Examining the dimensionality of Circular Economy metrics using Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13135/2704-9906/9267Keywords:
Circular Economy, Circular Economy indicators, industrial symbiosis, Hierarchical Clustering on Principal ComponentsAbstract
The Circular Economy (CE) indices have become a valuable tool for supporting the development of policies that provide information that reduces environmental pressures and impacts. However, highly dimensional data identifying many CE indicators is impractical in application. This paper aims to create a composite index of the CE indicators using the Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components (HCPC) to extract the meaning of the CE indicators, as reducing dimensionality can improve understanding of indicators and metrics. The advantage of the HCPC methodology over principal components analysis (PCA) alone involves applying objective clustering techniques to the PCA results, which results in a better cluster solution. This study analysed a dataset of 61 indicators obtained from De Pascale, Arbolino, Szopik-Depczyńska, Limosani, and Ioppolo (2021). The composite indices revealed the dimensions of industrial symbiosis (IS), CE strategies, and spatial applications of the CE and IS concepts. The bottom-up and top-down approaches for CE and IS strategies have been the main implementation approaches in different governments and regions.
References
Achia, T. N., Wangombe, A., & Khadioli, N. (2010). A logistic regression model to identify key determinants of poverty using demographic and health survey data. European Journal of Social Sciences, 13(1), 38-45.
Adibi, N., Lafhaj, Z., Yehya, M., & Payet, J. (2017). Global Resource Indicator for life cycle impact assessment: Applied in wind turbine case study. Journal of Cleaner Production, 165, 1517-1528.
Argüelles, M., Benavides, C., & Fernández, I. (2014). A new approach to the identification of regional clusters: hierarchical clustering on principal components. Applied Economics, 46(21), 2511-2519.
Azevedo, S. G., Godina, R., & Matias, J. C. d. O. (2017). Proposal of a sustainable circular index for manufacturing companies. Resources, 6(4), 63.
Bocken, N. M., De Pauw, I., Bakker, C., & Van Der Grinten, B. (2016). Product design and business model strategies for a circular economy. Journal of industrial and production engineering, 33(5), 308-320.
Bovea, M. D., & Pérez-Belis, V. (2018). Identifying design guidelines to meet the circular economy principles: A case study on electric and electronic equipment. Journal of Environmental Management, 228, 483-494. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.08.014
Cayzer, S., Griffiths, P., & Beghetto, V. (2017). Design of indicators for measuring product performance in the circular economy. International Journal of Sustainable Engineering, 10(4-5), 289-298.
Chun-rong, J., & Jun, Z. (2011). Evaluation of regional circular economy based on matter element analysis. Procedia Environmental Sciences, 11, 637-642.
Cong, L., Zhao, F., & Sutherland, J. W. (2019). A design method to improve end-of-use product value recovery for circular economy. Journal of Mechanical Design, 141(4).
Costello, A. B., & Osborne, J. W. (2005). Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Practical assessment, research & evaluation, 10(7), 1-9.
Das, S. K., Yedlarajiah, P., & Narendra, R. (2000). An approach for estimating the end-of-life product disassembly effort and cost. International Journal of Production Research, 38(3), 657-673. doi:10.1080/002075400189356
de Oliveira, C. T., Dantas, T. E. T., & Soares, S. R. (2021). Nano and micro level circular economy indicators: Assisting decision-makers in circularity assessments. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 26, 455-468. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2020.11.024
De Pascale, A., Arbolino, R., Szopik-Depczyńska, K., Limosani, M., & Ioppolo, G. (2021). A systematic review for measuring circular economy: The 61 indicators. Journal of Cleaner Production, 281, 124942. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124942
Di Maio, F., Rem, P. C., Baldé, K., & Polder, M. (2017). Measuring resource efficiency and circular economy: A market value approach. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 122, 163-171.
Faizi, S., Rashid, T., Sałabun, W., Zafar, S., & Wątróbski, J. (2018). Decision making with uncertainty using hesitant fuzzy sets. International Journal of Fuzzy Systems, 20(1), 93-103.
Favi, C., Germani, M., Luzi, A., Mandolini, M., & Marconi, M. (2017). A design for EoL approach and metrics to favour closed-loop scenarios for products. International Journal of Sustainable Engineering, 10(3), 136-146.
Felicio, M., Amaral, D., Esposto, K., & Durany, X. G. (2016). Industrial symbiosis indicators to manage eco-industrial parks as dynamic systems. Journal of Cleaner Production, 118, 54-64.
Figge, F., Thorpe, A. S., Givry, P., Canning, L., & Franklin-Johnson, E. (2018). Longevity and circularity as indicators of eco-efficient resource use in the circular economy. Ecological Economics, 150, 297-306.
Franklin-Johnson, E., Figge, F., & Canning, L. (2016). Resource duration as a managerial indicator for Circular Economy performance. Journal of Cleaner Production, 133, 589-598.
Fregonara, E., Giordano, R., Ferrando, D. G., & Pattono, S. (2017). Economic-environmental indicators to support investment decisions: A focus on the buildings’ end-of-life stage. Buildings, 7(3), 65.
Gallego-Schmid, A., Chen, H.-M., Sharmina, M., & Mendoza, J. M. F. (2020). Links between circular economy and climate change mitigation in the built environment. Journal of Cleaner Production, 260, 121115. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121115
Garson, D. (2009). Reliability analysis. [Online]. Available at: http://faculty. chass. ncsu. edu/garson/PA765/reliab. htm. In: Accessed 15 Sep 2017.
Geng, Y., Fu, J., Sarkis, J., & Xue, B. (2012). Towards a national circular economy indicator system in China: an evaluation and critical analysis. Journal of Cleaner Production, 23(1), 216-224. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.07.005
Geng, Y., Liu, Y., Liu, D., Zhao, H., & Xue, B. (2011). Regional societal and ecosystem metabolism analysis in China: A multi-scale integrated analysis of societal metabolism (MSIASM) approach. Energy, 36(8), 4799-4808.
Geng, Y., Zhang, P., Côté, R. P., & Fujita, T. (2009). Assessment of the national eco‐industrial park standard for promoting industrial symbiosis in China. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 13(1), 15-26.
Geng, Y., Zhang, P., Ulgiati, S., & Sarkis, J. (2010). Emergy analysis of an industrial park: The case of Dalian, China. Science of The Total Environment, 408(22), 5273-5283. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2010.07.081
Guo-gang, J. (2011). Empirical analysis of regional circular economy development--study based on Jiangsu, Heilongjiang, Qinghai Province. Energy Procedia, 5, 125-129.
Haas, W., Krausmann, F., Wiedenhofer, D., & Heinz, M. (2015). How circular is the global economy?: An assessment of material flows, waste production, and recycling in the European Union and the world in 2005. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 19(5), 765-777.
Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., Anderson, R. E., & Tatham, R. L. (2006). Multivariate data analysis (Vol. 6). Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River.
Haupt, M., Vadenbo, C., & Hellweg, S. (2017). Do we have the right performance indicators for the circular economy?: insight into the Swiss waste management system. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 21(3), 615-627.
Huysman, S., De Schaepmeester, J., Ragaert, K., Dewulf, J., & De Meester, S. (2017). Performance indicators for a circular economy: A case study on post-industrial plastic waste. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 120, 46-54. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.01.013
Huysman, S., Debaveye, S., Schaubroeck, T., De Meester, S., Ardente, F., Mathieux, F., & Dewulf, J. (2015). The recyclability benefit rate of closed-loop and open-loop systems: A case study on plastic recycling in Flanders. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 101, 53-60.
Jacobsen, N. B. (2006). Industrial symbiosis in Kalundborg, Denmark: a quantitative assessment of economic and environmental aspects. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 10(1‐2), 239-255.
Jolliffe, I. T. (2002). Principal component analysis and factor analysis. In Principal component analysis (pp. 150-166).
Karlsson, M., & Wolf, A. (2008). Using an optimization model to evaluate the economic benefits of industrial symbiosis in the forest industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16(14), 1536-1544.
Kaur, M., & Kaur, U. (2013). Comparison Between K-means and Hierarchical Algorithm Using Query Redirection. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, 3(7), 1454-1459.
Kayal, B., Abu-Ghunmi, D., Abu-Ghunmi, L., Archenti, A., Nicolescu, M., Larkin, C., & Corbet, S. (2019). An economic index for measuring firm’s circularity: The case of water industry. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 21, 123-129. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2018.11.007
Kristensen, H. S., & Mosgaard, M. A. (2020). A review of micro level indicators for a circular economy–moving away from the three dimensions of sustainability? Journal of Cleaner Production, 243, 118531.
Lee, H. M., Lu, W. F., & Song, B. (2014). A framework for assessing product End-Of-Life performance: reviewing the state of the art and proposing an innovative approach using an End-of-Life Index. Journal of Cleaner Production, 66, 355-371.
Li, R., & Su, C. (2012). Evaluation of the circular economy development level of Chinese chemical enterprises. Procedia Environmental Sciences, 13, 1595-1601.
Linder, M., Sarasini, S., & van Loon, P. (2017). A metric for quantifying product‐level circularity. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 21(3), 545-558.
MacArthur, E. (2015). Circularity indicators: An approach to measuring circularity. Methodology, 23.
Mandolini, M., Favi, C., Germani, M., & Marconi, M. (2018). Time-based disassembly method: how to assess the best disassembly sequence and time of target components in complex products. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 95(1), 409-430.
Manly, B. F. (2005). Tests of significance with multivariate data. In Multivariate statistical methods: a primer, (3rd ed.) (pp. 105-124). Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall.
Marconi, M., Germani, M., Mandolini, M., & Favi, C. (2019). Applying data mining technique to disassembly sequence planning: a method to assess effective disassembly time of industrial products. International Journal of Production Research, 57(2), 599-623.
Mayer, A., Haas, W., Wiedenhofer, D., Krausmann, F., Nuss, P., & Blengini, G. A. (2019). Measuring progress towards a circular economy: a monitoring framework for economy‐wide material loop closing in the EU28. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 23(1), 62-76.
Mazur-Wierzbicka, E. (2021). Circular economy: advancement of European Union countries. Environmental Sciences Europe, 33(1), 1-15.
McCarthy, B., Kapetanaki, A. B., & Wang, P. (2019). Circular agri-food approaches: will consumers buy novel products made from vegetable waste? Rural Society, 28(2), 91-107.
Mesa, J., Esparragoza, I., & Maury, H. (2018). Developing a set of sustainability indicators for product families based on the circular economy model. Journal of Cleaner Production, 196, 1429-1442.
Mohamed Sultan, A. A., Lou, E., & Mativenga, P. T. (2017). What should be recycled: An integrated model for product recycling desirability. Journal of Cleaner Production, 154, 51-60. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.03.201
Moraga, G., Huysveld, S., Mathieux, F., Blengini, G. A., Alaerts, L., Van Acker, K., . . . Dewulf, J. (2019). Circular economy indicators: What do they measure? Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 146, 452-461. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.03.045
Moriguchi, Y. (2007). Material flow indicators to measure progress toward a sound material-cycle society. Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management, 9(2), 112-120. doi:10.1007/s10163-007-0182-0
Nelen, D., Manshoven, S., Peeters, J. R., Vanegas, P., D'Haese, N., & Vrancken, K. (2014). A multidimensional indicator set to assess the benefits of WEEE material recycling. Journal of Cleaner Production, 83, 305-316.
Pagotto, M., & Halog, A. (2016). Towards a circular economy in Australian agri‐food industry: an application of input‐output oriented approaches for analyzing resource efficiency and competitiveness potential. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 20(5), 1176-1186.
Parchomenko, A., Nelen, D., Gillabel, J., & Rechberger, H. (2019). Measuring the circular economy - A Multiple Correspondence Analysis of 63 metrics. Journal of Cleaner Production, 210, 200-216. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.10.357
Park, H.-S., & Behera, S. K. (2014). Methodological aspects of applying eco-efficiency indicators to industrial symbiosis networks. Journal of Cleaner Production, 64, 478-485.
Park, J. Y., & Chertow, M. R. (2014). Establishing and testing the “reuse potential” indicator for managing wastes as resources. Journal of Environmental Management, 137, 45-53.
Qing, Y., Qiongqiong, G., & Mingyue, C. (2011). Study and integrative evaluation on the development of circular economy of Shaanxi province. Energy Procedia, 5, 1568-1578.
Sałabun, W., Palczewski, K., & Wątróbski, J. (2019). Multicriteria approach to sustainable transport evaluation under incomplete knowledge: Electric bikes case study. Sustainability, 11(12), 3314.
Scheepens, A. E., Vogtländer, J. G., & Brezet, J. C. (2016). Two life cycle assessment (LCA) based methods to analyse and design complex (regional) circular economy systems. Case: making water tourism more sustainable. Journal of Cleaner Production, 114, 257-268. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.05.075
Smol, M., Kulczycka, J., & Avdiushchenko, A. (2017). Circular economy indicators in relation to eco-innovation in European regions. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 19(3), 669-678. doi:10.1007/s10098-016-1323-8
Stanković, J. J., Janković-Milić, V., Marjanović, I., & Janjić, J. (2021). An integrated approach of PCA and PROMETHEE in spatial assessment of circular economy indicators. Waste Management, 128, 154-166. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2021.04.057
Su, B., Heshmati, A., Geng, Y., & Yu, X. (2013). A review of the circular economy in China: moving from rhetoric to implementation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 42, 215-227. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.11.020
Tiejun, D. (2010). Two quantitative indices for the planning and evaluation of eco-industrial parks. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 54(7), 442-448.
Tisserant, A., Pauliuk, S., Merciai, S., Schmidt, J., Fry, J., Wood, R., & Tukker, A. (2017). Solid waste and the circular economy: a global analysis of waste treatment and waste footprints. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 21(3), 628-640.
van Schaik, A., & Reuter, M. A. (2016). Recycling indices visualizing the performance of the circular economy. World Met Erzmetall, 69, 5-20.
Vanegas, P., Peeters, J. R., Cattrysse, D., Tecchio, P., Ardente, F., Mathieux, F., . . . Duflou, J. R. (2018). Ease of disassembly of products to support circular economy strategies. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 135, 323-334.
Vyas, S., & Kumaranayake, L. (2006). Constructing socio-economic status indices: how to use principal components analysis. Health policy and planning, 21(6), 459-468.
Wen, Z., & Li, R. (2010). Materials metabolism analysis of China's highway traffic system (HTS) for promoting circular economy. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 14(4), 641-649.
Wenbo, L. (2011). Comprehensive evaluation research on circular economic performance of eco-industrial parks. Energy Procedia, 5, 1682-1688.
Wu, H.-q., Shi, Y., Xia, Q., & Zhu, W.-d. (2014). Effectiveness of the policy of circular economy in China: A DEA-based analysis for the period of 11th five-year-plan. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 83, 163-175.
Xiong, P., Dang, Y., & Qian, W. (2011). The empirical analysis of circular economy development efficiency in Jiangsu Province. Energy Procedia, 5, 1732-1736.
Yobe, C. L., Mudhara, M., & Mafongoya, P. (2019). Livelihood strategies and their determinants among smallholder farming households in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. Agrekon, 1-14.
Zhao, H., Guo, S., & Zhao, H. (2018). Comprehensive benefit evaluation of eco-industrial parks by employing the best-worst method based on circular economy and sustainability. Environment, development and sustainability, 20(3), 1229-1253.
Zwolinski, P., Lopez-Ontiveros, M.-A., & Brissaud, D. (2006). Integrated design of remanufacturable products based on product profiles. Journal of Cleaner Production, 14(15-16), 1333-1345.
EJSICE has been approved for inclusion in DOAJ. The DOAJ listing of the journal is available at 
EJSICE is a member of 
EJSICE is indexed by 
EJSICE is listed in the ANVUR (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes) as a scientific journal in both AREA 13 - Economic and statistical sciences and AREA 14 - Political and social sciences. 
