DELIVERING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY A TOOLKIT FOR POLICYMAKERS

DELIVERING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY – A TOOLKIT FOR POLICYMAKERS • 47
• In the UK, the British Standards Institute (BSI) has developed a number of standards
that support waste prevention, resource efficiency, eco-design and remanufacturing,
for example on design for manufacture, assembly, disassembly and
end-of-use processing. It is also working on a framework standard for the circular
economy, detailing the core principles an organisation should embed to realise
its full benefits 49 .
• The Cradle to Cradle Institute administers the publicly available Cradle to Cradle
Certified Product Standard and is developing an open database of ‘preferred’
alternative chemicals, materials and processes to help companies reformulate
products to make them more circular.
Policy landscape
Understanding, at a high level, the strengths and possible development areas of the
current policy landscape allows for more targeted identification of relevant policy
interventions later in the project, and to engage stakeholders early on in a discussion
on which broad types of policy interventions could make sense for the country. This
discussion will of course be refined once specific circular economy opportunities
and related barriers have been identified; yet getting a reflection started with key
stakeholders as soon as possible is a valuable end in itself. Such a discussion could reveal
potential upcoming policy revisions, which are highly relevant to consider when new
policy interventions are developed.
An understanding of the policy landscape can be established within six key categories
illustrated with examples in Figure 7: education, information and awareness;
collaboration platforms; business support schemes; public procurement and
infrastructure; regulatory frameworks; and fiscal frameworks. These categories are
explained in more detail in Section 2.2.5.
Figure 8 shows the outcome of this analysis for the Denmark pilot. For the ‘examples
of existing interventions’ column the exercise involved consulting government reports
and other information sources with assistance from multiple Danish government
departments. The ‘examples of possible additional interventions’ column involved
research on circular economy policies other countries are pursuing and on interventions
that have been discussed in literature, for example those studies listed in Table 2.
2.1.2 Set ambition level
Objective:
Align stakeholders on overall direction and focus of later sector deep
dives to work towards a common direction.
End product:
Clear, quantified ambition level.
Setting a national ambition level can be a powerful lever to align project stakeholders
on the overall direction. An ambition level can for example influence the sector selection
(e.g. focus on employment vs. environmental challenges when selecting focus sectors),
as well as the prioritisation of circular economy opportunities within the focus sectors.
If adopted (even if non-binding), national targets can send important signals to
businesses and investors. Famous examples include the carbon reduction targets
adopted by the European Union (20% reduction by 2020 and 80% by 2050, vs 1990
levels), the US (26–28% by 2025, vs. 2005 levels 50 ), and China (peaking of CO 2
emissions
around 2030 and increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption
to around 20% by 2030). 51
Below is a brief outline of three themes that could, individually or in combination, inspire
countries in setting their ambition level:
49 See for example BSI, Waste prevention and the circular economy: Due diligence research report (2014).
50 European Commission, Roadmap for moving to a competitive low-carbon economy in 2050 (2011).
51 The White House, US-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change (12 November 2014).