Sébastien Bourdin (p), Nicolas Jacquet (p)

Philippe Jean-Pièrre

Faced with the urgent global climate crisis, the European Commission has embarked on an ambitious journey towards carbon neutrality as part of the European Green Deal. This initiative aims to transform the European Union into a resource-efficient, competitive economy with zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. At the heart of this transformation is the Circular Economy (CE), considered a key pillar for achieving these lofty goals and a strategic lever for the green transition.
The European Green Deal lays out a roadmap for fostering efficient resource use, transitioning to a clean, circular economy, restoring biodiversity, and reducing pollution. In this strategic and policy framework, the CE is crucial for the European Commission to achieve carbon neutrality while promoting sustainable growth. The New Action Plan for the Circular Economy, an integral part of the Green Deal, focuses on accelerating this transformation.
Beyond economic impacts, the CE aligns with global trends in policy and regulation, underlining its growing role as a catalyst in global governance for enhanced sustainability. It offers resilience perspectives for cities and regions and encompasses diverse principles, such as the "10R" hierarchy of practices.
However, among 800 European cities with over 50,000 inhabitants, only 40 have developed circular economy strategies, highlighting a significant gap. The European Commission is actively supporting the adoption of CE at the local level through initiatives like the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI), providing technical and financial support for local circular solutions.
This paper aims to analyze the types and extents of circular initiatives developed by European cities and regions, understanding how local approaches align with the 10R principles of CE. It also examines the role of local authorities in implementing CE at the local scale, using the concept of territorial intermediation. The paper includes a literature review defining CE, the role of local authorities, and the conceptual framework of territorial intermediation. It then discusses methodology, presents key findings, discusses policy recommendations, and concludes with insights on the critical role of local authorities in promoting and implementing circular economy for Europe's ecological transition.

Miroslav Despotovic (p), Matthias Glatschke

Sébastien Bourdin

Cities and regions play a key role as promoters, facilitators and, above all, enablers of the circular economy in terms of innovation, data and assessment, capacity building, financing and regulation as part of the overall transition process to optimize the current linear system, use green and clean techniques for production and change the relationships between value chains, as well as identify synergies and optimize processes across sectors. The inherent "take - make - waste" nature of the present linear economy is a major contributor to resource limits being overshot. The transition to a circular economy and the associated challenges and opportunities have been controversially discussed and defined. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can significantly drive the transition to a circular economy paradigm and help to overcome current challenges and create a much more environmentally sustainable future. This article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with the use of machine learning models and artificial intelligence in the transformation to a circular economy. The article addresses the application of AI and Machine Learning from several essential perspectives, such as fostering circular business by upgrading the required recycling infrastructure, helping with the infrastructural challenges required to ensure that the resources serving the circular economy are, in turn, sustainable, providing AI-based dynamic pricing, but also in regard to implications and risks of AI deployment in a circular economy, privacy breach or algorithmic presetting. Overall, AI and ML provide valuable tools and techniques that promote the development of a circular economy. Algorithm-based business models that utilize AI for automated dynamic pricing and adjustment are widely advocated in the literature, but there have also been cases where these practices have led to inequitable outcomes. Awareness of these challenges is crucial to ensure that AI-enabled circular economy practices maintain fairness.

Sébastien Bourdin (p), André Torre (p), Chedrak CHEMBESSI

Miroslav Despotovic

While the circular economy‘s (CE) tangible economic and environmental advantages have been well-documented in ecological economics, this study investigates intangible value created from CE projects by conducting 40 semi-structured interviews with 25 stakeholders in the Kamouraska region of Quebec, Canada. Using the economy of proximity as an analytical framework, this study identifies different types of intangible value created, e.g., collective learning, co-creation of socioeconomic networks, boosts in creativity, and improvement in stakeholder relations. Our paper also indicates that creation of both tangible and intangible value in this region has generated a third type of value––territorial value––which emerges when local players, resources, and practices interact synergistically to strengthen the region’s resilience, sustainability, and prosperity as a whole.

Sebastian Losacker (p)

Sébastien Bourdin

The transition from a fossil-based economy to a circular bioeconomy, underscored by the need for sustainable production and consumption, is increasingly reliant on novel biobased technologies (Aguilar et al., 2018; Befort, 2023; Bugge et al., 2016). However, the geographical distribution of these bio-innovations is anticipated to be uneven, presenting new challenges for regional development and necessitating nuanced policy actions (Abbasiharofteh & Broekel, 2020; Fischer et al., 2024). However, the existing literature on the geography of bio-innovation is currently limited, especially in empirical evidence regarding the spatial distribution of novel biobased technologies and how these geographical patterns might have changed over time. This limitation is largely due to the inadequacy of traditional patent classifications in tracking biobased technologies (Losacker et al., 2023; Wydra, 2020). Against this background, our paper sets out to achieve two main objectives. First, we develop a novel methodology for identifying biobased technologies in global patent data. That is to say, we utilize modern natural language processing techniques for the identification of biobased technologies from patent abstracts, which offers a more refined approach than conventional methods based on keywords or simplified classifications (Kriesch, 2023). Second, using this novel data, we analyze the geography of bio-innovation over time. In more detail, we utilize geocoded patent data sourced from De Rassenfosse (2019), apply our identification approach to these data, and aggregate the data at the level of more than one thousand functional urban areas, in accordance with the definitions provided by the OECD (following e.g., Broekel et al., 2023; Fritsch & Wyrwich, 2021). For these specified regions, we subsequently examine the temporal evolution of innovation activities in the bioeconomy for a time span of more than twenty years. To do this, we apply sequence analysis methods, an empirical tool that has been rarely used in the fields of economic geography and regional science so far (for exceptions see Hansmeier & Losacker, 2023; Kuebart, 2022). Sequence analysis enables us to examine regional trajectories in biobased innovation. Additionally, it facilitates the comparison of these trajectories across different regions. This approach ultimately allows for the clustering of diverse regional paths towards a bioeconomy, enhancing our understanding of their unique characteristics and developments. The findings of this paper contribute significantly to the understanding of the global geography of bio-innovation. Our research is particularly relevant for policymakers, given the increasing implementation of bioeconomy strategies by countries and regions worldwide (Proestou et al., 2023).

Philippe Jean-Pièrre (p), Sebastien Bourdin

Sebastian Losacker

The study on the implementation and significance of the circular economy in island economies has been largely overlooked in existing literature (Andriamahefazafy & Failler, 2022). However, it presents potential for local economic development (Bourdin & al., 2022; Niang & al. 2023). This study explores the adoption of circular economy principles and practices in isolated island and continental territories, using La Réunion as a case study. We argue that in these settings, the implementation of the 9Rs of the circular economy goes beyond being ecological options and becomes vital necessities due to the environmental, societal, economic, and logistical constraints of these territories (Eckelman & al. 2014).

La Réunion, as a European outermost region, provides a pertinent case study. It has experienced rapid post-departmentalization development, transitioning from an agricultural economy to increased reliance on imports and fossil fuels. While this transformation has yielded short-term benefits, it has also rendered the island's economy vulnerable to global ecological crises. Today, facing the choice between maintaining its current linear model or adopting a resilient circular model, Réunion is positioning itself as a laboratory for waste management solutions and ecological transition.

Our contribution seeks to demonstrate how a small island economy, confronted with challenges such as limited size, isolation, and resource scarcity, can advance towards a circular economy. We examine the waste management strategies and plans implemented in Réunion, including the Regional Waste Management Plan and compare them with those of other European outermost regions.

Additionally, we emphasize the crucial role of international cooperation, public awareness, and stakeholder training in the transition to a circular economy. We underscore that to implement the circular economy, solutions must be hybrid, incorporating public, local, international, private, associative initiatives.

This study offers a fresh perspective on how small, isolated territories can not only adapt to waste management challenges and the ecological crisis but also serve as innovative models for other isolated islands and continental regions.

Andriamahefazafy, M., Failler, P. (2022). Towards a circular economy for African Islands: An analysis of existing baselines and strategies. Circular Economy and Sustainability, 2(1), 47-69.
Bourdin, S., al. (2022). Circularities in territories: opportunities & challenges. European Planning Studies, 30(7), 1183-1191
Eckelman, M. J., al. (2014). Island waste management systems: Statistic for applied industrial ecology. Journal industrial ecology, 18(2), 306-317
Niang, A., al.Bourdin, S., Torre, A. (2023). The geography of circular economy: job creation, territorial embeddedness and local public policies. Journal of Environmental Planning Management, 1-16