Original title: Conceptualizing the Circular Economy (Revisited): An Analysis of 221 Definitions
A circular economyAn approach to making and using goods that seeks alternatives to the usual make-use-throw-away pattern. aims to move away from making things, using them briefly, and throwing them away. The researchers compared 221 recent definitions to see what people mean by the term. They found that some ideas are becoming more shared while others are splitting into different interpretations. Many definitions call for changes across supply chains and say producers, consumers, policymakers, and scholars all have a role.
Imagine a group of people planning how to share and reuse leftovers after a neighborhood meal. They agree that less food should go to waste, but disagree about who should store it, who should take it home, and what counts as fair. In this paper, the shared goal is the circular economy, and the different plans are the definitions researchers use; comparing them shows where people agree and where they still differ.
Businesses, policymakers, and researchers use “circular economy” to guide changes in how goods are made and used. If they mean different things by it, plans can pull in different directions; the paper maps where definitions are converging and where they still differ.
The paper provides a snapshot of how scholars currently define the circular economy. It does not establish whether the concept should be consolidated, how to achieve that, or whether circular-economy changes can support environmental sustainability and economic development at the same time.
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Conceptualizing the Circular Economy (Revisited): An Analysis of 221 Definitions — Julian Kirchherr, Nan-Hua Nadja Yang, Frederik Schulze Spüntrup et al. — Resources Conservation and Recycling — doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2023.107001
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.