Identifying Circular Economy Strategies Adopted by Local Governments: The Case of Belgium

Abstract

The circular economy (CE) is gaining interest as means towards sustainable development. Local governments play a key role in this transition and are adopting CE strategies. There is a lack of empirical knowledge on the strategies adopted to integrate the. The aim of this paper is to provide insights into these strategies. Indeed, previous literature stresses the importance of strategies for local CE transitions but has only provided explorative results about adopted strategies in local governments. With regard to the literature, a quantitative survey is distributed among all 581 Belgian local governments. Cluster analysis is used to identify different strategies for the CE. In total, 309 local governments responded (54%), of which 182 (58,9%) said to have adopted the CE. Clustering the responses resulted in identifying two strategies. Both strategies share important aspects, even though also significant differences are observed. These findings show that strategies differ among local governments and, therefore, will have different consequences for implementation. Research and practice should use this distinction as a starting point for developing more knowledge on the successful implementation of these strategies. The typology can also be used by local governments that have not yet adopted the CE to position themselves. This study provided for the first time a typology of strategies based on a large set of local governments. 2