A JUST TRANSITION TO THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Project Information

JUST2CE

Grant agreement ID: 101003491

DOI

10.3030/101003491

Project closed

EC signature date 7 May 2021

Start date 1 September 2021

End date 31 August 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 3 620 042,50

EU contribution

€ 3 620 042,50

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - JUST2CE (A JUST TRANSITION TO THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY)

Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2024-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

JUST2CE is based on the assumption that a critical evaluation of the CE paradigm, of its economic, societal, gender and policy implications, and of the outcomes of its implementation has not been conducted yet. A direct consequence of this gap is that the political economy and geopolitics of transition have been neglected in CE studies. European, and more in general global productive systems are characterised by geographical specialisation that seek to maximise profits along the traditionally designed linear supply chains. These, often unequal and asymmetric, relations might seriously hamper the transition to a CE. To date, no studies have shed light on how such relations should be reconfigured to achieve circularity. This represents an urgent and major research gap that will be addressed by this project, which will therefore provide useful insights to policymakers for evaluating the feasibility of the transition to the CE. JUST2CE aims at understanding, in critical and thoughtful way, under which conditions a responsible, inclusive and social just transition to a circular economy is possible and desirable, what technical, political and social factors can enable or hamper such transformation and how these aspects can contribute to the development of transitional policy measures. The conviction underpinning the project is that the success of a transition towards a sustainable circular economy does not merely depend on the development of new technologies - artefacts or processes - but also in the reconfiguration of the governance of productive processes into more democratic and participatory mechanisms of designing and managing technology.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

JUST2CE achieved significant results. The project was organised into different WPs as follows:

WP1: The objective of this work package was to review current Circular Economy (CE) applications at micro, meso, and macro levels, taking into account neglected dimensions such as geopolitics, employment, labor relations, and responsibility. The aim was also to map CE initiatives globally. WP1 delivered three reports on labor, gender, and global environmental justice. Additionally, it developed a global atlas of just CE practices, which collected numerous cases of circular practices in Europe and Africa.

WP2: The focus of this work package was to develop a framework called the "technology of humility" for analysing ten case studies across EU member states and African countries, aiming to understand the implementation of CE practices. WP2 delivered ten case study reports that highlighted both enablers and barriers to achieving a just CE in Europe and Africa.

WP3: This work package centered around Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) training. It involved developing an RRI framework for designing CE practices, exploring potential transition scenarios, disseminating information on inclusive and deliberative methods, and creating RRI checkpoints for the Decision Support System (DSS) from WP4. WP3 delivered a report outlining how CE initiatives can incorporate RRI practices in their design. The report was also published as a paper in the Journal of Cleaner Production. Furthermore, several internal training sessions on ethics and responsibility in research were conducted, and six National Workshops were organized to engage stakeholders in South Africa, the UK, Italy, Spain, and Greece.

WP4: The goal of this work package was to develop an integrated tool that frames the CE paradigm around global environmental justice and gendered innovation. It achieved this by identifying environmental, social, and economic impact hotspots and suggesting ways to improve CE practices. WP4 delivered a set of indicators and global supplies mapping techniques that form the core of the Decision Support System delivered and tested in the project's second phase. The design of the DSS was supported by internal workshops that facilitated discussions on global environmental justice, feminist economics, and decolonizing academia. The resulting design has taken into account the complex interaction between human activities and nature.

WP5: The objective of WP5 was to develop macroeconomic models for studying the effects of adopting CE practices at national and international levels. The aim was to create systemic policy decisions, incentives, and support mechanisms for the development of strategic governance, enabling the transition to a CE. WP5 delivered the first two Stock-Consistent models that analysed the macroeconomic output of transitioning to a CE in one country and two interdependent countries. These models were expanded and improved in the project's second phase. WP5 and WP4 collaborated to deliver a systematic literature review on macroeconomic models and develop R code for the basic single-area IO-SFC model. The R code for the basic two-area model was released in June 2023, with the advanced version following in September 2023.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

JUST2CE has progressed beyond the state of the art the field of CE in many aspects. First, a key innovative methodological dimension of JUST2CE is its strong reliance on insights and critiques coming from debates on gendered-innovation and decolonising knowledge and research practice, which have increasingly questioned the validity and ethics of dominant approaches. In this respect, JUST2CE has moved beyond of the state of the art by adopting an ethics of care, as an ethical-political obligation to consider all perspectives and an awareness of power relations stemming from the project.

In order to achieve the objectives 1 and 2 JUST2CE adopted a cross-case analysis perspective, combining secondary datasets with primary data collection to facilitate decision making processes by different supply chain actors and policy makers. This represents a novel and ground-breaking approach that moves beyond the state of the art the knowledge about the practical implementation of CE initiatives across the European and African continents.

In order to address objective 3 and 4, besides the methods specific to each work package (mentioned below), the project adopted a mixed approach using both qualitative as well as quantitative methods, such as interviews, surveys, participants’ diaries and visual ethnography. In this aspect, an important progress beyond the state of the art was to include a decolonising lens in the analysis of the global supply chains that sustain our economies. Quantitative methods were also employed to collect standardised data directly from each supply chain actor, and to facilitate the understanding of the relative importance of KPIs associated with the environmental, social and economic performance of each CE actor individually, as well as the system as a whole.

JUST2CE had different impacts at different levels at the end of the project. Apart from the environmental, socio-economic impacts and policy implications described above, JUST2CE delivered a lasting contribution in the spheres of public participation and engagement and, in turn, to contribute to the development of a more democratic governance of the CE transition. JUST2CE impacted the relation between Science & Technology and Society. WP3 and WP4 in particular, created, experimented and tested new tools based on the notion of RRI to engage stakeholders into the design and implementation of CE practices.

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