The role of circular economy strategies in advancing environmental sustainability and improving supply resilience

Application summary

The growing demand for materials to sustain the global economy and disturbances caused by events such as COVID and sanctions due to late wars have created supply shortages that are only expected to worsen over time. The global economy seeks to apply the circular economy as a means for a more sustainable acquisition and as a strategy to address the risks related to supply resilience. However, as the goal of CE is oftentimes in achieving circularity, it does not necessarily lead to a reduction of environmental impacts. Particularly in the assessments where temporal dynamics is a vital part of the assessments. Additionally, as CE cascade strategies of the CE aim to create delays in product/material recirculations, its impact on supply resilience remains unclear. The goal of this doctoral research is to investigate the role of circular economy strategies in advancing environmental sustainability and improving supply resilience. As well as shedding light on the pitfalls related to the measurement of environmental sustainability of CE, particularly what lifespan prolonging means in terms of environmental impacts in the application of products that face technological outdating. The thesis consists of three CE case studies from different industries with a focus on circularity-environmental sustainability-supply resilience nexus, the role of temporal dynamics in environmental impact assessment, and creation of a novel framework for assessing the capacity of CE in advancing environmental sustainability and supply resilience and the potential trade-offs between them. The overarching aim is to create understanding on when and under what conditions CE supports better environmental performance and acts as a strategy to build stronger supply resilience.