Research background: Circular economy is of great importance, as it plays a vital role in ensuring the reuse of waste created and, therefore, reduces the waste of limited resources, which is the primary goal of the general economic concept. In line with the circular economy, sustainable development gains great attention, as the United Nations announced the sustainable development goals that should be reached by 2030. Hence, the current paper aims at examining whether the circular economy could be treated as an effective assistance tool for sustainable development of OECD countries. Purpose of the article: The paper aims to investigate whether the circular economy could serve as an assistance tool for sustainable development and, therefore, seeks to determine if the circular economy could directly impact a country?s sustainable development. Methods: First, the countries chosen were prioritised using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Evaluation Based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) methodologies. AHP method was used for weight assignment to the circular economy indicators that were further used for OECD countries? prioritisation procedure for which multi-criteria decision-making method EDAS was employed. Second, to reveal a link between the circular economy ranking results and sustainable development, a comparative analysis was done. Third, the impact of the country?s circular economy on sustainable development was evaluated using the fixed-effect regression model on four years of panel data from 2016 to 2019 for the sample of 32 OECD countries. Findings & value-added: The comparative analysis of the circular economy?s prioritisation results and Sustainable Development Goals Index (SDGI) ranking showed 20 out of 32 matches, assuming a link between the circular economy and sustainable development could be made. The fixed-effect regression equation results demonstrate that the unemployment rate, poverty rate, air pollution exposure, and CO2 emission per capita negatively influence sustainable development. In contrast, indicators such as gross domestic expenditure on R&D, renewable energy, number of passenger cars in use, and households with Internet access positively impact SDGI. The hypothesis that the circular economy is seen as an assistance for sustainable development and directly affects a country?s sustainability was approved. The paper contributes to the scientific literature in the field of circular economy and sustainable development interaction and could be seen as an assumption for new research directions, focusing on the linkage between circular economy and sustainable development. Moreover, the obtained results could contribute to a country?s policy-makers by highlighting the essential indicators of a circular economy that should be considered while forming the strategy of a country?s sustainable development.
There are still debates in the scientific literature about the factors influencing countries’ sustainable socioeconomic development. Therefore, the current article aims at determining the factors of sustainable socioeconomic development and assessing its level in the EU countries. The following methods were employed for the research: an evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). EDAS was used to reveal which countries have the highest level of sustainable socioeconomic development, and which have the lowest. The ranking was done based on the appraisal score, which is an outcome of EDAS. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was used for clustering the countries based on the appraisal scores in order to distinguish groups of countries having a similar level of sustainable socioeconomic development. The results revealed that the highest level of sustainable socioeconomic development is in Germany, and the lowest in Portugal. Based on HCA, the countries were divided into three groups. The first cluster’s countries have the weakest sustainable socioeconomic development, and countries assigned to the third cluster have the best. In the current research, the third cluster consists of one country, Germany, which supports the results obtained with the EDAS method, i.e., Germany is the country with the highest level of sustainable socioeconomic development in the EU.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.