Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186

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Sustainable Production and Consumption

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spc

Circularity for circularity’s sake? Scoping review of assessment

methods for environmental performance in the circular economy.
Steve Harris a,∗, Michael Martin a,b, Derek Diener c
a
IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Life Cycle Management
b
KTH-Royal Institute of Technology, Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering (SEED), Stockholm, Sweden
c
Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), Group Sustainable Business, Göteborg, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Circular Economy (CE) concept is receiving increasing global attention and has captivated many disci-
Received 12 July 2020 plines, from sustainability through to business and economics. There is currently a strong drive by com-
Revised 27 September 2020
panies, academics and governments alike to implement the CE. Numerous “circularity indicators” have
Accepted 28 September 2020
emerged that measure material flow or recirculated value of a system (e.g. product or nation). However,
Available online 29 September 2020
if its implementation is to improve environmental performance of society, the action must be based on
Keywords: scientific evidence and quantification or it may risk driving “circularity for circularity’s sake”. This paper,
Circular economy therefore, aims to review the recent circular economy literature that focuses on assessing the environ-
life cycle assessment mental implications of circularity of products and services. To do this we divide the system levels into
environmental assessment micro (product level), meso (industrial estate/symbiosis) and macro (national or city level). A scoping
indicators literature review explores the assessment methods and indicators at each level.
circularity indicators
The results suggest that few studies compare circularity indicators with environmental performance or
link the circularity indicators between society levels (e.g. the micro and macro-levels). However, adequate
tools exist at each level (e.g. life cycle assessment (LCA) at the micro-level and multi-regional input-
output (MRIO) analysis at the macro-level) to provide the ability to adequately assess and track the CE
performance if placed within a suitable framework. The challenge to connect the micro and macro-levels
remains. This would help understand the link between changes at the micro-level at the macro-level,
and the environmental consequences. At the meso-level, industrial symbiosis continues to grow in po-
tential, but there is a need for further research on the assessment of its contribution to environmental
improvement. In addition, there is limited understanding of the use phase. For example, national moni-
toring programmes do not have indicators on stocks of materials or the extent of the circular economy
processes (such as the reuse economy, maintenance and spare parts) which already contribute to the
CE. The societal needs/functions framework offers a promising meso-level link to bridge the micro and
macro-levels for assessment, monitoring and setting thresholds.
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

1. Introduction cuses on the “industrial metabolism” and the flows of industrial

resources (Graedel and Allenby, 1995). The focus of industrial ecol-
The concept of the Circular Economy (CE) has gained promi- ogy at its most fundamental state is to reduce the flows of ma-
nence within the last decade as a method to reduce the environ- terials extracted from the earth system (sources) whilst simulta-
mental impact of production and resource use. The CE was first neously limiting the flow of wastes and emissions (sinks) back to
mentioned in a book by (Pearce and Turner, 1990) and builds on earth (Graedel and Allenby, 1995).
related fields such as ecology (Odum, 1988) and the field of in- China was the first country to implement CE principles into
dustrial ecology (Ayres and Ayres, 2002). Industrial ecology fo- national policy (with the 2008 Circular Economy Promotion Law)
and release CE focussed indicators (Geng et al., 2012). In Europe,
∗
the CE concept has been promoted as an approach to simultane-
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Harris), [email protected] (M. Mar-
ously improve both environmental and economic performance of
tin), [email protected] (D. Diener). industrial society (EMF, 2015). It has gained significant traction and

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2020.09.018
2352-5509/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186 173

interest from academia, decision-makers (European Commis- 2 How do the circularity indicators link to environmental im-
sion, 2018a; Mont and Heiskanen, 2015) and the business sector pacts?
(EMF, 2015). CE is entering policy in several more countries, with 3 Can the environmental assessment methods used at the differ-
the European Union (EU) having the vision to become a circular ent system levels be interrelated?
economy, offering a response to what is commonly labelled as the 4 What are the implications for monitoring the transition to CE?
‘take-make-dispose’ model (EEA, 2016; Lazarevic and Valve, 2017).
Currently, there is no agreed definition for CE, with Whilst there have been several recent reviews of CE literature,
Kirchherr et al. (2017) identifying 114 definitions. This may none to our knowledge have specifically aimed to cover all these
compound the development of the concept and assessments of aspects. Most have focussed only on indicators, whereas this paper
its application. Kirchherr et al. (2017) conclude that the main focusses on reviewing environmental assessments of CE across sys-
aim of CE is economic prosperity, followed by environmental tem levels and how they can be linked. The target audience of the
quality, whilst others perceive the aim in the opposite order article is the scientific community, practitioners, decision-makers‘
(Helander et al., 2019). Meanwhile, social equity, as well as the and policymakers whom seek insights on the evaluation of envi-
consequences of CE activities on future generations are rarely men- ronmental impacts and benefits of the circular economy.
tioned (Kirchherr et al., 2017; Merli et al., 2018). The CE concept
appears intuitively positive by aiming to maintain the circulation 2. Methodology
of resources within the economy, reducing the burden on earth’s
resources and the impacts of extraction, emissions, and disposal This sections details the review methodology employed, which
(Lazarevic and Valve, 2017). The CE literature discusses the exis- includes a relevance framework, identification of the literature, an
tence of three system levels: micro (product), meso (eco-industrial overview of the sample and finally the content analysis framework
park) and macro (city, nation or global), with a lack of connection used to assess the articles.
between the three in terms of indicators (Ghisellini et al., 2016;
Saidani et al., 2019). 2.1. Review process and focus
Recently there has been a rise in circularity indicators (at both
product and macro-level) with Saidani (2018) reviewing 55 indi- The review of scientific literature followed the Preferred Re-
cators and Parchomenko (2019) reviewing 63 indicators. Many of porting Items for Systematic Reviews and meta-Analyses (PRISMA)
these measure material or value re-circulation, apparently as a guidelines (Moher et al., 2009) and applied an iterative process.
proxy for environmental impact (Elia et al., 2017; European Com- However, there are some important limitations which we discuss
mission, 2019; Saidani et al., 2019). Such measurements arguably below, and therefore refer to this review as a scoping review as
risk driving action based on increased circularity and not necessar- opposed to a fully systematic review.
ily on improved environmental performance – leading to what we
refer to as “circularity” for circularity’s sake. Moreover, there is cur- 2.1.1. Relevance framework
rently limited evidence that company-level actions (e.g. develop- A relevance framework was developed to guide the selection of
ing product-service systems) and products designed for increased articles. The inclusion criteria were to only include studies that :
circularity (e.g. increasing longevity or recyclability) have increased 1) performed quantification or measurement of circularity or CE
environmental performance, particularly from a macro- perspective environmental performance, or reviewed methods that did so; 2)
(Tukker, 2015). focus on or include consumer products (for the micro-level) or re-
In accordance, Esty and Porter (1998) (pg. 40) referring to in- lated materials or components; 3) examined the product, compo-
dustrial ecology, note that “The belief in the perfection of the circle nent or material life cycle system and does not focus on a subset
can be taken too far. Even when company gains and social bene- of the life cycle, e.g. only waste management; and 4) is between
fits are summed, the costs of closing some loops may exceed the the years 2010-2019. Criteria 2 therefore excludes papers focussed
benefits.” There is also a risk of “circular [green]washing”, reminis- on either construction, forestry, agriculture, or infrastructure. These
cent of the so-called “green-washing” that emerged in the 1990’s are viewed as specialist topics that require specific circular econ-
(Welford, 1997), where a company uses inaccurate information for omy responses.
marketing purposes. We also specifically focus on the recent circular economy lit-
Therefore, since a central tenet of the CE is a perceived reduc- erature, and do not include search terms for remanufacturing, re-
tion of environmental impacts, there is a need to fully understand furbishment or reuse (although we do not omit papers that in-
the implications of the CE at different system levels. This includes clude these aspects). The reason for this exclusion is that there
the impacts of circular products and services, as well as potential is a long history of LCA studies examining these issues, but they
macro effects, including e.g. rebound effects (increased efficiencies typically focus on a niche aspect of the lifecycle, not a complete
at the product level that lead to increased impact at the macro- system and/or focus on challenges of LCA analysis. LCA is also an
level). There are several environmental assessment methodologies established method and we are interested in how the recent cir-
available for application at different system levels, but it is unclear cular economy literature addresses environmental assessment. Fi-
which are best and how these can be utilised within a comple- nally, two of the authors have also been involved in a systematic
mentary way. In fact, as mentioned above, recent circular economy review that examines the assessment of reuse and remanufacture
literature reviews have noted the lack on links between the levels of products (van Loon et al., 2020). A limitation is that we do not
in assessment or monitoring (Ghisellini et al., 2016; Saidani et al., include cities or urban areas in this review. A preliminary review
2019). found that the literature on cities was mainly related to solid waste
Given this background, this paper aims to review the literature management and water management, which do not align with our
on environmental assessment of CE at the micro, meso and macro focus on consumer products and the assessment of their use in
system levels; and how this might be linked into a framework for society at different levels. However, some research such as com-
assessment and monitoring. The research questions that drive the bining urban metabolism with LCA (Lavers Westin et al., 2019) is
review are: potentially within the scope of our review. However, it performs a
similar role to MRIO assessment and is not yet focussed on mod-
1 How are environmental impacts of the CE quantified at each elling CE at the urban level. We therefore consider this omission
level? justified but keep these methods in mind in our final analysis.
174 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186

Table 1
Search terms and results of the literature search using Scopus

Search terms focussed at the systems levels

Micro /general
(circular economy} AND (life cycle assessment) AND quantif∗ OR measur∗ AND NOT building OR construction OR forest∗ OR agricult∗ OR infrastructure
“circular economy” and “environmental assessment”
Circularity and “environmental assessment”
“Circular economy” and “sustainability assessment”
“circular economy” AND “circularity indicator”
Meso / industrial symbiosis
(circular AND economy) AND (assess∗ OR quantif∗ ) AND (meso OR (industrial AND symbiosis) OR (eco-industrial AND parks) OR (regional AND resource AND
synergies) OR (by-product AND synergy))
Macro
(circular economy) AND (macro OR national OR global) AND (assess∗ OR quantif∗ OR measur∗ )

2.1.2. Identifying Literature 3. Environmental assessment and indicators at the system

We used an iterative process to develop specific Boolean search levels
strings relevant to our selection criteria. An initial search using
combinations of such terms as circular economy, LCA and envi- This section is divided into the system levels of micro, meso
ronmental assessment returned over 60 0 0 records using Google and macro, which are each then sub-divided into literature that fo-
Scholar, and many of these were highly irrelevant to our selec- cuses on circularity indicators and environmental assessments. The
tion criteria. Therefore, specific search strings were developed to articles reviewed for each section can be found in the supplemen-
search the title-abstract and keywords, for the years 2010-2019, as tary material.
shown in Table 1. Using Scopus (www.scopus.com), this returned
508 records from which we extracted 136 studies that met our rel- 3.1. Micro-level
evance criteria and were included in the review. Finally, we used
the snowball method whereby additional literature is identified us- The product/micro-level search reviewed 102 full text articles,
ing key documents (e.g. Elia et al., 2017; Saidani et al., 2018; Merli from which 42 remained and were included in the review for this
et al., 2019) through examining references and citations of those section.
documents. This led to a further 49 records, from which only 5
were relevant. 3.1.1. Circularity approach and aim
The highest number of papers utilised environmental indica-
tors to assess circularity with 20 papers, all of which utilised LCA
to quantify the implications (see Fig. 4). Of these, 9 also consid-
2.1.3. Overview of the sample
ered material circularity. The remaining four papers that examined
Based on our search criteria, it was found that during the pe-
material circularity of products used material flow analysis (MFA).
riod 2010 to 2014 no more than 3 articles were published per year,
There were a high number of literature reviews or discussion pa-
but from 2015 there was a steep rise in the number of articles;
pers (14), four of which reviewed circularity indicators and met-
reaching 45 in 2019, as shown in Fig. 2. In Fig. 3, the number of
rics which have grown in number considerably in recent years. Not
publications that focus on each system level is illustrated showing
many consider economic circularity, or compare approaches, e.g. a
sharp increases for both micro and macro-levels since 2015, but
comparison and correlation between environmental impacts mea-
more modest increases for the meso-level. The articles appeared
sured with LCA and using a material-based circularity metric.
in 46 different journals with four journals incorporating 55% of
This finding, that most assessment papers focus on environ-
the total. These included the Journal of Cleaner Production (32),
mental aspects of circularity and quantification using LCA con-
Resources, Conservation and Recycling (21), Sustainability (13) and
trast with the literature reviews which focus on circularity metrics
Journal of Industrial Ecology (9). Fig. 1
(Parchomenko et al., 2019; Saidani et al., 2018). This suggests that
despite the high number of circularity metrics, there has been lim-
ited application at the micro-level, and testing of the correlation
2.2. Article analysis framework with environmental performance.
Since the environmental focussed papers all utilise LCA these
The importance of the three systems levels and the need to link are discussed in the next section. Of the four papers that focused
them (in order to understand and track environmental impact) is a on material circularity but did not use LCA, two looked at end-of-
major starting point for this review. Therefore, the papers are cat- life options, for steel components (Diener and Tillman, 2016) and
egorised into the three different levels micro (product), meso (or- personal computers (Tecchio et al., 2018) to increase reuse and re-
ganisation and industrial symbiosis) and the macro (national and covery of components. Tanzer and Rechberger (2019) develop an
global) levels. MFA framework that may help to standardise elements to describe
A framework was developed to structure the analysis and to systems for circularity measurement. This could be valuable to en-
enable a transparent and methodological approach to the review. hance comparability of CE assessment across regions, system lev-
Upon selection of relevant papers for the review, the key informa- els and materials at different system levels. They conclude by em-
tion from each paper was compiled in matrices for each system phasising the need for considering value durability, rebound effects
level, (these are provided in the supplementary material). First, the and economic market mechanisms to fully understand the systems.
articles were reviewed to assess the aim, method and relevance. Zink el al. (2018) use aluminium and a market-based approach to
From this we constructed the analysis framework shown in Table 2 explore how the actual “displacement rate” caused by recycling can
that consists of four main dimensions with sub-options. Each pa- be quantified.
per was again reviewed to map which criteria applied to each of Three articles made some attempt to cover economic quan-
them. From this, the analysis was made to understand the coverage tification of products or services (discussed below), with another
provided by the literature sample. proposing an indicator that quantifies the recirculation of material,
 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186 175

Fig. 1. The review process following the PRISMA guidelines (based on Moher et al., 2009)

Table 2
Analysis framework used to categorise and assess the reviewed articles

Dimension Option Option definition and criteria for selection

Circularity approach /aim Environmental The paper aims to quantify or considers the environmental implications
Circularity of materials Measures the circularity of materials or components by mass
Circularity of economic value Measures the circularity of economic value of materials or components by mass
Compares approaches Compares approaches to circularity indicators or use of assessment
Literature review or discussion Systematic, scoping or narrative review or discussion document, but no quantification
Assessment methodology Life cycle assessment LCA is used as the basis of the assessment or quantification
Material flow analysis MFA is used as the basis of the assessment or quantification
MRIO A multi-regional input output is utilised in the assessment
Analytical modelling Uses analytical modelling methods for assessment
Other Uses tools such as exergy, or others not specified above
Approach of modelling Accounting Quantifies the implications for a product or service
Compares product or models Compares linear and circular products/business models
Scenario analysis Builds and assesses scenarios
Links system levels Compares indicators or impacts across the systems levels
Temporal focus Retrospective Uses existing data from products or systems to provide a current or past assessment
Prospective Uses scenarios or modelling to assessment potential future or alternative products or systems.

component and product value (Linder et al., 2017). Only five pa- three methods conformed at the micro-level to the requirements of
pers compared the approaches of assessing circularity, but three of CE. The Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) developed by the Ellen
these were reviews and only 2 made quantified assessments that MacArthur Foundation performed best (EMF, 2015a), whilst the Cir-
compared the approaches. Lonca et al. (2018) review 14 environ- cular Economy Index (CEI) (Di Maio and Rem, 2015) and the Reuse
mental assessment methods and 16 CE index methods on their Potential Indicator (RPI) (Park and Chertow, 2014) only measured
ability to measure advances to CE in a case study on tyres. This one of the requirements. Walker et al., 2018 explored the correla-
was based on the five CE requirements suggested by EEA (2016): tion between an LCA based approach to calculate the carbon foot-
(1) Reducing inputs and the use of natural resources, (2) Increas- print with product circularity to measure material efficiency im-
ing the share of renewable and recyclable resources, (3) Reducing proved in the life cycle of renewable energy. They found that for
emissions levels, (4) Reducing valuable materials losses, and (5) In- normalized carbon footprint, the LCA correlated well with the cir-
creasing the value durability of products. They concluded that only cularity metrics for most scenarios. However, there was less cor-
176 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186

they are classified into 24 key elements depending on the focus of

the metric, showing good coverage across all stages of the prod-
uct life cycle. Corona et al. (2019) highlight the importance of
socio-economic indicators, on which we fully agree but do not fur-
ther discuss in this paper as we focus on the environmental per-
spective of sustainability. In their review of 20 micro indicators,
Moraga et al. (2019) found that none of the indicators measured
preservation of function.
Shortcomings were also noted by Saidani et al. (2017), who
tested the MCI, the Circular Economy Toolkit (CET) (Evans and
Bocken, 2017) and the Circular Economy Indicator Prototype (CEIP)
(Cayzer et al., 2017) in an industrial case study. While it was con-
cluded the tools provided quick and easy results, they failed to
consider the complexity of the circular economy context and did
Fig. 2. Number of publications per year (last date Dec 2019). not therefore provide adequate guidance for industrial practition-
ers (Saidani et al., 2017). In addition, Saidani et al. (2019) assessed
55 indicators and determined that only 4 indicator tools addressed
environmental impacts at the micro or product level to some de-
gree.
Franklin-Johnson et al. (2016) argue that most of the existing
methods for CE assessment evaluate the burden of resource use
with respect to value. Instead, they suggest the longevity indicator
which measures material retention as a function of time, but on its
own has notable limitations particularly in terms of measuring the
environmental impacts of products.
Similarly, most circularity metrics have several limitations.
Firstly, there is a lack of empirical evidence to understand their
value or accuracy as they have only been applied to a very lim-
ited selection of products, and in many cases are limited in scope
e.g. to waste treatment options (CEIP). The CEPI is assessed based
on subjective questions. In their application, the metrics CEPI, Eco-
Fig. 3. Number of publications by system level per year (last date Dec 2019) efficient Value Ratio (EVR) (Sheepens et al. 2016) and Material Re-
utilisation Part (C2C, 2014) can involve extensive work, at similar
levels to LCA, to obtain data and perform calculations, but do not
relation for the scenario with maximum lifetime and reuse, where appear (apart from the CEPI) to robustly consider environmental
the circularity metrics showed lower benefits than were quantified impacts.
using LCA. They concluded that LCA methodologies are well placed
to quantify the environmental implications and that analysis us- 3.1.2. Assessment methodology
ing circularity indicators should be accompanied with LCA based There are several environmental assessment methods used
assessments. in the CE context at the product level including: footprint
There were four articles that identified, reviewed, and classi- based methodologies (carbon, water, material and ecological),
fied indicators into taxonomies (Corona et al., 2019; Moraga et al., energy/exergy based analysis, material/substance/chemical based
2019; Parchomenko et al., 2019; Saidani et al., 2019), with analysis, indicator analysis (sustainable process index, dissipation
Saidani et al. (2019) identifying 20 circularity metrics at the micro- Area Index, Sustainable Environmental Performance Indicator) and
level out of a total of 55. Parchmenko et al. (2019) reviewed 63 LCA (Elia et al., 2017; Saidani et al., 2019; Tanzer and Rech-
metrics but did not distinguish between system levels. However, berger, 2019; Tecchio et al., 2018).

Fig. 4. The number of papers in the micro section that employed different methodologies and approaches
 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186 177

LCA is broadly considered to be the most robust tool to use sions. It was estimated that rebound effects could be higher than
when assessing the environmental impacts of circular based prod- 100%, meaning the benefits of smartphone reuse could be lost due
uct design or system changes (Elia et al., 2017). The LCA papers to increases in the market size.
assessed a wide range of products, involving a wide range of CE Questionnaire-based surveys are also used in other studies
responses such as recycling, product life extension, reuse and re- to understand consumer behaviour and then model the envi-
manufacturing, and product-as-service systems. The studies offer ronmental implications. Farrant et al. (2010) based their LCA on
lessons on the consequences of circular based design changes and reusing second-hand clothes, estimating that the sale of 100 used
the application of LCA. Several studies are focussed on end-of-use clothes avoided the purchase of 60-85 new clothes. Meanwhile,
outcomes for a wide range of products including: photovoltaics re- Thomas (2011) attempts to establish a parameterized economic
cycling (A. dos Reis Benatto et al., 2017; Gallagher et al., 2019), tex- model of the individual consumer, to estimate that 0.7 new books
tile fibre reuse (Landi et al., 2018), plywood recycling (Jia et al., are saved for each reused book. Rieckhof and Guenther (2018) in-
2019) and wine bottle recycling or reuse (Landi et al., 2019). These tegrate LCA and material flow cost accounting to assess resource
studies highlight the importance of material collection and sorting productivity and both economic and environmental performance.
as a key determinant to realise the environmental benefit. Other Landi et al. (2018) complement LCA with cost-benefit anal-
studies note the importance of use-phase activities and aspects ysis (CBA), whilst Niero and Kalbar (2019) combine LCA
related to user decisions and behaviour for diverse products in- with the Material Reutilization Score and the MCI. Niero and
cluding: renewable energy systems (Gallagher et al., 2019) lighting Hauschild (2017) suggest a framework that combines LCA, the MCI
(Dzombak et al., 2019), incontinence products (Willskytt and Till- and life cycle sustainability framework. Each of these studies note
man, 2019), second-hand laptops (André et al., 2019), reuse of elec- some divergence between the assessment methodologies and em-
tric vehicle batteries (Cusenza et al., 2019), mobile phones in PSS phasize the importance of complementing singular circularity tools
(Barletta et al., 2018) and remanufactured printers (Krystofik and with other analyses.
Gaustad, 2018). In a review that included 14 environmental as-
sessment methods (discussed above), Lonca et al. (2018) concluded 3.2. Meso-level
that in addition to LCA, substance flow analysis also had a high
ranking, as did water footprint and material flow analysis. In total, 79 articles were initially identified and evaluated from
the meso-level. Of these, only 36 were included after reviewing the
3.1.3. Approach of modelling and temporal focus abstracts and applying the exclusion criteria.
Most studies follow an accounting and retrospective approach
that takes a current product or service and quantifies the environ-
mental performance or circularity, with only four comparing linear 3.2.1. Circularity approach and aim
and circular products. Eight papers use scenarios to model or com- Most of the meso-level studies focused on reviewing symbi-
pare product or system in a prospective approach. otic systems as methods to valorise materials and create circular
Lessons on the application of LCA focus on methodological processes between firms and urban systems. Nearly all mentioned
choices and approach to adapt the LCA to the defined con- some form of symbiotic development and contribution to the cir-
text of the CE. For example, assessing tidal energy devices, cular economy through by-product and utility exchanges, which
Walker et al. (2018) consider product parts to be reused within highlight extensive links to their resource and environmental im-
a 100-year service life as part of the foreground system but plications.
material recycling as part of the background system. Niero and
Olsen (2016), on the other hand, highlight the need to model 3.2.2. Assessment methodology
multiple life cycles, and recommend incorporating multiple co- The most commonly used environmental assessment method
functions within the definition of the functional unit. This is sup- was LCA, employed in 21 of the reviewed studies (see Fig 5).
ported by Oldfield et al (2018) who demonstrated differences in re- Most of the articles provide several environmental impact cate-
sults for waste handling, depending on the chosen functional unit. gories for sector- based assessments and industrial symbiosis net-
Consequential LCA is also used to assess the indirect conse- works employing LCA (Daddi et al., 2017; Deschamps et al., 2018;
quences of changes to the product and its associated system. Martin et al., 2019). Furthermore, there are several articles which
Pauer et al. (2019) extend a PEF-oriented (Product Environmen- are also limited to footprinting, that provide only limited assess-
tal Footprint; see (EC JRC, 2012)) LCA of food packaging by both ments of carbon footprints, water footprints and energy assess-
accounting for food losses that result from packaging failure and ments (Husgafvel et al., 2016; Kerdlap et al., 2020; Sun et al., 2017;
the circularity of the packaging (although the measure used is a Accorsi et al., 2015). From papers identified in the macro search
recycling rate). Kjaer et al. (2018a) assess product-service-systems but relevant here, Geng et al. (2012) notes that there are a lack
(PSS) including bike sharing and stress the importance of assess- of industrial and urban symbiosis indicators in the Chinese CE in-
ing the actual infrastructure requirements and data on consumer dicator set to evaluate material exchanges at both the industrial
behaviour. Data on these aspects is often a challenge to obtain park and regional levels. This seems to be true for other coun-
and absence of high-quality data is a large contributor to un- tries. For example, Zhou et al. (2019) used 13 indicators to eval-
certainty (see e.g. Kjaer et al. (2018b); Kaddoura et al. (2019)). uate iron and steel companies that focus on recycling. Similarly,
Zink and Geyer (2017) also highlight the importance of under- the approach of Li (2012) uses 14 indicators and an input-output
standing whether circular products displace the creation of addi- analysis table, which is insufficient to make it universally applica-
tional products and the associated raw materials. They postulate ble to many circular economy scenarios. Finally, in relation to the
that in many cases the refurbished or remanufactured products development of IS networks and eco-industrial parks, several au-
may create additional markets, e.g. in the developing economies, thors have developed frameworks for assessing the circularity of
and not lead to resource decoupling. This is supported by mod- the networks using complex modelling of the interactions and ma-
elling performed by Makov and Vivanco (2018) on potential re- terial exchanges, e.g. food web network assessments (Genc et al.,
bound effects of smartphone reuse. LCA was combined with sales 2019) and more qualitative approaches to understand the potential
statistics, consumer surveying, consumer demand modelling, and for circular development, see e.g. Zhao et al. (2018); Martin Gomez
environmentally extended input-output analysis to quantify the et al., 2018. Further details are provided in Fig 5 and Table S2 in
magnitude of this rebound effect measured in lifecycle GHG emis- the supplementary material.
178 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186

Fig. 5. Approaches and methodologies of the papers reviewed t the meso-level

The meso-level literature includes several circularity indica- compared with a reference system to review a linear system com-
tors to quantify and understand the implications of circular sys- pared to the circular, or symbiotic, system; see e.g. Martin (2015;
tem changes at the sectorial and industrial network level. Several 2020a), Mattila et al. (2012). Many of these review case stud-
studies also review the material flows for the IS networks and ies; both actual and theoretical. Nonetheless, several of the stud-
identify indicators for recycled content and “cyclicity” in the net- ies that develop frameworks and methods for assessing meso-level
works; see e.g. (Martin Gomez et al., 2018; Wen and Meng, 2015; symbiotic networks, do not address specific case studies; see e.g.
Sun et al., 2017). Besides MFA, these primarily include indicators Kerdlap et al. (2019) and Mattila et al. (2012). The majority were
related to resource efficiency and economic efficiency of the mate- found to be retrospective accounts of symbiotic development and
rial use with the different meso-level sectors. It was found that only one study was prospective anad considered future scenarios
studies develop and employ several different techniques for cir- (Martin et al., 2019).
cularity accounting, both for sectors and IS networks. For exam-
ple, van Ewijk et al. (2018) employ a recycled-input ratio (RIR) 3.3. Macro-level
to review the efficiency of material use and reuse in the global
paper sector to review the potential improvements from a base- Of the 248 papers identified at the macro-level, 56 are included
line (2012) and future scenarios for more circular use of materi- in this review. Of these 21 papers had high relevance to macro-
als and residual streams. Several studies from China review the level assessment of CE. The most common method of assessment
use of material efficiency indicators to understand the effects on was MFA which was used in 14 papers, whilst 8 used MRIO, 4 LCA
CE performance. Hu et al. (2017) employ the adjusted raw ma- and an additional 23 other methods. Other methods include as-
terial consumption (ARMC) indicator to ensure that upstream ef- sessments that use a range of indicators and multi-criteria type as-
ficiency measures and resource consumption (and scarcity) are sessments, system dynamic modelling, as well as those that calcu-
considered when reviewing the environmental implications of re- lated mass flows without a full MFA. Most of the identified papers
source consumption. Using the indicator, they also explore the at the macro-level have occurred within the last two years, with
rate of decoupling of resource consumption and economic growth 24 in the 2019/20 period and 17 of during 2018.
of an industrial symbiosis network in China. Similarly, Wen and
Meng (2015) employ a combined resource productivity (RP) indi-
3.3.1. Circularity approach and aim
cator with substance flow analysis (SFA) to evaluate the contri-
Fig. 6 shows that in contrast to the meso and micro papers, the
bution of an IS network to resource efficiency measures for sev-
focus at the macro-level is strongly on material flows and their
eral material and energy flows for circuit board production in the
circularity with 36 papers. Whilst 15 papers consider the environ-
network, namely copper, water and energy. Along similar lines,
mental implications at the macro-level. Papers covered either re-
Geng et al. (2012) provide input for the use of indicators to mea-
views of circularity indicators or used a range of data or indicators,
sure the national progress towards a CE in China. In accordance
multi-criteria type assessments, system dynamic modelling, as well
with the study by Wen and Meng (2015), they outline several re-
as those that calculated mass flows without a full MFA. Three pa-
source productivity indicators, although these are also combined
pers developed unified or composite indicators to assess urban re-
with economic, socio-economic and environmental indicators. They
gions, two in China (Guo et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2018) and one in
found that the indicators, while exhaustive and beneficial for mon-
Romania (Strat et al., 2018). Similarly, Huang (2015) combined eco-
itoring, may be hard to implement due to the need of standardized
efficiency indicators to analyse the development of CE activities be-
data collection, assessment and reporting systems required across
tween 20 0 0-2010 in Jiangxi Province. This analysis indicated that
different scales and stakeholders. Su et al. (2013) also address in-
the CE development followed the environmental Kuznets Curves,
dicators to monitor the progress towards a CE in China, also in-
indicating that the development had evolved from traditional lin-
cluding resource productivity, environmental, economic and social
ear economy, to end of pipe control, through to circular economy.
indicators. They also found the method to be promising and ap-
Wang et al. (2018) develop an “urban circular development in-
plied it to a specific region, though they also address the potential
dex” (UCDI) and apply it to 40 urban areas in China. This was
difficulties for implementation.
based on 17 indicators that cover resource productivity, through
to recovery and recycling rates of materials such as straw, water,
3.2.3. Approach of modelling and temporal focus silage, solid waste, biomass, MSW, restaurants. They also include
Most of the assessments review the potential environmental green building standard implementation rate and green product
and resource implications of symbiotic networks. These are often purchasing rate of government. These are then weighted to pro-
 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186 179

Fig. 6. Approaches and methodologies of the papers reviewed at the macro-level

vide an overall UCDI. The aggregation of such disparate indica- consumption, waste management, secondary raw materials and
tors seems somewhat arbitrary and indicators such as green prod- competitiveness and innovation (European Commission, 2019) are
uct purchases and green buildings are difficult to measure. This is similar in scope and approach to those of China (Geng et al., 2012).
performed for 2012, 2014 and 2016, and the paper suggests that In fact the material based European indicators have some noted
an improvement in the indicator over this short period suggests limitations including: (1) that the data may not be available, (2)
a movement towards CE. Some correlation was found between weight does not reflect environmental impacts, and (3) they do
UDCI, urban types and economic development, but little relation- not measure reduction or prevention (EASAC, 2016; Geng et al.,
ship with industrial structure. 2012). In addition, Fig. 7 provides a life cycle view of the indica-
In a similar method, Guo et al. (2017) develops a unified tors, demonstrating that there are no use phase indicators.
indicator from 14 circular indicators in the areas of resource Overall, the national frameworks use standard and broad per-
consumption intensity, waste emission intensity, waste recycling formance indicators that miss important elements of the circu-
and utilization rate and waste disposal level. This is applied to lar economy such as stock, reuse, remanufacturing and refurbish-
four mega cities of China, with each city at different develop- ment. In addition, the related economy that supports the CE such
ment stages towards CE and Beijing and Urumqi performing best as spare parts for transport and machinery is not considered or
across the four indicators. Strat et al. (2018) develop a com- quantified.
posite indicator based on six-dimensional indicator and 16 vari-
ables and applies it to Romania to identify regions with high CE 3.3.2. Assessment methodology
potential. Assessment methods that address environmental impacts at
Focussing on the iron and steel sector of the Wu’an region the macro-level include LCA, footprint methods or multi-regional
Ma et al. (2014) utilise resource energy consumption indicators input-output (MRIO). Research within the MRIO field has steadily
and data to develop a circular economy efficiency composite in- increased with several global environmentally extended (EE-MRIO)
dex (CEECI). Meanwhile, Adibi et al. (2017) develop a Global Re- models emerging such as Eora, EXIOBASE (Tukker et al., 2013),
source Index, a type of LCA characterisation factor and apply it to GTAP (Peters et al., 2011) and WIOD (Timmer et al., 2012). In terms
wind turbines. Helander et al. (2019) review ten circularity indica- of the CE literature, EXIOBASE is the dominant database, utilised in
tors which are primarily related to the micro-level. They note the six out of eight papers identified. This has been used to assess the
disparity between measuring environmental pressures and envi- global waste generation/ recovery, stock depletion and the circu-
ronmental impacts or consequences, as discussed by Verones et al. larity gap (Aguilar-Hernandez et al., 2019; Tisserant et al., 2017).
(2017). Further, they argue that measuring pressures, such as Aguilar-Hernandez et al., (2019) demonstrated the ability of MRIO
resource-based footprints, are necessary to monitor the CE but are analysis to quantify the global and regional material flows to assess
insufficient when applied alone. the quantity of material that is recycled.
Macro-level monitoring frameworks for the CE have been MFA was used at all levels from city, nation and through to
introduced in China, France, the Netherlands and at EU level global estimates of flows. At the global level (Haas et al., 2015)
(Alaerts et al., 2019; Geng et al., 2012; Potting et al., 2017). There estimated global material input flows in 2005 to be 58 Gt/yr
are few attempts at reviewing the national frameworks, with lim- of extracted raw materials and 4 Gt/yr of recycled materials.
ited critical reviews. Whilst three earlier papers reviewed the CE The recycled materials in total processed materials was estimated
indicators systems of China (Geng et al., 2012; Geng et al., 2013; at only 6%. The EU recycling system was already advanced in
Su et al., 2013), none of the identified literature critically reviewed 2005, with 41% of end-of-life (EoL) material recycled compared
the European, French or Netherlands frameworks. to a global average of 28%, however, total EoL material is al-
All national frameworks include macro indicators on flows of ready much higher than globally (Haas et al., 2015). This agrees
materials, waste and recycling such as Domestic Material Con- with Wiedenhofer et al. (2019) who found that the share of sec-
sumption (DMC) which measures the total quantity of materials ondary recycled materials in the total global inflows was around
used within an economic system, excluding indirect flows and To- 6%. This compares with an estimated 19% circular for the UK in
tal Material Consumption (TMC) (EASAC 2016). These build on re- 2010 (WRAP, 2018). Japan has a reported a recycling rate of 98%
source productivity and material flow statistics compiled by most for metals from electrical appliances (MOEJ, 2010). Meanwhile, De
European statistical offices. The ten circular economy key indica- Witt et al. (2019) estimate that the world is only 9% circular in its
tors of the EU utilise existing statistics to cover: production and use of materials.
180 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186

Fig. 7. A life cycle view of the EU’s circular economy indicators showing a void for the use phase

The remaining MFA literature covered a disparate range of top- prints Tisserant et al. (2017). Only two studies considered the links
ics from examining national flows of Austria (Jacobi et al., 2018), between the systems levels. Alaerts et al. (2019) introduces the so-
city material flows (Lee et al., 2016; Zeller et al., 2019), regional cietal needs framework to link the micro and macro-level, as dis-
flows (Virtanen et al., 2019), toxic in plastics (Leslie et al., 2016), cussed above, and Cheng et al. (2019) developed a hybrid mate-
phosphorus flows in Austria (Mehr et al., 2018), global paper flows rial flow analysis methodology to evaluate annual material addi-
(van Ewijk et al., 2018), through to metals flows and indium stocks tions to the societal stock at both micro and macro levels. The hy-
of Australia (Golev and Corder, 2016; Werner et al., 2018). Whilst brid method combines input-output tables with fixed capital for-
these papers demonstrate the ability of MFA to account for mate- mation data and was shown to be an efficient way to estimate ad-
rial flows, they provide few lessons for circularity monitoring and ditions to the material stock for construction materials Taiwan and
the use of indicators. Nonetheless, Virtanen et al. (2019) exam- Germany.
ine flows of phosphorous, plastics, textiles, waste wood and ash,
in the Päijät-Häme region of Finland and propose the following 4. Discussion
regional indicators as a foundation: material circulation to mate-
rial or energy use; material circulation to material use and ma- The literature review of environmental assessment methods of
terial circulation in the region. However, they note the difficul- the CE has identified several lessons across and between the sys-
ties of obtaining enough data at the regional level. The literature tems levels. In Section 4.1 we provide an overview of the findings.
points to the importance of stocks of materials in measuring and Section 4.2 then builds on this to discuss how CE can be linked to
tracking the CE with Haas et al. (2015) noting large flows into and environmental impact and how the system levels can be linked for
out of global stock of 26 GT/yr and 9 GT respectively. Meanwhile, assessment and monitoring.
Helander et al. (2019) found only one indicator that addressed
stocks.
4.1. Environmental Assessment and Circular Indicators at the Micro,
Meso and Macro-Levels
3.3.3. Approach of modelling and temporal focus
At the macro-level, MFA approaches dominate together with At the micro-level, LCA is the predominant environmental as-
MRIO, and are primarily used for accounting of existing material sessment method employed to review product-level environmental
flow quantities in 28 retrospective studies. Recently (2019) stud- impacts of circular approaches. Furthermore, the highlighted an ex-
ies have become more prospective with 8 studies and have utilised cess of 20 circularity indicators and tools that have been developed
EXIOBASE for modelling and quantification of future scenarios. This and employed at the product-level. However, few studies compared
includes the implications of global CE strategies of product life ex- the correlation between circularity indicators or tools and envi-
tension and resource efficiency (Donati et al., 2020; Wiebe et al., ronmental implications e.g. using LCA. The few that did, such as
2019), CE scenarios for Belgium (Geerken et al., 2019) and the Lonca et al (2018) did show some correlation, but there were ex-
city of Brussels (Christis et al., 2019). The scenario analysis indi- amples such as maximising product lifetime and reuse where the
cated that global CE strategies could result in reductions of 10- circularity indicators measured less benefits than were shown with
12.5% in material extraction and 10.1% GWP (Donati et al., 2020; LCA.
Wiebe et al., 2019). Whilst the city of Brussels could reduce its Some circularity indicators also require considerable data input
material footprint by 10-26% and its carbon footprint by 7-25% for (e.g. the PCI, Linder et al., 2017). Many tools also have limited ap-
food housing and transport (Christis et al., 2019). Most focussed plications, such as for waste quality and treatment options (e.g. the
on the accounting of singular materials or aspects of the life cy- CEPI, (Huysman et al., 2017)). While these provide results, which
cle such as plastic recycling (Liu et al., 2018) or global waste foot- are important for the product-level, Pauliuk (2018) states, if CE
 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186 181

strategies are not monitored from a systems perspective, there is 4.2. Linking circularity across systems levels and to the earth system
a risk that organisations will cherry-pick from a pool of CE indica-
tors to provide suitable results for their own needs and marketing. 4.2.1. Linking Circularity Indicators and Environmental Impacts
Similar assertions have been proposed for environmental footprint- Whilst the literature provides some comparison between circu-
ing strategies that “advance an understanding of sustainability that larity indicators with environmental impacts at the product level
suits their own bottom-line interests” ((Freidberg, 2014) pg 179). (Niero and Kalbar, 2019; Walker et al., 2018), similar compara-
In some cases, there is no doubt that the indicators or tools can tive research at the meso (including sector) or macro-level was
be useful for non-experts as a proxy indicator to aid design, but virtually non-existent (although Wiebe et al. (2019) modelled CE
further research is needed to understand and provide guidelines changes at the macro-level). In other words, several mass flow in-
on the circumstances where they are appropriate to use. Previ- dicators are proposed or used at the meso and macro-levels, but
ous research has also suggested that while circular business mod- there is little research (or knowledge) on the correlation with en-
els are highlighted as being sustainable, few review the sustain- vironmental impact.
ability of these (Bocken et al., 2018; Tukker and Tischner, 2006; To effectively track progress to a CE, it is necessary to under-
Kjaer et al, 2016; Tukker, 2015). stand the link between quantification using circularity indicators
There is less literature that addresses the environmental impli- and environmental impacts to avoid potential burden-shifting. For
cations of the CE at the meso-level. From the reviewed articles, the example, quantifying only value or mass does not reflect the en-
results suggest that LCA, MFA and other footprint methodologies vironmental impacts, because a lower mass of materials in prod-
are commonly utilised to explore the environmental performance ucts does not correlate to less environmental impact if the new
and resource savings through circularity measures of sectoral and materials are more toxic or damaging across the life cycle. The lit-
industrial symbiosis network assessments. These results are simi- erature also suggests that the existing indicators and assessments
lar to findings in e.g. Martin (2020b), Chertow and Park (2016) and are unable to fully measure or capture the CE performance or
Aissani et al. (2019). Many of the studies identified cover a range potential rebound effects (Franklin-Johnson et al., 2016; Zink and
of different environmental impacts on the meso-level, in order Geyer, 2017) and a set of indicators are needed to monitor the
to cover primarily direct environmental implications, though sev- transition to the CE (Moraga et al., 2019). There were few stud-
eral articles have reviewed the indirect impacts of meso-level ies that discussed or quantified potential rebound effects with
changes on other system levels (see e.g. Røyne et al. (2015); Makov and Vivanco (2018) being the only study that modelled and
Mattila et al. (2012)). Furthermore, while much of the available quantified the potential rebound effects of smartphone reuse. This
meso-level literature focuses on the IS network as the object of was based on consumer data and suggested that reuse may have
analysis, few studies have reviewed the broader sector level impli- almost 100% rebound.
cations of resource efficiency and environmental performance ben- Nonetheless, there are important limitations to consider with
efits from IS networks; see e.g. (Geng et al., 2012; Mattila et al., scientific understanding of the how pressures link to consequences.
2012; van Ewijk et al., 2018). Despite this, a few studies highlight In other words, there has been limited attempts to link pressures
the necessity for sectoral implications to track the progress toward to the state of the environment to enable accurate assessment of
a CE. van Ewijk et al. (2018) suggest an approach to link sectoral the consequences of environmental consumption (Smeets and We-
level circularity indicators to progress toward a circular economy. terings, 1999). This has ramifications for environmental assessment
Furthermore, there are examples of monitoring industrial parks or methodologies and results in most studies, applying e.g. LCA, foot-
regions in China (Geng et al., 2012; Mattila et al., 2012), related to prints or MRIO models, to report only on pressures (midpoint).
the national programs to monitor the implications of circular ap- This is due to the added uncertainty that endpoint indicators
proaches, such as industrial symbiosis. add to an assessment. Therefore, it is clear that more research is
At the macro-level, the focus is on improving material circu- needed so that future environmental assessment of sustainability
larity and resource productivity, based on aggregated indicators, and CE can incorporate environmental consequences and thresh-
but the approach fails to address environmental impacts. There olds (to define limits to consumption for which we must operate
appears to be limited understanding of the status of the exist- within) to optimise the transition, to a CE (Alaerts et al., 2019;
ing CE within nations, and national frameworks do not cover Helander et al., 2019; Verones et al., 2017).
stocks or the societal/use phase. Several papers highlight this Despite the current limitations, some studies suggest that re-
and suggest including indicators on aspects of this, including: source footprints (energy, water, land and materials) are good
stocks (Aguilar-Hernandez et al., 2019; Graedel, 2019), longevity proxies for environmental damage (Steinmann et al., 2017) as
(Franklin-Johnson et al., 2016), in-use stock growth and useful ser- they account for 82% of the variance in product rankings
vice lifetime of materials (Pauliuk, 2018). In addition, as a crit- (Steinmann et al., 2016). Similarly, from 135 impact LCA indica-
ical part of the CE, knowledge on the extent of the inner-loops tors, Steinmann et al. (2016) concluded that 92% of variance could
(e.g. reuse, repair, refurbishment and remanufacturing) is required. be covered by a set of six indicators: climate change, ozone de-
For instance, the EC estimated that reuse and recycling activities pletion, the combined effects of acidification and eutrophication,
are associated with 3.9 million jobs, but those related to rent- terrestrial ecotoxicity, marine ecotoxicity, and land use. It might
ing, leasing or spare parts and repair industries are not included therefore be possible to utilise footprints (as has been suggested
(European Commission, 2018b). At the city level, there are few ar- in the EU’s Resource-efficiency roadmap a ‘dashboard of indicators’
ticles that address circularity apart from recycling. Nonetheless, in for CE monitoring (EC, 2011). However, tracking these elements, as
the wider literature there are increasing numbers of papers that in LCA results, merely provides relative results – whereas the abso-
provide detailed environmental impact and footprint analysis, see lute requirements for the product, region, sector or nation are still
e.g. Harris et al. (2020). largely missing. A next step is to define limits or thresholds which
Finally, there are very few articles that discuss or examine the should not be crossed, which for instance we have at a global level
link between the system levels, particularly its environmental as- for GHG emissions.
sessment. Of note is the paper of Alaerts et al. (2019) that suggests One possible solution for this lies in the framework provided
societal functions as a framework to bridge the micro and macro, by the Planetary Boundaries that proposes a Safe Operating Space,
and Tanzer et al. (2019) who develop a conceptual generic frame- developed by Rockström et al. (2009) and Steffen et al. (2015).
work to link MFA assessment at different system levels. This is fur- The Planetary Boundaries framework essentially identifies pro-
ther discussed in the next section. cesses that are essential for maintaining the earth system in its
182 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186

current Holocene like state (Ryberg et al., 2016). Thresholds are from a product (ownership) perspective to a functional perspec-
defined for each of the boundaries which if exceeded would re- tive, which is how LCA already operates with its functional unit.
sult in significant change to the state of the earth system, e.g. im- Furthermore, a focus on societal needs systems aligns with the aim
pacting significantly on biodiversity. Linking the planetary bound- of circular business models and reflects the cross-sectoral nature
aries to methodologies such as LCA has several challenges to over- of consumption (Alaerts et al., 2019). Potentially this also may help
come which may require significant research (Clift et al., 2017; provide a foundation for tracking and monitoring the CE, which is
Ryberg et al., 2016). In LCA terms, the planetary boundaries can discussed in the next section.
be viewed as the final step in the hierarchy of impact types from
midpoint, endpoint and finally to the Holocene (protection). Re- 4.2.3. Tracking, future research and outlook
cently, several studies have attempted to merge LCA with the Plan- Following the above sections, we suggest that both circularity
etary Boundaries, illustrating a promising potential to set limits on and environmental indicators are required to monitor the transi-
environmental damage and tracking progress (Anders et al., 2020; tion to the CE and that there are already existing methodologies
Sala et al., 2016; Sala and Goralczyk, 2013; Sandin et al., 2015). available. At the micro-level, LCA provides the most robust method.
A further method of interest is the work of the EU’s Joint Re- Currently mid-point indicators, such as global warming or acidifi-
search Centre (JRC) linking trade data of the mass flow in the cation, are the most appropriate to assess products (EC JRC, 2010).
European economy to LCA databases of representative products The indicators need to be tailored for the product and their use
(Benini et al., 2014; Corrado et al., 2020). This is based on the motivated, e.g. depending on whether certain factors such as tox-
mass of products and consumption impacts, thereby being a poten- icity, or eutrophication, etc, are a concern. This can be supported
tial physical, mass-based alternative to the economic-based MRIO with CI indicators based on value or mass, which can be used as
models. proxy indicators to environmental impact, when knowledge of en-
vironmental impacts is known through LCA.
4.2.2. Linking CE assessment across system levels The macro-scale may be monitored using MRIO databases such
As previously discussed, it is recognised that there is a need as EXIOBASE to track consumption footprints. Such a framework
to link and understand the interactions of the circular economy at is developing for instance in Sweden to monitor impacts of con-
the different system levels, the literature for which is still in its sumption (Fauré et al., 2019; Palm et al., 2019). Despite the de-
infancy (Arnsperger and Bourg, 2016; Saidani et al., 2017). Specif- lay in economic data and the age of the databases (e.g. EXIOBASE
ically, there is a gap between the micro and macro-levels. Whilst is developed from 2011 global data) it offers one of the most
micro-level assessments measure product performance there is ar- robust methods to understand the full footprint impacts of na-
guably no established method to understand or track the environ- tional consumption, and can be coupled with more up to date na-
mental consequences at the macro or societal level. The meso-level tional tables for an improved analysis. MRIO analysis can be in
can potentially offer a bridge between the two levels, but currently the form of material footprints but also ILCD type indicators to
the meso is considered as industrial symbiosis, which is not con- match LCA at the micro-level, or even biodiversity footprints (see
ducive to linking the analysis or monitoring from micro to macro. e.g. Marquardt et al. (2019)) and potentially linked to the Planetary
The meso-level analysis also highlighted that few studies exam- Boundaries. Nonetheless, there are currently notable uncertainties
ine the connection between IS networks and micro or macro-level with environmentally extended MRIO as it applies environmental
implications. However, there were several articles in the literature pressures from micro-level assessments using relatively rudimen-
which extend meso-level indicators to macro-level. This includes tary assumptions to address macro-level environmental implica-
examples from China which employ and use meso-level indicators tions (Stadler et al., 2018); calling for further improvements and
for both meso and macro-level monitoring of progress toward the transparency in the micro-level environmental impact data em-
CE (Geng et al., 2012; Su et al., 2013), as well as studies on sectoral ployed.
circularity to measure progress (van Ewijk et al., 2018). However, As discussed above, a societal functions framework can pro-
little focus has been placed on connecting meso-level systems (i.e. vide a crucial link between product and macro systems. Monitoring
industrial symbiosis networks or sectoral changes) to implications here can provide a timelier basis to track progress and policy re-
at the product (micro) level; an assertion also highlighted in pre- sponses than the macro-level. MRIO databases (e.g. Exiobase) may
vious studies, see e.g. Martin (2015). Only recently has literature also be manipulated to provide footprints per societal (as demon-
emerged which reviews and highlights the improved life cycle per- strated by de Witt et al, 2019). At the societal functions level, this
formance of products that can result from industrial symbiosis; see additional monitoring could focus on key representative products
e.g. Martin (2015); Martin (2020a); Martin and Harris (2018). that are linked to the societal functions, e.g. those representing the
A potential framework to link assessments, understand interac- most important by mass, economy or total environmental impact.
tions between the systems levels and environmental pressures is Finally, there is a need to track and understand the inner-loops (in-
that of the societal functions or needs. Similar frameworks have cluding spare parts) in terms of the recirculation value and the
been proposed in the past in the sustainable production and con- contribution to reducing material use and environmental impact.
sumption literature (de Wit et al., 2018; OECD, 2018; UNEP, 2002). Knowledge on stocks of products and components would also in-
Alaerts et al. (2019) and de Wit et al. (2018) used a framework crease knowledge of the availability of materials and planning for
that divided products and services into seven societal needs for when materials may be made available for recycling etc.
CE purposes: housing, nutrition, mobility, consumables, services, As both CE and societal needs evolve, this framework could
healthcare, and communication. By categorising products and ser- enable tracking of interactions between functions. For example,
vices into these societal functions, it provides a link between mi- teleworking can reduce mobility impacts but may increase in-
cro and macro-levels. The aim being to reduce environmental im- dividual use of materials and impacts from energy consumption
pact whilst still providing adequate function. Ultimately, the frame- (Nakanishi, 2015). Similarly, web-based movies reduce transport
work can also help to set limits or thresholds to the environmental to video stores, but now account for 1% of global GHG emis-
impact of each societal function (e.g. as has been attempted with sions (The Shift Project, 2019). Building on this in the future, re-
GHG emissions with the Paris Agreement 2015). search should seek to link the circular economy and its monitoring
Importantly, it allows a functional approach across the sys- to environmental consequences frameworks such as the Planetary
tem levels, which is critical to provide consistency in assessment Boundaries (Anders et al., 2020; Steffen et al., 2015). This would
methodologies. For example, at the micro-level, it helps to move provide yearly information on progress to staying within those lim-
 S. Harris, M. Martin and D. Diener / Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 172–186 183

its and which sectors or societal functions efforts should be fo- Aguilar-Hernandez, G.A., Sigüenza-Sanchez, C.P., Donati, F., Merciai, S., Schmidt, J.,
cussed upon. Rodrigues, J.F.D., Tukker, A., 2019. The circularity gap of nations: A multiregional
analysis of waste generation, recovery, and stock depletion in 2011, p. 151.
Aissani, L., Lacassagne, A., Bahers, J.-B., Féon, S.L., 2019. Life cycle assessment of in-
5. Conclusions dustrial symbiosis: A critical review of relevant reference scenarios. Journal of
Industrial Ecology 23 (4), 972–985.
Alaerts, L., Van Acker, K., Rousseau, S., De Jaeger, S., Moraga, G., Dewulf, J., De
The CE literature has grown exponentially within the last Meester, S., Van Passel, S., Compernolle, T., Bachus, K., Vrancken, K., Eyckmans, J.,
decade. However, this review has highlighted the lack of studies 2019. Towards a more direct policy feedback in circular economy monitoring via
within the CE literature, that compare circularity indicators (using a societal needs perspective, 149, pp. 363–371.
Anders, B., Chanjief, C., Anne-Marie, B., Gabor, D., Kai, F., Natacha, G., Michael
mass or value) with environmental implications or link the sys- Zwicky, H., Annemarie, K., Henry, K., Manuele, M., Sarah, M., Carina, M.,
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ropean Union. Journal of Cleaner Production 246, 118954.
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tric vehicle batteries in buildings: An integrated load match analysis and life
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