Li Xiao, Chen Xuezhao, Zhu Junming, Zhang Peng, Shi Haijia, Chertow Marian R
School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province 710049, China.
System Behavior and Management Laboratory of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Philosophy and Social Sciences Laboratory of the Ministry of Education of China, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province 710049, China.
iScience. 2025 Jan 2;28(2):111713. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111713. eCollection 2025 Feb 21.
The circular economy is vital for sustainability, yet its resilience to unexpected socio-economic shocks is not well understood. This study explores the impact of one of the major global disruptive events, the COVID-19 pandemic, on the circular economy by focusing on copper recycling. Using transaction-level data from a waste trading platform and causal inference methods, we evaluated how the pandemic disrupted copper scrap supply and transactions. The findings indicate significant and enduring negative effects, including reduced trading volumes, prices, and material diversity. The disruption was uneven across sectors: labor-intensive industries were most seriously affected, while technology-intensive and capital-intensive sectors demonstrated greater resilience. To enhance recovery and strengthen the resilience of a circular economy, we recommend coordinating policy and market signals, incentivizing resilience-enhancing practices, and balancing efficiency, sustainability, and resilience goals. By mitigating adverse effects from unexpected disruptions, these strategies aim to foster a more resilient circular economy.
循环经济对可持续发展至关重要，但其对意外社会经济冲击的恢复力尚未得到充分理解。本研究通过聚焦铜回收，探讨了全球重大颠覆性事件之一——新冠疫情对循环经济的影响。利用来自一个废物交易平台的交易层面数据和因果推断方法，我们评估了疫情如何扰乱铜废料供应和交易。研究结果表明存在重大且持久的负面影响，包括交易量、价格和材料多样性下降。各行业受到的干扰不均衡：劳动密集型行业受影响最严重，而技术密集型和资本密集型部门则表现出更强的恢复力。为促进复苏并增强循环经济的恢复力，我们建议协调政策和市场信号，激励增强恢复力的做法，并平衡效率、可持续性和恢复力目标。通过减轻意外干扰的不利影响，这些策略旨在培育更具恢复力的循环经济。
