Systemic Change in National and Regional Circular Economy Transition

In a circular economy, resource efficiency is maximised, and waste production is minimised in order to achieve a more sustainable economy. The successful transition towards circular economy needs to have comprehensive support from governments (Loiseau et al. 2016; Geissdorfer et al. 2017). Consequently, efforts are required at different scale levels to reach a systemic and holistic approach: local, regional and national (Geng et al. 2012; Su et al. 2012; EC 2015; Ghisellini et al. 2016). The macro-level efforts to support this transition refer to policy changes on national and regional levels.

The current situation of circular economy policies from the perspective of national and selected regional strategies in Finland, France, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain is shown in Table 1. The importance of the transition towards circular economy has been recognized in the majority of the policies and strategies studied, both on the regional and national levels. Several circular economy strategies have already been finalised while others are in the process of being validated.