https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8407-6499
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ABSTRACT
Progress in implementing circular solutions in European regions has so far been limited. This is partly due to the multifaceted territorial contexts characterizing the continent. Ultimately, the understanding of territorial dynamics is key to envisage a successful transition to a circular economy (CE). However, CE discussion from a regional standpoint is still limited and CE frameworks that can be applied to monitor and measure the CE potential in a specific territory remain at a rather theoretical level. This paper contributes to this research gap by (1) presenting a regional monitoring framework across three case studies; (2) analysing the respective territorial patterns from a CE perspective. The three case studies include the central cross-border Scandinavian area, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and the Duchy of Luxembourg. The results reveal that circular initiatives are generally designed on the basis of available local resources and, depending on these, regional strategies seek to optimize the technical and/or biological cycles of local economies. Furthermore, the increasing levels of waste generation observed in all case studies challenge traditional waste policy approaches, generally centred on end-of-life management, in favour of more ambitious initiatives aimed at optimizing use of resources and preventing waste.
Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate the comments received from the policy advisory group: Marjan van Herwijnen (ESPON EGTC), Frederick-Christoph Richters, Paul Schosseler (Ministry of Energy and Spatial Planning, Luxembourg), Jan Edøy (Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation, Department of Regional Development, Norway), Erik Hagen, Bjørn Terje Andersen (Innlandet County Authority, Norway), Béla Filep (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO, Switzerland), Marco Kellenberger (Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE), Switzerland) and Henrik Caduff (Office of construction and infrastructure, Principality of Liechtenstein), and from the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) conference audience on the results of the case studies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) is a geocode standard for referencing the subdivisions of countries for statistical purposes. The standard is developed and regulated by the European Union, and thus only covers the member states of the EU in detail. The analysis covers all the EU and most European Free Trade Area (EFTA).
2 CIRCTER is the project acronym for ‘Circular Economy and Territorial Consequences’.
3 The results were also presented to a policy advisory group (i.e. local decision makers such as planners, municipal authorities, etc.) who reviewed, gave feedback, and finally endorsed the technical reports (see the acknowledgements section).
5 In addition to the Eurostat and ESPON databases, we also searched for regional data (NUTS 2) within the respective national statistical databases.
6 In this case the benchmark is Europe. Therefore, if a location quotient is equal to 1 it means that the territory has a concentration in sector ‘X’ equal to the European average. While if the LQ is equal to 2, the territory will be twice more concentrated in sector X than the European average.
7 In Luxembourg, brownfield sites cover 537 ha, which equates to around 16% of all the land available for building according to local development plans (Glumac and Decoville Citation2020).
9 Waste incineration is also at the centre of the purely environmental debate due to dubious trade-off between energy efficiency gains and environmental degradation (e.g. see Abbasi Citation2018).