Sweden
Measuring the Circularity of Sweden
Measurements are critical to understanding the world around us. As it becomes more urgent for us to adapt our economic system and become more circular, we need to provide a tactical approach to measuring something so abstract and complex. In the first edition of the global Circularity Gap Report, in 2018, Circle Economy launched the Circularity Metric for the global economy. This analysis adapts the Metric to suit a national profile. This section explains how we assessed Sweden's circularity and introduces supporting metrics that help us understand the significant material flows that contribute to the country's Circularity Gap. These additional insights allow us to formulate a plan for moving toward greater circularity: they provide an initial assessment by locating circular opportunities and priorities in material flows. By measuring circularity in this way, businesses and governments can track their circular performance over time and put trends into context, as well as engage in uniform goal-setting and guide future action in the most impactful way.
The Circularity Metric Explained
In order to capture a single metric for circularity in an economy, we need to reduce this complexity somewhat. We take the metabolism of a national economy—how materials flow through the economy and are used over the long-term—as the starting point. This approach builds on and is inspired by the work of Haas et al. (2015) [22] and continues the approach applied in all other national Circularity Gap Reports. Taking an ‘X-ray’ of the economy’s resource and material use, we consider six fundamental dynamics of what the circular economy transition aims to establish and how it can do so. This translates into two objectives and four strategies, based on the work of Bocken et al. (2016). [23]
The core objectives are:
- Resource extraction from the Earth is minimised and biomass production and extraction is regenerative;
- The dispersion and loss of materials is minimised, meaning all technical materials have high recovery opportunities, ideally without degradation and with optimal value retention; emissions to air and dispersion to water or land is prevented; and biomass is optimally cascaded.
We capture circularity in one number: the Circularity Metric. It is an ‘input-focused’ metric. Communicated as a percentage, it is a relative indicator of how well global or national economies balance sustaining societal needs and wants with materials that already exist in the economy. The value of this approach is that it allows us to track changes over time, measure progress and engage in uniform goal-setting, as well as benchmark countries’ circularity against each other as well as at the global level. Additionally, it should provide direction as to how Sweden can embrace its circular potential. Since its launch in 2018 at the World Economic Forum, the Circularity Metric has formed a milestone for global discourse on the circular economy.
The Circularity Gap Report is an initiative of Circle Economy, an impact organisation dedicated to accelerating the transition to the circular economy.
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