Sustainability impact of selected circular economy initiatives

The desire for a circular economy (CE) is high on many political agendas, among else within China (Ghisellini et al., 2016) and Europe (Kalmykova et al., 2018). This is also the case for Luxembourg, having launched a nation-wide circular economy strategy (Schosseler et al., 2021). One of the most prominent economic sectors of Luxembourg and where CE plays a major role, is the construction sector. In particular, plastics used in construction may be eligible for recycling and are a considerable source of plastic waste practices, according to the European Commission (2018a). However, CE is not a guaranteed better option sustainability-wise and its drivers may be more stakeholder dependent or geopolitical of nature. Analysis and guidance is needed (Schaubroeck, 2020). To improve sustainability assessment of CE-initiatives, a lot of attention has been paid to the modelling of loops that are often at the core of these initiatives. Life cycle methods that cover the associated process chains are key (Schaubroeck et al., 2021). For a quick overview on the types of life cycle methods and their coverage see figure 1. CIRCUSTAIN will innovatively focus on 'Evaluating the impact of circular economy initiatives on all three sustainability pillars through integrated life cycle sustainability assessment', with cases on PVC plastic construction materials. Such a broad focus is underscored in the Luxembourgish CE strategy report (Schosseler et al., 2021), where it is stressed to look at all three pillars. A first key advancement of CIRCUSTAIN is the assessment of the social pillar of sustainability, in addition to the economic and environmental one, over a life cycle perspective. In particular, CE-initiatives are commonly considered to be more labour intensive, in particular in the services and waste management sector due to additional processes e.g. repair, transport & logistic, sorting, recycling etc. (European Commission, 2018b; Schosseler et al., 2021). One of the attractive aspects of CE is then also job creation, especially locally. Latter Commission report points out a net increase of 700 000 jobs at EU level, and that there would be significant shifts in sectors. Besides evaluation the job potential, social issues related with these should as well be evaluated, e.g. fair wage (UNEP, 2020). There are other types of social issues at play as well related to other stakeholders, but in this project we would mainly focus on the labour-related ones.