Department of International Business, National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taichung City, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Office of Research and Development, Tunghai University, Taichung City, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Oct;29(50):76352-76364. doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-21010-6. Epub 2022 Jun 6.
Actively promoting circular economy (CE) is one of the key means of global sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to analyze the causal relationship between CE and economic growth using data from EU-25 countries from 2010 to 2018. The selected CE indicators included municipal waste recycling rate, CE-related investment, municipal waste generation per capita, circularity rate, and trade in recyclable raw materials. Panel cointegration techniques affirmed the long-term equilibrium relationship between CE indicators and GDP. Panel vector error correction model results confirmed that in terms of short-run causality, an increase in material recycling led to a decrease in waste generation, an increase in waste generation led to an increase in CE-related investment, and economic growth led to circular economy growth, but not vice versa. This implies that encouraging CE-related innovation investments and promoting material recycling to stimulate the secondary raw material market can help achieve zero waste goals. Looking at the long-term causality, the GDP and CE indicators constituted a causal loop, which implies that there is co-evolution between them, although the circular economy is still in its infancy. This co-evolutionary sustainable economic growth can bring welfare to future generations.
积极推动循环经济（CE）是全球可持续发展的关键手段之一。本研究旨在利用 2010 年至 2018 年欧盟 25 个国家的数据，分析 CE 与经济增长之间的因果关系。选择的 CE 指标包括城市废物回收率、CE 相关投资、人均城市废物产生量、循环率和可回收原材料贸易。面板协整技术证实了 CE 指标和 GDP 之间的长期均衡关系。面板向量误差修正模型结果证实，就短期因果关系而言，物质回收的增加导致废物产生的减少，废物产生的增加导致 CE 相关投资的增加，而经济增长导致循环经济的增长，但反之则不然。这意味着鼓励 CE 相关的创新投资和促进物质回收以刺激二次原材料市场，有助于实现零废物目标。从长期因果关系来看，GDP 和 CE 指标构成了一个因果循环，这意味着它们之间存在共同进化，尽管循环经济仍处于起步阶段。这种共同进化的可持续经济增长可以为后代带来福利。
