Critical appraisal of the circular economy standard BS 8001:2017 and a dashboard of quantitative system indicators for its implementation in organizations

Pauliuk, Stefan

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.10.019

Cited by 384 publications

(242 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…Recent work has focused on providing support for companies to implement CE at a micro level, that is, product or organization (Aminoff, Valkokari, & Kettunen, ; Lewandowski, ; Pauliuk, ) and shedding light on the barriers and challenges faced by companies in relation to CE implementation (Linder & Williander, ; Ritzén & Sandström, ; Singh & Ordoñez, ). Other studies deliver insights into best practices and enablers of CE implementation: De los Rios and Charnley () performed an in‐depth analysis on case studies from a limited set of multinational enterprises that are transforming their product strategies for closure of material loops, while Jones and Comfort () presented and discussed the circular approaches of a limited set of companies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Circular economy in corporate sustainability strategies: A review of corporate sustainability reports in the fast‐moving consumer goods sector

2018

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Despite the increasing interest of business and academic research toward Circular Economy, the investigation of its uptake by industry remains limited. To contribute to filling this gap, we perform a systematic review of 46 corporate sustainability reports in the Fast‐Moving Consumer Goods sector aiming to explore how companies incorporate the Circular Economy concept in their sustainability agenda. We focus on (i) companies’ uptake of Circular Economy, (ii) the relationship between Circular Economy and sustainability and (iii) the Circular Economy practices presented. Our results show that Circular Economy has started to be integrated into the corporate sustainability agenda. Most reported activities are oriented toward the main product and packaging, focusing on end‐of‐life management and sourcing strategies, and to a lesser extent on circular product design and business model strategies. Most identified collaborations are with businesses, whereas initiatives addressing consumers are largely missing although considered critical for the transition toward Circular Economy.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Circular economy in corporate sustainability strategies: A review of corporate sustainability reports in the fast‐moving consumer goods sector

2018

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“…). A growing body of research has also focused on the company or industry level (Pauliuk ; BSI ; Lieder and Rashid ). However, comprehensive macro‐scale assessments of national‐level circularity, including derived policy indicators, are very rare (Nuss et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Progress towards a Circular Economy: A Monitoring Framework for Economy‐wide Material Loop Closing in the EU28

Mayer

Haas

Wiedenhofer

et al. 2018

J of Industrial Ecology

198

103

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Summary The concept of a circular economy (CE) is gaining increasing attention from policy makers, industry, and academia. There is a rapidly evolving debate on definitions, limitations, the contribution to a wider sustainability agenda, and a need for indicators to assess the effectiveness of circular economy measures at larger scales. Herein, we present a framework for a comprehensive and economy‐wide biophysical assessment of a CE, utilizing and systematically linking official statistics on resource extraction and use and waste flows in a mass‐balanced approach. This framework builds on the widely applied framework of economy‐wide material flow accounting and expands it by integrating waste flows, recycling, and downcycled materials. We propose a comprehensive set of indicators that measure the scale and circularity of total material and waste flows and their socioeconomic and ecological loop closing. We applied this framework in the context of monitoring efforts for a CE in the European Union (EU28) for the year 2014. We found that 7.4 gigatons (Gt) of materials were processed in the EU and only 0.71 Gt of them were secondary materials. The derived input socioeconomic cycling rate of materials was therefore 9.6%. Further, of the 4.8 Gt of interim output flows, 14.8% were recycled or downcycled. Based on these findings and our first efforts in assessing sensitivity of the framework, a number of improvements are deemed necessary: improved reporting of wastes, explicit modeling of societal in‐use stocks, introduction of criteria for ecological cycling, and disaggregated mass‐based indicators to evaluate environmental impacts of different materials and circularity initiatives.

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“…Monitoring metrics to assess the progress toward CE are being debated (Elia, Gnoni, & Tornese, ; Mayer et al., ; Pauliuk, ) and recent attempts to develop general metrics differ in aim and scope, resulting in diverse coverage and focus (Elia et al., ; Iacovidou et al., ; Linder, Sarasini, & van Loon, ; Pauliuk, ; Tecchio, McAlister, Mathieux, & Ardente, ). Given the wide range of perspectives, formats, and scales, Saidani, Yannou, Leroy, Cluzel, and Kendall () suggest a taxonomy of different CE indicators.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the product and organizational levels, possible metrics are discussed by Tecchio et al. () and Pauliuk, (), respectively. At an EW level, Moriguchi () suggests indicators for a “sound material‐cycle society” and Takiguchi and Takemoto () present indicators for the Japanese 3R Policies.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to monitor environmental pressures of a circular economy: An assessment of indicators

Helander

Petit‐Boix

Leipold

et al. 2019

J of Industrial Ecology

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Understanding how a circular economy (CE) can reduce environmental pressures from economic activities is crucial for policy and practice. Science provides a range of indicators to monitor and assess CE activities. However, common CE activities, such as recycling and eco‐design, are contested in terms of their contribution to environmental sustainability. This article assesses whether and to what extent current approaches to assess CE activities sufficiently capture environmental pressures to monitor progress toward environmental sustainability. Based on a material flow perspective, we show that most indicators do not capture environmental pressures related to the CE activities they address. Many focus on a single CE activity or process, which does not necessarily contribute to increased environmental sustainability overall. Based on these results, we suggest complementing CE management indicators with indicators capturing basic environmental pressures related to the respective CE activity. Given the conceptual linkage between CE activities, resource extraction, and waste flows, we suggest that a resource‐based footprint approach accounting for major environmental inputs and outputs is necessary—while not sufficient—to assess the environmental sustainability of CE activities. As footprint approaches can be used across scales, they could aid the challenging process of developing indicators for monitoring progress toward an environmentally sustainable CE at the European, national, and company levels.

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Critical appraisal of the circular economy standard BS 8001:2017 and a dashboard of quantitative system indicators for its implementation in organizations

Cited by 384 publications

References 95 publications

Circular economy in corporate sustainability strategies: A review of corporate sustainability reports in the fast‐moving consumer goods sector

Circular economy in corporate sustainability strategies: A review of corporate sustainability reports in the fast‐moving consumer goods sector

Measuring Progress towards a Circular Economy: A Monitoring Framework for Economy‐wide Material Loop Closing in the EU28

How to monitor environmental pressures of a circular economy: An assessment of indicators

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