Tracking the post-1990 sociometabolic transitions in Eastern Europe with dynamic economy-wide material flow analysis

Developing and transition countries merit more attentions on resource monitoring and circular economy implementation to improve global sustainability. With four Eastern European countries, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, and Romania, as cases, we integrated economy-wide and dynamic material flow analysis principles to track multiple material flows and stocks during 1990–2019 and investigate circularity performance and decoupling status throughout all life cycle stages of their entire socioeconomic system. Although the absolute stocks presented different trajectories in these countries, they all have witnessed a progressive growth in per capita stocks, reaching 390 t/cap (Bulgaria), 383 t/cap (Croatia), 239 t/cap (Poland), and 306 t/cap (Romania) in 2019, dominated by minerals. Their material use along all life cycle stages has been identified as being in a strong coupling or a relative decoupling with economic outputs and thus further stock expansion is foreseeable. However, their socioeconomic circularity remained at a low level, ranging from 7 % to 14 %. Such sociometabolic patterns affirm demand-side strategies for manufacturing streams close to service provision are required to reduce resource extraction. Proper waste management systems and policy enforcement are needed to maximize recycling and increase circularity, particularly, in Bulgaria and Romania. We call for more bottom-up studies to improve sectoral resolution, zoom in key life cycle stages, and provide tailored insights towards circular economy implementation in such transition countries.