A Hybrid Methodology to Study Stakeholder Cooperation in Circular Economy Waste Management of Cities

Abstract

Successful transitioning to a circular economy city requires a holistic and inclusive approach that involves bringing together diverse actors and disciplines who may not have shared aims and objectives. It is desirable that stakeholders work together to create jointly-held perceptions of value, and yet cooperation in such an environment is likely to prove difficult in practice. The contribution of this paper is to show how collaboration can be engendered, or discord made transparent, in resource decision-making using a hybrid Game Theory approach that combines its inherent strengths with those of scenario analysis and multi-criteria decision analysis. Such a methodology consists of six steps: (1) define stakeholders and objectives; (2) construct future scenarios for Municipal Solid Waste Management; (3) survey stakeholders to rank the evaluation indicators; (4) determine the weights for the scenarios criteria; (5) reveal the preference order of the scenarios; and (6) analyse the preferences to reveal the cooperation and competitive opportunities. To demonstrate the workability of the method, a case study is presented: The Tyseley Energy Park, a major Energy-from-Waste facility that treats over two-thirds of the Municipal Solid Waste of Birmingham in the UK. The first phase of its decision-making involved working with the five most influential actors, resulting in recommendations on how to reach the most preferred and jointly chosen sustainable scenario for the site. The paper suggests a supporting decision-making tool so that cooperation is embedded in circular economy adoption and decisions are made optimally (as a collective) and are acceptable to all the stakeholders, although limited by bounded rationality.

Current and Future Professional Insights on Cooperation towards Circular Economy Adoption

“…Questions Q3.3a and Q3.3b were newly defined for this research. They aimed to compare the results with the Shapley Value outcomes from Step 6b at the end of the gametheory-hybrid tool in [12]; more details are provided in Section 5.…”

“…Few results (24) were obtained and only nine of these were found relevant for the review, although most include university students which aligns well with the research reported herein. The one exception was a survey that focused on primary school children (aged [8][9][10][11][12]. It was shown that workshops with recycled cans could increase the awareness and intention to recycle of future generations [16].…”

“…This is described in Section 4. The results from the section of the questionnaire dealing with perceptions towards other stakeholders are then compared and contrasted in Section 5 with the outcomes from the game theory-based hybrid tool proposed by the current authors [12]. Along with the insights from the surveys, this provides the main scientific value of the paper.…”

Achieving the Circular Economy: Exploring the Role of Local Governments, Business and Citizens in an Urban Context

“…Palafox-Alcantar, Hunt and Rogers, in their paper titled "A Hybrid Methodology to Study Stakeholder Cooperation in Circular Economy Waste Management of Cities" [4], study the waste management of cities from a circular economy perspective and discuss how efficient waste management process resources can be fed back into the consumption process rather than reach an end-of-life. The contribution of the paper is to identify how collaboration can be engendered using a hybrid Game Theory approach, including scenario analysis and multi-criteria decision analysis.…”

Strategies for a Circular Economy in the Construction and Demolition Sector: Identifying the Factors Affecting the Recommendation of Recycled Concrete

“…While transitioning towards a CE requires a holistic and global vision [8], it is fundamental to initiate a discussion based on specific economic sectorial perspectives, in order to trigger causal loops that might pave the way for a global transition. For example, the European Commission [9,10] adopted an action plan to enhance global competitiveness, stimulate sustainable economic growth, and generate new jobs.…”