Promoting the circular economy (CE) increasingly draws on regional approaches. But in particular the potentially supportive role of regionally provided innovations requires more exploration. This paper suggests an expanded categorization of innovation demands for the regional CE and integrates them into an enriched conceptualization of the challenge-oriented regional innovation system (CORIS). How the proposed framework can guide regional analysis and strategy building is then illustrated by the empirical case study of the German ‘Circular City’ Aachen. Structuring obtained information according to CORIS components reveals which requirements are met, but also which innovation deficiencies should be tackled locally.
{"title":"How can a regional innovation system meet circular economy challenges? Conceptualization and empirical insights from Germany","authors":"Martina Fromhold-Eisebith","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae024","url":null,"abstract":"Promoting the circular economy (CE) increasingly draws on regional approaches. But in particular the potentially supportive role of regionally provided innovations requires more exploration. This paper suggests an expanded categorization of innovation demands for the regional CE and integrates them into an enriched conceptualization of the challenge-oriented regional innovation system (CORIS). How the proposed framework can guide regional analysis and strategy building is then illustrated by the empirical case study of the German ‘Circular City’ Aachen. Structuring obtained information according to CORIS components reveals which requirements are met, but also which innovation deficiencies should be tackled locally.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"160 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141730490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Matthew Thompson, Charlotte Cator, David Beel, Ian Rees Jones, Martin Jones, Kevin Morgan
This article conceptualises the circular economy as a space of immaterial, as well as material, metabolic flows mediated by capitalism and planetary urbanisation. World-ecology provides us with the critical lens to view the circular economy as part of an emergent regime of accumulation that may supersede neoliberalism. However, if each regime entails new frontier zones for appropriating cheap natures and dumping wastes, then the circular economy—as a strategy for revalorising waste—presents a possible structural limit to capitalism’s further expansion. Moreover, when combined with notions of degrowth and doughnut economics, the circular economy may provide an imaginary and set of prefigurative practices that point towards a postcapitalist economy. Through a case study of Amsterdam—a city aiming to be fully circular by 2050—we examine this contradictory crossroads, problematising the idea of circularity within capitalism and exploring the potential of postcapitalist alternatives within the circular economy.
{"title":"Amsterdam’s circular economy at a world-ecological crossroads: postcapitalist degrowth or the next regime of capital accumulation?","authors":"Matthew Thompson, Charlotte Cator, David Beel, Ian Rees Jones, Martin Jones, Kevin Morgan","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae022","url":null,"abstract":"This article conceptualises the circular economy as a space of immaterial, as well as material, metabolic flows mediated by capitalism and planetary urbanisation. World-ecology provides us with the critical lens to view the circular economy as part of an emergent regime of accumulation that may supersede neoliberalism. However, if each regime entails new frontier zones for appropriating cheap natures and dumping wastes, then the circular economy—as a strategy for revalorising waste—presents a possible structural limit to capitalism’s further expansion. Moreover, when combined with notions of degrowth and doughnut economics, the circular economy may provide an imaginary and set of prefigurative practices that point towards a postcapitalist economy. Through a case study of Amsterdam—a city aiming to be fully circular by 2050—we examine this contradictory crossroads, problematising the idea of circularity within capitalism and exploring the potential of postcapitalist alternatives within the circular economy.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141584210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the context of the increasingly present policies of circular economy and the emergence of “Circular Bioeconomy” (CB), this article presents the results of a literature review on the sociometabolic research of biomasses. Six schools of thought are identified and distinguished according to their authors, their conceptions of metabolism, methodologies and social and spatial dimensions. Based on this state of the art, we propose an analytical framework that combines quantitative and qualitative approaches at the territorial scale, drawing upon the currents of Territorial Ecology and Political Ecology. This framework enhances our understanding and provides a critical perspective on the geography of CB. We compare discourses to actual practices by analysing biomass flows and power relations while adopting a critical perspective toward circular economy policies.
{"title":"Towards a Territorial and Political Ecology of “circular bioeconomy”: a 30-year review of metabolism studies","authors":"Simon Joxe, Jean-Baptiste Bahers","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae020","url":null,"abstract":"In the context of the increasingly present policies of circular economy and the emergence of “Circular Bioeconomy” (CB), this article presents the results of a literature review on the sociometabolic research of biomasses. Six schools of thought are identified and distinguished according to their authors, their conceptions of metabolism, methodologies and social and spatial dimensions. Based on this state of the art, we propose an analytical framework that combines quantitative and qualitative approaches at the territorial scale, drawing upon the currents of Territorial Ecology and Political Ecology. This framework enhances our understanding and provides a critical perspective on the geography of CB. We compare discourses to actual practices by analysing biomass flows and power relations while adopting a critical perspective toward circular economy policies.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141553334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recycled plastics value chains are being collaboratively constructed amid calls for greater responsibility of the corporates driving today’s plastic waste crisis. The resulting ‘responsibility fix’ bolts new arrangements onto linear production processes, offering a mechanism to push linear processes towards circularity, while starting to patch up some of the social and economic injustices associated with waste-picking work within contemporary systems of capitalist production and consumption. This research draws upon semi-structured interviews to trace international collaborations within recycled plastics value chains to identify how new, low-disruption, circular business models are being built.
{"title":"Responsibility fixes: patching up circular economy value chains","authors":"Anna Barford, Saffy Rose Ahmad","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae018","url":null,"abstract":"Recycled plastics value chains are being collaboratively constructed amid calls for greater responsibility of the corporates driving today’s plastic waste crisis. The resulting ‘responsibility fix’ bolts new arrangements onto linear production processes, offering a mechanism to push linear processes towards circularity, while starting to patch up some of the social and economic injustices associated with waste-picking work within contemporary systems of capitalist production and consumption. This research draws upon semi-structured interviews to trace international collaborations within recycled plastics value chains to identify how new, low-disruption, circular business models are being built.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141521344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mari Wardeberg, Henrik Brynthe Lund, Jens Hanson, Riina Kärki, Linda Rekosuo, Anna Tenhuen-Lunkka, Sarianna Palola
In this paper we mobilize sustainability transitions literature to explore directionality for circular economy (CE) transitions, by drawing on and adapting a framework for analysing roadmaps to empirically investigate CE strategies. Specifically, this paper explores circular economy CE strategy documents in the Nordics, the commonalities and differences between them and to what extent they provide directionality for CE transitions. Through a systematic document analysis of 39 CE strategy documents, we find that the strategy documents are vague and lack clear political visions. As such, we argue that the documents fail to provide clear directionality for CE transitions and question their usefulness. Additionally, the paper demonstrates how CE strategy documents can contribute to promoting the development of industries that couple to national ambitions for the development of new, green industries.
{"title":"Strategies for circular economy in the Nordics: a comparative analysis of directionality","authors":"Mari Wardeberg, Henrik Brynthe Lund, Jens Hanson, Riina Kärki, Linda Rekosuo, Anna Tenhuen-Lunkka, Sarianna Palola","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae017","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we mobilize sustainability transitions literature to explore directionality for circular economy (CE) transitions, by drawing on and adapting a framework for analysing roadmaps to empirically investigate CE strategies. Specifically, this paper explores circular economy CE strategy documents in the Nordics, the commonalities and differences between them and to what extent they provide directionality for CE transitions. Through a systematic document analysis of 39 CE strategy documents, we find that the strategy documents are vague and lack clear political visions. As such, we argue that the documents fail to provide clear directionality for CE transitions and question their usefulness. Additionally, the paper demonstrates how CE strategy documents can contribute to promoting the development of industries that couple to national ambitions for the development of new, green industries.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141320041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores how 15 Canadian local governments of various sizes and contexts are transitioning to a circular economy by analysing their roadmap currently in development. It provides qualitative insights into how physical, socioeconomic and institutional factors are influencing the content of roadmaps, along with their similarities and differences. Drawing from the literature on the geography of transitions, we show that while local physical and socioeconomic attributes typically shape the roadmaps by determining likely activities, their actual trajectory varies based on the roadmap instigators and the broader institutional contexts in which they operate. The findings suggest the importance of local governments supporting the roadmap instigators while also recognising that circular economy transition pathways can capitalise on policies and programs not only locally but beyond local boundaries.
{"title":"Exploring circular economy transition pathways: a roadmap analysis of 15 Canadian local governments","authors":"Juste Rajaonson, Chedrak Chembessi","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae015","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores how 15 Canadian local governments of various sizes and contexts are transitioning to a circular economy by analysing their roadmap currently in development. It provides qualitative insights into how physical, socioeconomic and institutional factors are influencing the content of roadmaps, along with their similarities and differences. Drawing from the literature on the geography of transitions, we show that while local physical and socioeconomic attributes typically shape the roadmaps by determining likely activities, their actual trajectory varies based on the roadmap instigators and the broader institutional contexts in which they operate. The findings suggest the importance of local governments supporting the roadmap instigators while also recognising that circular economy transition pathways can capitalise on policies and programs not only locally but beyond local boundaries.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141182333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the article, we critically confront the idea of waste-to-resource at the heart of the circular economy. We discuss some of the blind spots and shortcomings of three circular economy principles: designing out waste, emulating natural systems and decoupling economic growth from resource use. We suggest that their limitations are intimately connected to a scalar reasoning ruled by strict, disjunctive categories. Instead, we advance a flat, relational, trans-scalar approach and propose that the potential of a sustained circular economy promise requires a novel scalar imagination attentive to its multiple co-constituted spatialities, social relations and fluid materials.
{"title":"The limits of waste as a resource: a critique and a proposition towards a new scalar imagination for the circular economy model","authors":"Stylianos Zavos, Olli Pyyhtinen","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae013","url":null,"abstract":"In the article, we critically confront the idea of waste-to-resource at the heart of the circular economy. We discuss some of the blind spots and shortcomings of three circular economy principles: designing out waste, emulating natural systems and decoupling economic growth from resource use. We suggest that their limitations are intimately connected to a scalar reasoning ruled by strict, disjunctive categories. Instead, we advance a flat, relational, trans-scalar approach and propose that the potential of a sustained circular economy promise requires a novel scalar imagination attentive to its multiple co-constituted spatialities, social relations and fluid materials.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"153 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140903308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study explores diverse circular economies and methods of multispecies ethnography in Vorselaar, Belgium and Røros, Norway, to identify care-full justice in small-scale places and to challenge traditional anthropocentric and capitalocentric models. This study unearths circular site stories in Vorselaar’s community-driven sustainability practices and Røros’s integration of cultural heritage in its sustainability approach, highlighting the need for a broader, care-centric perspective in circular economy discourse. The results demonstrate the universality and adaptability of diverse circular economies in fostering narratives of multispecies justice and the need for emphasising multispecies justice and bioregionalism to foster biodiversity, human wellbeing and their need for belonging and ecological citizenship.
{"title":"The weed, asbestos pipe and disposable tree: unmuting multispecies Flemish and Norwegian circular site stories for diverse circular economies","authors":"Wendy Wuyts","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae009","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores diverse circular economies and methods of multispecies ethnography in Vorselaar, Belgium and Røros, Norway, to identify care-full justice in small-scale places and to challenge traditional anthropocentric and capitalocentric models. This study unearths circular site stories in Vorselaar’s community-driven sustainability practices and Røros’s integration of cultural heritage in its sustainability approach, highlighting the need for a broader, care-centric perspective in circular economy discourse. The results demonstrate the universality and adaptability of diverse circular economies in fostering narratives of multispecies justice and the need for emphasising multispecies justice and bioregionalism to foster biodiversity, human wellbeing and their need for belonging and ecological citizenship.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"87 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140895770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This comment critiques the idea of geographic regions being “left behind.” It argues that the term frames the regions in question as passive experiencers of natural phenomena, in turn obfuscating the structural forces that have shaped those regions and local populations’ efforts to pursue better living conditions. The comment draws on three examples from the rural United States to illustrate how the designation of being “left behind” serves to mask subjugation and struggle.
{"title":"What does it mean to be ‘left behind?’","authors":"Ann M Eisenberg","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae008","url":null,"abstract":"This comment critiques the idea of geographic regions being “left behind.” It argues that the term frames the regions in question as passive experiencers of natural phenomena, in turn obfuscating the structural forces that have shaped those regions and local populations’ efforts to pursue better living conditions. The comment draws on three examples from the rural United States to illustrate how the designation of being “left behind” serves to mask subjugation and struggle.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140820022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper investigates whether, and what kind of, regional knowledge has a stimulating effect on circular economy (CE) innovation by companies. We thus add to the literature on regional knowledge spillovers, which has rarely focussed explicitly on the CE. For the empirical study, we create econometric regressions based on a representative dataset with extensive information on the CE activities of about 1400 Swiss firms. The results confirm that regional knowledge is important for the implementation of CE innovations. However, geographical distance and the quality of the knowledge must be taken into account, that is, companies primarily learn from the best.
{"title":"Learning from the best: how regional knowledge stimulates circular economy transition at company level","authors":"Rahel Meili, Tobias Stucki, Ingrid Kissling-Näf","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsae011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae011","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates whether, and what kind of, regional knowledge has a stimulating effect on circular economy (CE) innovation by companies. We thus add to the literature on regional knowledge spillovers, which has rarely focussed explicitly on the CE. For the empirical study, we create econometric regressions based on a representative dataset with extensive information on the CE activities of about 1400 Swiss firms. The results confirm that regional knowledge is important for the implementation of CE innovations. However, geographical distance and the quality of the knowledge must be taken into account, that is, companies primarily learn from the best.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140820042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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