjustments. Baseline data for lifecycle stages is constructed from product Life Cycle Assessments, considering both carbon footprint and cost perspectives. The focus is on capturing the significant impact of approximately 20% of products, which are estimated to constitute around 80% of their respective segments.
Fast fashion and disposing of clothes at the end of their lives are generally considered to be the main issues in terms of textile waste. However, pre-consumer waste is another major problem. This occurs a few steps further back in the manufacturing process, and deals with all waste materials created in the supply chain when a product is being made.
Unlike post-consumer waste, it is easier to keep pre-consumer waste away from a landfill or an incinerator as the fabric or garment is essentially brand new, despite one or more repairable defects.
So, finding ways to re-use or use up the resources created is the key to creating an endless supply of materials without further depleting natural resources.
This book collates leading-edge research and industry best practice to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ exploring the complex and interconnected issues surrounding sustainability in the sector.
It includes innovative examples from different regions, addressing topics from policies to supply chain issues and materials innovation. Five unique case studies of sustainable businesses provide examples of pioneering practice. The book brings together both academic and industry perspectives on the critical areas that require immediate action to move towards a more sustainable fashion, clothing and textile sector.
Part VI features five chapters by leading authors covering the circular economy in the sector, including a chapter by Professor Jacqueline Cramer.
In the context of the data needs for EU policies in economic activities related to circular economy, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation and bioeconomy, in 2019 Eurostat initiated a project implemented by Prognos and DevStat to develop a method that allows deriving key economic variables on these activities, which can be used as a framework also for other transition sectors.
This Prognos study contracted by the European Commission and Eurostat, and published in 2023, is a description of a generic conceptual framework to define various sectors of the environmental economy, identify activities, and analyse data by using different data sources (e.g. national or regional data).
Other documents produced under the same project can be consulted here.
