The road to the circular economy: some experiences from China and the European Union

Abstract

In this article, we review the circular economy as a global economic model for reducing the consumption of limited resources, providing an approach to deal with it and moving towards a more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable world. Europe is considered through the “Roadmap to a Resource-Efficient Europe”, framed in the European Commission’s Europe 2020 the only region in the world that has a roadmap on its table to start applying specific standards and rules to the circular economy. China has successfully applied a "top-down" approach to the development of the circular economy. Among China's future plans for the development of the circular economy, we find “Project Lead CE” for the period 2016-2020 under the 13th Five-Year plan (2016–2020) :National Economic and Social Development”, which seeks to achieve quantitative and compulsory targets related to resource conservation and pollution control.

Keywords: Circular Economy, China, European Union