Modelling covering links between climate and circular economy
date: 12/03/2020
- An article in the journal of Resources, Conservation and Recycling explores the links between climate change, circular economy and carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the context of Norwegian waste-to-energy (WtE). The study integrates life-cycle assessment (LCA) with analysis of overall energy and material balances, mathematical optimization and cost assessment to evaluate the implications of a circular economy on the Norwegian WtE sector and the potential to add CCS to the sector. It assesses four scenarios: the current situation in the WtE sector, a circular economy scenario, the addition of CCS to the WtE sector, and a landfill scenario. A cost assessment of the economic outcomes of the scenarios is performed. The results show that circular economy could create opportunities for the WtE sector to develop and expand into new value chains such as secondary raw materials production.
- An OECD working paper on the macroeconomics of the circular economy transition offers a critical review of the modelling approaches used in the field[1]. Incorporating material flows into integrated economic-energy modelling is still a new and growing research field. The study examines 24 modelling-based assessments of the circular economy, and it draws four key conclusions: a) the transition to a circular economy will have insignificant or positive impact on aggregate macroeconomic outcomes; b) the introduction of circular economy enabling policies could have sectoral and regional re-allocation effects; c) some models are better suited to model the transition because they account for sector interactions and macroeconomic feedbacks; and lastly, d) the outcomes of these models are strongly dependent on the model assumptions.
[1] The macroeconomic impact of resource efficiency and the circular economy were a topic of discussion for a first time at the last IAMC meeting in December 2019. The results presented at the conference show that the impact is relatively small, with a number of sectors benefiting from these actions.