| Abstract |
The circular economy, as a new economic model, is an integral part of sustainable development and the opposite of the linear economy that still exists today. In terms of its basics, it is a sustainable economic system in which economic growth is absolutely decoupled from the use of resources in order to reduce the use of the latter and recycle them. In the present study, the authors describe the possibility of measuring the circular economy and establishing a ranking for the 28 Member States of the European Union based on composite indicators. The values of the CCU index thus created are compared with rankings produced by other researchers in similar and different ways, so the suitability of the method is based on its comparability. The primary objective of the study is to describe the creation of composite indicators and to analyse their comparability. A further aim is to characterise the leading and the tail-end countries from which conclusions can be drawn regarding ranking, and thus make them comparable. The research objective is achieved by using secondary data collected by Eurostat for the year 2018. The indicators of the circular economy were grouped according to four areas: production and consumption, waste management, secondary raw materials, and competitiveness and innovation. These areas adequately illustrate topics related to the circular economy. In terms of its structure, the international literature related to the circular economy is reviewed first, followed by the EU strategy, and sets of relevant indicators. In the methodological chapter the methodology of the analysis, the scale alignment transformation, is explained. A comparison is then made from composite indicators using rank correlation, and conclusions follow. The research findings of the study highlight the fact that composite indicators can be created in relation to the circular economy; however, creating and comparing them is not an easy task. The rankings on which the comparison is based show a very high degree of similarity with other selected rankings. Overall, states such as Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Italy are almost without exception at the top of the rankings, while the group of tail-enders is led by Malta and Estonia. Based on the results of the macro-level studies, the authors establish a kind of competitiveness ranking. |