Material circularity and environmental quality in the EU: what causes what and where?

Abstract

Although the green and blue dividends associated with circular economy have been widely advocated, whether circular economy necessarily guarantee environmental quality remains unclear. To provide a more precise insight, in this case for a novel case of all the European Union countries, environmental effect of the share of used material resources from the reuse of waste materials is examined over the period 2010–2021. The results reveal that the reuse of waste materials statistically (i)increase CO2 emissions in most quantiles in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, and Slovenia, (ii) mitigate CO2 emissions in most quantiles in Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Spain, and Ireland, and (iii) either increasing or reducing CO2 emissions depending on the quantile of material circularity use rate and CO2 emissions in Czech Republic, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Latvia. This result points to a more policy driven approach.