Specifically,
Circulus
asks how the circular economy is discursively constructed in Germany, Europe, and beyond and what material change processes are
connected to it. To achieve integrated insights into political, economic, and societal change processes, the group combines perspectives from political science, sociology, management, economics,
and engineering/industrial ecology.
To integrate the different dimensions of transformation, the project takes on a constructivist systems
approach
linking the distinct
work packages
.
The project’s major objectives include:
-
Map the diverse visions and definitions of a circular economy on the national and international level and identify complementarities and
contradictions across the visions of policy makers, industry, and civil society;
-
Identify policy makers, industry representatives, and civil society actors driving circular economy initiatives and assess their concepts, underlying
assumptions and strategies to achieve change;
-
Carry out case studies on currently transforming supply chains to identify opportunities and constraints to change as well as potential tensions and
trade-offs between different sustainability dimensions in closed loop supply chains;
-
Carry out life cycle assessments and comparative analyses of environmental performance of selected case studies to scientifically assess dominant
assumptions about beneficial resources, products and production processes;
-
Use the generated insights with specific supply chains and innovations to model potential
transition paths
of global supply chains in a circular economy to quantify potential changes in socio-environmental impacts of global supply chains and assess to what extent particular socio-environmental
benefits expected by political and economic actors could potentially be realized;
-
Show whether and where political visions and governance initiatives link to
current product and process
innovations and shifting global supply chains across different industry sectors
;
-
Specify
opportunities and constraints of governance frameworks aiming to promote industry
innovations for a sustainable circular economy.
The results will serve to
identify complementarities and contradictions across the visions of policy
makers, industry, and civil society in different countries and across different industry sectors. It will further assess whether and how these visions are connected to
current material and supply chain transformations across different industry sectors. Based on these insights, the group will
o
utline
possible governance strategies to foster
opportunities for
a sustainable circular economy.
