The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context
The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context
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DOI：
10.1007/s10551-015-2693-2
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发表时间：
2017-02-01
影响因子：
6.1
通讯作者：
Haynes, Kathryn
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Murray, Alan;Skene, Keith;Haynes, Kathryn
长期以来，业界一直呼吁为实施可持续发展战略提供指导。循环经济代表了以可持续方式整合经济活动和环境福祉的最新尝试。这套理念已被中国采纳为经济发展的基础（包括在“十一五”和“十二五”规划中），并在西方政策制定者和非政府组织的心中不断升级。本文追溯了循环经济的概念和起源，追溯了其含义，探讨了其在经济学和生态学中的前身，并讨论了循环经济如何在商业和政策中运作。该论文发现，虽然循环经济强调流程的重新设计和材料的循环，这可能有助于形成更可持续的商业模式，但它也包含了紧张和限制。其中包括缺乏可持续发展固有的社会维度，限制了其道德维度，以及一些意想不到的后果。这促使我们提出对循环经济的修订定义：“一种经济模式，其中规划、资源配置、采购、生产和再加工作为过程和输出进行设计和管理，以最大限度地提高生态系统功能和人类福祉”。
There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development (included in both the 11th and the 12th 'Five Year Plan'), escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings, and exploring its antecedents in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalized in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as "an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being".