17. Circular Economy Performance at Regional Level in European Union

Circular economy represents the reuse of products that have reached the end of their life cycle by repairing them or transforming them into recycled raw materials. This way, the consumption of resources and energy needed for the production of new equipment can be diminished and in time waste generation can be reduced. The main objective of this research is to identify a regional hierarchy of the EU member states according to the circular economy indicators. Several relevant monitoring indicators for the circular economy evolution were analyzed, namely generated municipal waste, circular material use rate, packaging recycling rate, biodegradable waste recycling rate, circular economy investment, circular economy innovation, and rate of WEEE recycling. The methodology used includes a literature review, former research outputs analyzed for the objective of this research, and dynamic and comparative statistical analysis on the evolution of relevant indicators at the level of five EU geographical regions. The results of the research highlighted the fact that, at regional level, the circular economy has a fragmented distribution. Consequently, a number of regions, and implicitly the member states that form that region, recorded higher values for some indicators and lower or average values for other indicators.