Circular Economy Indicators Alignment Framework

This STSM aimed at the collaboration between the grantee, Konstantinos P. Tsagarakis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece with the host, Prof. Dimitar Trajanov, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, North Macedonia. The aim was to consider several indicators developed by international organizations and examine their relationships with circular economy indicators. Towards this direction, the following two were combined: a) the Host’s expertise deriving from similar work on UN Global Sustainable Development Goal Indicators with other sets of indicators from various domains and b) the grantee’s expertise in circular economy, making this collaboration of mutual benefit.

During the STSM, the grantee had the opportunity to meet and interact, apart from Prof. Dimitar Trajanov, with several researchers from the host University. Quantitative data about circular economy and other indicators had been retrieved and treated before analyzing. The analysis had two main directions; one quantitative (based on the indicators’ values), and one qualitative (based on textual metadata). For both directions, correlations and causality were investigated in order to advance pre-established statistical panel data analysis with same sources of data. Data consisted of annual values of selected indicators at country (macro) level. The data analysis focused on EU countries, as they comply to the same environmental and economic policies.

This is an ongoing co-operation with the host and his team. Common publications will be presented in the online Symposium on Circular Economy and Sustainability, 1-3 July, 2020 (https://infer2020-thrace.gr/). The ultimate objective is to publish this work to a scholarly journal.