DELIVERING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY A TOOLKIT FOR POLICYMAKERS

66 • DELIVERING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY – A TOOLKIT FOR POLICYMAKERS
Figure 17: Policy intervention relevance by level of government in Denmark
LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT
POLICY INTERVENTION TYPES Municipal Regional National European
Information and awareness
Collaboration platforms
Business support schemes
Public procurement and infrastructure
Regulatory frameworks
Fiscal frameworks
High relevance
Medium relevance
Low relevance
DESCRIPTION OF POLICY INTERVENTION TYPES
Information and awareness
Since the concept of the circular economy is still not widely known among the public
or in the business community, policy interventions aimed at increasing information and
awareness play an important role. These policies aim to change ingrained patterns of
behaviour and ways of thinking that companies and individuals have developed over
long periods of time. They also seek to plug gaps in information that prevent or restrict
circular economy opportunities.
A related barrier is that of imperfect information. Since the circular economy requires
business to cooperate across traditional sectoral and functional silos, an understanding
of the economic potential and the practicalities is important, and often lacking. An
example of targeted information delivery by the public sector is Denmark’s Esbjerg
municipality where officials inform farmers about agricultural plastics waste during
farm inspections as part of the municipal waste management plan. 65 Information and
awareness campaigns can be broadcast to the general public, for example the food
waste prevention campaign in Catalonia, or provided to consumers through product
labelling: South Korea’s Eco-label indicates not only the emissions of pollutants
associated with the product, but also the conservation of resources through the
product’s life cycle relative to other products of the same category. 66
Collaboration platforms
When pursuing circular economy opportunities, businesses incur transaction costs
finding, and interacting with, suitable collaboration partners along and across value
chains. Similarly, circular economy opportunities can be held back by a lack of
commercially viable technology. In both cases there is a case for policy support to
facilitate partnerships either between businesses or across business and academia.
Collaboration platforms can take various forms, including industrial symbiosis, public-
65 Nordic Council, Economic Policy Instruments for Plastic Waste (2014).
66 Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute (KEITI), Policy Handbook for Sustainable Consumption
and Production of Korea (2014).