Making the Circular Economy Count

An analysis of available Circular Economy Metrics to develop a practical, implementahle set for national progress monitoring

In the last five years, business leaders and policymakers have been paying more and more attention to the Circular Economy concept, which represents a possible solution to achieve absolute resource reduction by decoupling economic growth from unsustainable resource consumption while building resilience against future pandemics and the impact of climate change.

With a narrowing window of opportunity for systemic change, policymakers need to measure the progress towards a Circular Economy at a national level to effectively steer the transition from a linear to a Circular Economy (CE). The report “Making the Circular Economy Count”, funded by the SUN Foundation and published by acatech, the German National Academy of Science and Engineering and SYSTEMIQ , evaluates the current state of research and practice on circular economy (CE) metrics.

The report will enable policymakers to:

• review the existing CE metrics;

• evaluate the national transition progress, using a set of metrics based on key dimensions of the circular economy; and

• understand why national monitoring should be complemented by standardized reporting mechanisms to evaluate resource flows at company level.

The report finds that a practical, feasible set of CE metrics can be applied to support national policymakers in steering the transition – and in evaluating whether we have made the right decisions to support future CE development.