The Circular Economy
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A For the present account of the circular economy, a circular economy aims to keep products and materials useful for longer and reduce waste and extraction. In industrial ecology, the term closed loop refers to a system in which recovered material returns to the same or a similar product cycle. The definition gives researchers a common starting point for discussing the circular economy, but it does not identify a cause by itself. Two observations of the circular economy can share the label closed loop while differing in scale, timing or origin. B Researchers rely chiefly on material flow analysis to investigate the circular economy. Research on the circular economy has found that analysts trace physical inputs, stocks, reuse, recycling, losses and energy across a defined system. They decide their comparison, exclusions and outcome measures for the circular economy in advance. A result about the circular economy is treated as stronger when it survives more than one source of evidence, not simply when one instrument measuring the circular economy reports many decimal places. C The evidence about the circular economy is informative but conditional. One point relevant to the circular economy is that repair and reuse often preserve more value than recycling, but actual benefit depends on displacement of new production. Researchers test product life extension as an explanation. Evidence reviewed for the circular economy shows that maintenance, repair and upgrading delay replacement and retain the energy already invested in a product. Confidence in product life extension rises when independent measures of the circular economy agree and rival explanations fail, rather than when a single comparison happens to be statistically precise. D Knowledge of the circular economy accumulated unevenly across product design and material systems. A striking report could establish that a pattern existed, yet it could not show whether product life extension operated elsewhere. Researchers examining the circular economy therefore moved toward shared definitions and planned comparisons based on material flow analysis rather than discarding the earlier record. E Practical programmes translate evidence about the circular economy into action. The discussion of the circular economy notes that businesses redesign products, services and recovery systems while policy addresses durability and right to repair. Their stated focus is resource reduction. Teams working on the circular economy compare later outcomes with conditions before implementation and record unintended effects. This evaluation of the circular economy determines whether the original explanation involving product life extension remains useful outside the research setting. F Interpretation of the circular economy must stop short of a universal claim. For the present account of the circular economy, a recycled material can still support rising total consumption, and circular claims may ignore transport, energy or toxic additives. Future work on the circular economy is organised around absolute resource accounts. For future research on the circular economy, absolute resource accounts will test whether circular initiatives reduce total extraction and environmental pressure. This use of absolute resource accounts targets a specific uncertainty about the circular economy rather than merely increasing the volume of data.