Adopting a circular economy: Current practices and future perspectives

All scientists, researchers, and citizens are involved in achieving sustainable goals. Their current actions contribute to writing a story for future generations, and interesting perspectives can be narrated based only on a great sense of social responsibility. The literature gives a great deal of attention to the models of a Circular Economy (CE). This topic is multidisciplinary and different sectors are involved in its development. This Special Issue aims to underline the relevance of the CE models in the scientific field and its applications in real contexts in order to achieve sustainability goals

Future trajectories of renewable energy consumption in the European Union

Renewable energy sources (RESs) are able to reduce the European Union (EU)’s dependence on foreign energy imports, also meeting sustainable objectives to tackle climate change and to enhance economic opportunities. Energy management requires a quantitative analysis and the European Commission follows the performance of each Member State (MS) in order to define the corrective measures towards 2020 targets. Starting from historical data reported in the Eurostat database and through a mathematical model, this work proposes future trajectories towards 2020 of the share of energy from renewables (REs) in terms of gross final energy consumption (GFEC). Furthermore, a quantitative analysis based on two indices—(i) the share of REs in GFEC, and (ii) gross final renewable energy consumption (GFREC) per capita—permits a comparison among 28 MSs. The share of REs in GFEC in EU 28 varies from 19.4% to 21.8% in future trajectories towards 2020. Sweden and Finland occupy the top part of the ranking, while six MSs (Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) are not able to reach the 2020 targets

A mini-review of biomethane valorization: Managerial and policy implications for a circular resource

The green transition requires renewable energy resources, especially the role of biomass is very crucial as it promotes resource circularity if sustainable substrates are used. This mini-review focuses on green gas derived from biomass called biomethane, which appears to be strategic in the face of soaring energy costs. Hence, combined Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats–Analytic Hierarchy Process analysis is used to compare and evaluate the critical factors. The results provide not only methodological insights through the application of the local–global priority method, but also managerial insights that see biomethane as a winning element for the green transition, fighting climate change and reducing dependence on external energy sources. Subsidies have played a key role in pursuing economic sustainability; however, their use should be reduced over time and measured to the actual contribution related to environmental and social improvement. The results of this work highlight that biomethane development is important to tackle climate change and to be self-sufficient from an energy perspective. This development plan, based on circularity of resources, includes subsidies for small-scale plants, substrates from neighbouring territories, citizen involvement in decision-making processes, valorization of suitable waste from an environmental perspective and stability of political choices

Survey data to assess consumers’ attitudes towards circular economy and bioeconomy practices: A focus on the fashion industry

This data article presents data collected through a survey with the aim of understanding consumers' behavior in the fashion industry. The analyses of these data are elaborated in the article "The circular economy and bioeconomy in the fashion sector: Emergence of a "sustainability bias"" (Colasante and Adamo 2021). As highlighted in the literature, the fashion industry contributes significantly to environmental pollution in all steps, from the production to the delivery. Often, consumers are not aware of the impact of their fashion habits on the environment and this led to the emergence of the well-known fast fashion phenomenon. Even though there is a lack of evidence on this topic, shifting consumers to embrace bioeconomy as well as circular economy principles constitutes a possible solution to reduce the impact of the fashion sector on the environment. We collected these data on consumers' habits and preferences regarding both bioeconomy and circular economy by means of a questionnaire in which a total of 402 Italian people took part by using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform. This paper aims at presenting the data split in the three main blocks: (i) consumer perception; (ii) purchasing habits; and (iii) consumers' willingness to pay (WTP). The results obtained are of interest to citizens, business, academics and policy makers to understand consumers' perception of sustainability in the fashion industry. The proposed dataset can be replicated on a global scale, on specific market segments of the fashion industry and can be used to compare the perception of the circular bioeconomy in other sectors

Sustainability and resilience after COVID-19: A circular premium in the fashion industry

COVID-19 has challenged so many of humanity’s certainties, but it has also shown that we are able to react to serious threats. Moreover, it is possible to see a great opportunity: to create a real, sustainable renaissance. However, the challenge is so complex that it requires the involvement of as many categories of stakeholders as possible, and the implementation of low-carbon models in different production sectors [1]. A single closed-loop supply chain can be reconfigured as a multi-loop system, in which both reused and recycled materials from a previous life cycle are reintroduced into the market as new products and values. In particular, this editorial focuses on on the fashion industry, which unquestionably characterizes the lives of all citizens and identifies a potential circular premium

A structured literature review on obsolete electric vehicles management practices

The use of electricity for transportation needs offers the chance to replace fossil fuels with greener energy sources. Potentially, coupling sustainable transports with Renewable Energies (RE) could reduce significantly both Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and the dependency on oil imports. However, the expected growth rate of Electric Vehicles (EVs) could become also a potential risk for the environment if recycling processes will continue to function in the current way. To this aim, the paper reviews the international literature on obsolete EV management practices, by considering scientific works published from 2000 up to 2019. Results show that the experts have paid great attention to this topic, given both the critical and valuable materials embedded in EVs and their main components (especially traction batteries), by offering interesting potential profits, and identifying the most promising End-of-Life (EoL) strategy for recycling both in technological and environmental terms. However, the economics of EV recycling systems have not yet been well quantified. The intent of this work is to enhance the current literature gaps and to propose future research streams

The sustainable development of mobility in the green transition: Renewable energy, local industrial chain, and battery recycling

The transportation sector has a strong negative impact on the environment and therefore requires new sustainable development measures. This paper proposes a new indicator of sustainability in transport obtained through a multi-criteria analysis based on Eurostat data and a panel of 10 academics. The results show a positive per formance of Sweden in the period 2015–2019 and a small number of countries above the European average. Furthermore, a quantitative analysis based on these experts identifies the critical success factors associated with purchasing electric vehi cles. The greatest importance is assigned to purchase cost, followed by battery autonomy. Our analysis proposes that electric vehicles are unable to achieve a sus tainable transition unless three conditions are met: (i) use of renewable sources, (ii) local industrial development of the sector, and (iii) battery recycling. Therefore, Europe urgently needs to realize new industrial activities and avoid social unsustain ability. The long-term objective of a policy plan is to promote independence from external sources of energy, materials, and other resource

Circular manufacturing ecosystems: Automotive printed circuit boards recycling as an enabler of the economic development

ABSTRACTThe management of waste from electrical and electronic equipments (WEEEs) is a well-established topic in the extant literature. However, also the automotive sector is becoming a relevant source of WEEE, given the even more relevant presence of electronic components in cars. Due to new European environmental policies, end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) volumes are expected to grow in the next future, together with obsolete car electronics components. Hence, this work wants to assess the potential economic impact derived from car electronics recycling processes adopting the Net Present Value (NPV) as reference indicator. Through a detailed sensitivity and break-even point (BEP) analysis and a comparison of different cases, this work identifies a set of scenarios useful for industrial actors willing to enter the market of car electronics recycling. Results show an NPV varying from 136,570 to 607,621 €/t with a decisive role played by gold recovery

Dataset for assessing the economic performance of a residential pv plant. The analysis of a new policy proposal

This data article aims at providing a data description about the manuscript entitled “The post COVID-19 green recovery in practice: assessing the profitability of a policy proposal on residential photovoltaic plants”. The definition of a business plan is a complex decision because the choice of the input data significantly influences the economic assessment of a project. An Excel file is used to construct an economic model based on the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) methodology using Net Present Value (NPV) as an indicator. The choice of input data is defined by literature analysis, and policy proposals are identified by the Revival Decree adopted by Italian Government to contrast human and economic shock effected by COVID-19. The aggregation of these data enabled us to obtain both baseline and alternative scenarios to define if the realization of a residential photovoltaic (PV) plant is economically feasible. Similar data can be obtained for other countries according to the policy actions adopted, and this work can be easily replicated in different geographical contexts and considering varying categories of stakeholders (e.g., consumers, which are called upon to implement a green transition)