Policy case

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Impact on the quantity or quality of jobs, and shifts in the labour market

Jobs

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Providing public and private education and support services at any level or for any profession, and governmental and public administration services, including judicial, regulatory, and legislative activities, taxation, defence, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and the administration of government programmes

Education and Government Services

Collecting waste from households and businesses by means of refuse bins, wheeled bins, containers, etc., and providing treatment, incineration, materials recovery and reclamation, and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Waste Management

Consider opportunities to create greater value and align incentives that build on the interaction between products and services

Rethink the business model

Deliver services through business models that ensure maximum value

Service business models

Using materials that can be easily reused or recycled after use

Reusable, recyclable materials and inputs

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

Metrics and indicators to measure progress

Institutional design to enable circularity

Advocate for circular change

Legislation

Bans

Economic Frameworks

Impacts

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Industries

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A framework of policy instruments that enabled and encourage the transition to the circular economy

Policies

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A framework of policy instruments that enable and stimulate the transition to the circular economy

The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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The transition towards a circular economy is a key project of the ecological and social transition. The linear model — producing, consuming, discarding — is inevitably leading us towards the depletion of the planet's resources.
We must move towards a different type of economy, where we consume in moderation, where products have a longer lifetime, where we limit waste, and where we are able to transform waste into new resources.
This transition is a genuine societal project whose aim is to move away from the throw-away society. It invites us to change the way we lead our lives and to invent new and more sustainable production and consumption methods. The French roadmap includes four key priority areas: better production, better consumption, better waste management, and engaging all stakeholders.


  The transition towards a circular economy is a key project of the ecological and social transition in France. The situation is clear: France has a long way to go to make progress in the circular Economy. In 2014, the rate of recovery of household and similar waste was 39% - much lower than in Germany (65%) or Belgium (50%). The rest, half of which is organic waste, is therefore incinerated or landfilled, which leads to local environmental pollution and energy waste that is incompatible with the French climate objectives.
With regard to improve waste management the key objectives are the following:

Aim to collect 100% of recyclable waste.
Make the sorting of waste much easier for French citizens.
Take biowaste out of bins, as this form of waste amounts to 22 million tonnes that can be recovered.
Accelerate the introduction of pricing incentives for waste management.
Ensure that companies and government agencies that produce large quantities of waste meet their obligations with regards to sorting the five most easily recyclable types of waste: metal, paper, wood, plastic and glass.
For construction waste: set sorting and recycling targets during demolitions but also during the construction phase.

For achieving these objectives 50 measures for a 100% circular economy are proposed. In relation to better management of biowaste the following measures are foreseen:
Facilitate the development of biowaste sorting by local authorities.

This will result, in particular, for local authorities that to wish, in the adoption of a two-stage biowaste source sorting implementation plan. A first step that aims to temporarily ensure the collection of biowaste comparable to household biowaste (restaurants, community canteens, etc.). Then a second step to roll out this source sorting to household biowaste.

Recovery of all quality biowaste and enabling the agricultural sector to drive the circular economy.

Strengthen the existing standards for recycled based fertilizers and take care not to degrade the value created thanks to sorting by mixing uncontaminated organic matter (raw or sorted at source) with lower quality biowaste.
Encourage the use of fertilizers from renewable resources in agricultural production, the development of the procedure to remove the waste status of fertilizers produced from high-quality recycling processes, and the revision of the display and labelling of fertilizers and crop boosters to better highlight agronomic qualities, origin and process of composts and digestates from the circular economy compared to other forms of fertilizers.

You can access the Roadmap for a Circular Economy here.
	


France

Ministry for Ecological and Solidary Transition

<p>The transition towards a circular economy is a key project of the ecological and social transition. In order to achieve this transition and move away from the throw-away society, France developed a Circular Economy Roadmap. The document charts a path for rapid progress towards the ambitious goals of the Climate Plan in matters relating to the circular economy. It includes 50 measures for a 100% circular economy, divided into four key priority areas: better production, better consumption, better waste management, and engaging all stakeholders.</p>