Keywords

1 Introduction

Globally, there is a growing trend for organizations to develop projects that enable the shift from linear economy to circular economy-based activities [17, 21]. In organizations based on linear economics, the processes performed by workers are based on the use of materials in one direction only, where the raw materials that enter the process are used to obtain the final product, the resulting waste is thrown away without any further action. However, under the circular economy approach, two fundamental components underpin the circular management approach: recovery and valorization of waste. These approaches imply that particular materials can be reused in the supply chain. Several countries are already initiating the regulation and promotion of circular activities such as Vietnam [25], Canada [9], Russia [78], Latin America [85], New Zealand [58], Bolivia [15], Ghana [5], and others. The European Union [99] and China [14] are leading the way to implement the circular economy.

In the scientific literature, there are several reports, ranging from correlational or descriptive models to descriptive [44] or correlational models [2], but there is very little publication associated with measuring circularity, which is critical to monitoring implementation progress.

2 Measure of Circular Economy

When thinking about indicators, one needs to recognize the efforts that can be made to achieve monitoring and eco-efficient use at different levels. The first component that requires monitoring is electricity. Table 1 shows the different indicators that can be applied at different levels. By the eco-innovation action plan of the European Union [13], there are different indicators (Table 1).

Table 1 Indicators based on sustainable resource management, societal behaviors, and business operations
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3 OECD Indicators

Another indicator relevant to consider is the circular economy indicator proposed by the OECD. The most critical indicators are presented below by category type, sector, indicator, unit of measurement, and source.

Specifically, Moraga et al. [56] described indicators such as self-sufficiency for raw materials, green public procurement, waste generation, food waste, recycling rates, recovery for specific waste streams, the contribution of recycled materials to raw materials demand, trade-in recyclable raw materials, private investments, jobs and gross value added, and patents related to recycling and secondary raw materials. Other authors have proposed different indicators such as Geng et al. [22] (Table 2), Smol et al. [91] (Table 3), and De Pascale et al. [70] (Table 4).

Table 2 Indicators based in Geng et al. [22]
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Table 3 Indicators based in Smol et al. [91]
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Table 4 Indicators based in De Pascale et al. [70]
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Also, it is recommended to review the proposal of indicators and footprints by Saidani et al. [83], Huysman et al. [31], de Oliveira et al. [65], Padilla-Rivera et al. [66], Rincón-Moreno et al. [79], Avdiushchenko and Zając [4], and Cayzer et al. [8]. More specifically, it is relevant focus on longevity and circularity [16], eight historic port cities [24], indicators in plastic, textile and electro-electronic cases [82], use of energy accounting method [87], material circularity and life cycle indicators [27, 30, 50, 55, 61, 75, 94, 103, 105], manufacturing network [37, 52], product families [49], cultural heritage buildings [18], BWM-DEMATEL approach [108], levels of innovation [42], waste [53, 54, 74, 77, 86, 92], relation with sustainability [37, 40, 47, 80], standard BS 8001:2017 [71], agriculture [72, 100], city level [1, 26, 39, 60, 67, 68, 88], alternative methods [10, 45, 11, 20, 33, 35, 36, 51, 62,63,64, 69, 76, 81, 84, 101, 102], in companies [34], plastic [32, 93], mobile phones [19], and supply chain [7]. Also, there is evidence of indicators by regions or countries such as Germany [29], China [14, 23, 48, 95, 106,107,107], Sweden [28], Croatia [43], and European Union [6, 46, 89, 90, 96, 97, 104] (Table 5).

Table 5 Indicators’ contribution according to Kristensen and Mosgaard [41]
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Some reports must be reviewed to obtain global information to develop successful strategies.

figure a

Source Morley et al. [57]

figure b

Source Tully [98]

figure c

Source Potting et al. [73]

figure d

Source Natural Scotland [59]

figure e

Source America’s Plastic Makers [3]

figure f

Source European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform [12]

Closing Remarks

In these times of the COVID-19 pandemic, resilience must be based on the eco-efficient use of materials and, therefore, requires building fundamental indicators to help monitor. The book presents the specific development of footprint certifications, focused on different materials. The evidence presented in this chapter should be used as inputs for future research to be carried out, testing the indicators from the governmental, business, and citizen point of view.