| Abstract |
The circular economy encourages the transformation of a consumption-based economy into a sustainable one, aiming to diminish the greenhouse gas effects and to preserve world's resources, while creating new jobs (especially local and regional ones) and generating competitive advantages throughout the European Union. From a circular economy perspective, countries from EU (and not only) should endeavour to reduce the amount of resources they need and use, followed by their reuse and recycle. There are several factors that have to be taken into account when calculating the progress towards achieving a circular economy in Member States, such as how much garbage and food waste is produced, how much of the waste is recycled, and furthermore how much of that recycled material is actually reused. In this article, the EU countries will be ranked taking into account several key metrics proposed by the European Commission to monitor progress on its goal to reduce waste, boost recycling and encourage reuse. The findings indicate that there are differences among countries and there is need for collaboration between Member States in order for the goals to be achieved. Moreover, a special attention will be given to analysing the impact the circular economy had until now on the creation of jobs and which are the goals set to be fulfilled until 2030 by the European Union in this field. The findings show that the circular economy jobs that are being created are largely low-paid and low-skilled ones, and include over half a million people working in waste collection, rather than qualified workforce with specific and even new skills required. |