Macro-level assessment of environmental implications of changes to PSS/circularity (ESR 13)

How to ensure economic and environment benefits of transition toward circular economy?

It is broadly recognized that a circular economy will encourage economic and environmental improvements. However, there is a lack of understanding to how the transition towards a circular economy could generate such environmental benefits, an example of such a benefit being the improvement of resource use and reduction of carbon emissions. In particular, the impacts of circularity implementation at a macro-scale (i.e. national/ regional level) are unknown in terms of how much these would affect the global system. From an industrial ecology perspective, we count with a set of analytical tools that allows us to assess the environmental impacts of these strategies. This research aims to apply a multi-regional environmental extended input-output model to explore the circular economy model and evaluate the environmental effects of implementing circularity strategies  at macro-level. This will contribute to a broad understanding on what are the major economic sectors and their environmental impacts to be considered at the time of establishing a circular business model nationally or regionally.

Researcher:
Glenn Aguilar Hernandez
Ph.D. Candidate
Leiden University, Faculty of Science, Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Department of Industrial Ecology

Email:
g.aguilar@cml.leidenuniv.nl
Tel:
+31-71-527 5557

Supervisor & Promotor:
Prof.dr. Arnold Tukker
Scientific Director & Professor of Industrial Ecology, Leiden University, Faculty of Science, Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML)

Email:
tukker@cml.leidenuniv.nl