An economic index for measuring firm’s circularity: The case of water industry

Abstract

Transition towards circular-economy model is a must to sustain the planet resources. Under circular economy model wastewater is transformed from a waste into a resource. Therefore, a comprehensive circular economy index; the Circonomics Index, is proposed to measure circularity of wastewater industry. The component indicators of the index are linked directly to the three Rs; reduce, reuse and recycle, of circular economy. The novelty of the proposed Index is that it uses objectively constructed weights that reflect the environmental benefits of the treatment process, and the index captures the reuse and recycling efficiency of an WWTP, which reflect the specific nature of wastewater. The findings show that treatment technology is a major factor in determining the production efficiency, reuse rate and recycling performance of a WWTP. The results of using the Circonomics Index have profound implication for policy makers to speed up the process of moving to a circular economy.

A New Mindset for Circular Economy Strategies: Case Studies of Circularity in the Use of Water

“…In this context, Industry 4.0 technologies played a key role, since they enable the management and control of a system by taking a holistic view in order to manage the whole operation [44]. In particular for the wastewater treatment sector, in order to accelerate the transition to circular economy, the use treatment technologies such as a trickling filter, activated sludge, extended aeration and oxidation ditch constitute a major factor in determining the production efficiency [37].…”

“…A water circularity index (WCI) was proposed by Sartal et al, 2020 [24] to evaluate the level of circularity in the use of water, which contemplates the volume of virgin water, the wastewater that consists of polluted and discharged water and total volume of water used for plant operations. Several indexes were defined specifically for the wastewater treatment industry; authors in [37] presented an index to measure circularity production efficiency as well as recycling and reuse efficiencies. In this context, a circular economy efficiency indicator was proposed to provide information about the water recovered during pig manure treatment [36] and during a paper manufacturing process [35].…”

A Critical Review of EU Key Indicators for the Transition to the Circular Economy

“…The EU Framework contains a limited set of indicators, despite the large number of indicators put into discussion, proposed, or analyzed. The main barrier in expanding the set of indicators towards other important processes of circular economy consists of the lack of sufficient relevant and measured data [100][101][102].…”

Meeting Halfway - Understanding Circular Behaviours among Households as a Starting Point for Business Practices

“…This issue requires the preparation of a set of indicators to describe circularity appropriate to the economic sector concerned. Many papers describes the propositions of that set of indicators, mostly suitable for business sector (Cayzer et al, 2017;Haupt et al, 2016;Huysman et al, 2017;Howard et al, 2019;Kayal et al, 2019;Polverini and Miretti, 2019;Prieto-Sandoval et al, 2018;Sánchez-Ortiz et al, 2020) ormore generaleconomy development (Avdiushchenko and Zając, 2019;Banaitė, 2016;EASAC, 2016;Helander et al, 2019;Kulczycka, 2018;Moraga et al, 2019;Oliveira et al, 2021;Saidani et al, 2019;Smol et al, 2017).…”