Sustainability and Regulation: Circular economy, corporate sustainability policies and renewable energies

Abstract

Over the past years, the importance of the Circular Economy (CE) as a policy framework for advancing sustainability, economic growth and productivity goals has grown substantially. CE is understood as an economic system that replaces the ‘end-of- life’ concept with reducing, alternatively reusing, recycling and recovering materials in production and consumption processes with the aim to accomplish sustainable development, thus simultaneously creating environmental quality, economic prosperity and social equity” . With the CE policy agenda gaining traction, we see a growth of CE policies as many governments have gradually intensified their efforts to improve the efficiency of primary resource use, reduce waste production and increase material recovery and reuse. We also see increasing corporate activity on CE issues with the adoption of industry standards, voluntary agreements and development of CE business models. Despite its empirical relevance, and the traction it has gained in several disciplines including the interdisciplinary literature on regulatory governance has not paid particular attention to this strand of environmental policy. Compared to other areas of environmental law and policy-making, we lack systematic cross-temporal and cross-country data on this emerging field of regulation. More research is necessary for assessing the state of policy in the field, deriving policy relevant insights and promoting learning across countries. The panel seeks to (1) examine how governments, private and transnational organizations regulate the issue of CE; (2) how they differ in their attempts to regulate CE; and (3) which factors drive (differences in) CE policies.

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