Circular Economy and Sustainability: Volume 1: Management and Policy

By Alexandros Stefanakis and Ioannis Nikolaou

The concept of circular economy is based on strategies, practices, policies, and technologies to achieve principles related to reusing, recycling, redesigning, repurposing, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recovering water, waste materials, and nutrients to preserve natural resources. It provides the necessary conditions to encourage economic and social actors to adopt strategies toward sustainability. However, the increasing complexity of sustainability aspects means that traditional engineering and management/economics alone cannot face the new challenges and reach the appropriate solutions.

Thus, this book highlights the role of engineering and management in building a sustainable society by developing a circular economy that establishes and protects strong social and cultural structures based on cross-disciplinary knowledge and diverse skills. It includes theoretical justification, research studies, and case studies to provide researchers, practitioners, professionals, and policymakers the appropriate context to work together in promoting sustainability and circular economy thinking.

Volume 1, Circular Economy and Sustainability: Management and Policy, discusses the content of circular economy principles and how they can be realized in the fields of economy, management, and policy. It gives an outline of the current status and perception of circular economy at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels to provide a better understanding of its role in achieving sustainability.

Volume 2, Circular Economy and Sustainability: Environmental Engineering, presents various technological and developmental tools that emphasize the implementation of these principles in practice (micro-level). It demonstrates the necessity to establish a fundamental connection between sustainable engineering and circular economy.

• Presents a novel approach, linking circular economy concepts to environmental engineering and management to promote sustainability goals in modern societies
• Approaches the topic on production and consumption at both the micro and macro levels, integrating principles with practice
• Offers a range of theoretical and foundational knowledge in addition to case studies that demonstrate the potential impact of circular economy principles on both economic and societal progress

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9780128203965

Book preview

Chapter 1: A review of circular economy literature through a threefold level framework and engineering-management approach

Ioannis E. Nikolaoua; Alexandros I. Stefanakisb    a Business Economics and Environmental Technology Laboratory, Department of Environmental Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece

b Environmental Engineering and Management Laboratory, School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Greece

Abstract

Circular economy (CE) has recently become an innovative and popular scientific topic in the fields of engineering/natural-based and management/economic-based studies. It is known that two components constitute the concept of CE, i.e., a technical (circular) and an economic component (economy). These components are mainly studied by scholars on a separate basis either through engineering and natural-based sciences with various techniques and technologies or through management/economic-based sciences by utilizing managerial and economic techniques, methods, and tools. This chapter aims to conduct a short review of existing literature on CE by utilizing the classical threefold context (micro-, meso-, and macro-level) and through the engineering/nature-based science and the management/economic-based science. Furthermore, this book chapter will identify different and common research areas of engineering and management sciences in order to create a new framework to examine topics of CE.

Keywords

Circular economy; Management circular economy; Engineering circular economy; Sustainable development

1: Introduction

Today, circular economy (CE) is considered to be a new concept, which has gained great momentum among scholars and practitioners (Su et al., 2013; Hart and Pomponi, 2021; Lewandowski, 2016; Nikolaou et al., 2021; Webster, 2021). Essentially, the term CE consists of two general components, i.e., circular and economy. The former component implies that products and services should be organized in a way that slows, narrows, and closes the loop of materials and resources within organizations’ production processes (Bocken et al., 2016). Thus, several strategies have been advocated to enable the shift from the conventional linear and behavioral thinking of organizations, consumers, and decision-makers to a CE concept (Michelini et al., 2017). The later component is focused on economic aspects such as production procedures and financial outcomes (Bocken et al., 2021; Genovese et al., 2017).

In essence, the majority of existing studies have focused on the circular side of the concept and primarily on engineering processes. Korhonen et al. (2004) pointed out that, despite the potential for engineering and nature-based sciences to support and facilitate modern societies in introducing the principles of CE into their day-to-day operation, they have failed to make comprehensible systems by drawing insights from management science. Two very significant (economic and management) aspects to achieve the principles of CE in modern societies are through strengthening supply and demand sides.

This distinction between engineering/nature-based sciences and management/economic sciences has been mainly examined at a threefold level of analysis. At the first level, a single firm is examined, which adopts various practices to change its conventional model, e.g., adopting a circular business model through reducing, reusing, recycling, and redesigning materials and waste (Franco, 2017). The next level implies collective collaborations among firms to exchange by-products as raw materials and succeeding either involuntarily or voluntarily to close the loop of materials, products, and packaging by adopting an industrial ecology and symbiosis paradigm (Gómez et al., 2018). The final level entails the integration of CE principles (e.g., reduce, reuse, recycle, and remanufacture) into an overall economy, a city, a region, or a municipality (Ferronato et al., 2019).

The methodology of this chapter is a bibliometric analysis that focuses on the examination of the CE concept from engineering/nature-based sciences and management/economic-based sciences through a threefold-level analysis. Six areas of literature have been recognized through engineering/nature-based sciences, management/economic-based analysis, a single firm, among joint corporate endeavors, and overall prefectures and countries. This study aims at finding the topics that have been overemphasized and those that have been less examined in the current literature. It also aims at describing an overall agenda suitable for future research.

The rest of this chapter is organized in four sections. The first section describes the necessary theoretical background, where a number of existing literature review studies are analyzed to determine the key findings and results. The second section develops the methodology of this study, and the third section analyzes the most significant findings. Finally, a conclusion section is presented.

2: Theoretical background

Today, CE is an overused concept in the current literature but without an uncontested and a clear definition. Many scholars and organizations have conducted studies to collect and analyze the bulk of current definitions and establish a more comprehend definition for CE. Having analyzed the current literature, Kirchherr et al. (2017) identified 114 CE definitions, 3% of which promote a hierarchy of waste and only 40% of the 114 definitions have focused on a system analysis. Similarly, Korhonen et al. (2018a) have classified CE definitions, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation definition (EMF_D), into two categories. The former category of definitions utilizes some key traits of EMF_D such as restorative, regenerative, reuse, recycle, and recovery. The latter category of definitions analyzes key concepts such as reduce the use of virgin materials, restoration, recycling, sustainable economy, and eco-efficiency. However, Korhonen et al. (2018b) have developed a CE definition that emphasizes shifting the behavior of consumers and producers from a linear to a circular state.

By studying the existing literature, Homrich et al. (2018) identified that most current definitions place emphasis on the effective exploitation of existing materials and energy, as well as on the use of less virgin natural resources, by introducing longevity-thinking into the design procedures of products. They have also settled on a definition for CE that is focused on combining economic and engineering aspects by closing materials loops, with simultaneous economic benefits (win-win solutions). Having analyzed many definitions of CE, Prieto-Sandoval et al. (2018) identified that the key points of most of the existing definitions put emphasis on closing the loop through transformation, distribution, use, and recovery of materials. By basing it on EMF_D, Geissdoerfer et al. (2017) defined CE by highlighting the regenerative concept of use of materials through lowering, closing, and narrowing the loops of materials and energy.

Furthermore, many scholars have endeavored to explore these definitions in a more operational way by discussing them in tandem with the principles of sustainable development (Alonso-Almeida et al., 2020). Correspondingly, several models have been advocated as suitable to quantify different principles of CE (e.g., reuse, recycle, and reduce). A well-known and complete model has been provided by Potting et al. (2017), where three phases are considered vital to move an economy from the linear to the circular form. These phases are the efficient use of materials (e.g., recover, recycle), the extended longevity of products (e.g., repurpose, remanufacture, refurbish, repair, and reuse), and smart products (e.g., reduce, rethink, and refuse).

To study CE subjects, many literature review studies have been conducted that examine strategies, practices, and frameworks suitable for implementing the principles of CE (Merli et al., 2018; Sassanelli et al., 2019). By conducting a literature review at the micro-level, Lüdeke-Freund et al. (2019) recognized six types of circular business models found in everyday business operation, including the recycling type, business to business (B2B), business to customer (B2C), business model (BM), customer to customer (C2C), and circular economy business model. Similarly, Urbinati et al. (2017) proposed a taxonomy concerning circular business models, which are based on internal incentives for businesses to make a value proposition to their customers by adopting CE practices, and external incentives for businesses to adjust their operation in an institutional context in relation to CE. Merli et al. (2018) identified that many of the existing studies regarding CE pay more attention to the institutional effects of production and consumption processes. By reviewing current techniques and methods of CE, Sassanelli et al. (2019) emphasized the move from an end-of-life to closed-loop thinking for product design. They also recorded all the current measurement and assessment techniques regarding circularity performance of products such as life cycle analysis, multicriteria decision-making methods, and design for the circular economy. In the same way, a taxonomy of CE measurement performance frameworks has been presented by Saidani et al. (2019) including 10 categories of indicators classified in a three-level context, i.e., micro-, meso-, and macro-level.

Most of the current literature review studies mainly focus on analyzing only one level of CE literature (e.g., micro-level), one side of the economy (e.g., consumption), or one principle of CE (e.g., remanufacturing). Although the focus on only one level or one topic seems to be methodically correct, it nevertheless alienates the findings from the leading objectives of a concept like CE. Indeed, the description of each level itself could ultimately help reduce the consumption of virgin natural resources without taking into account the greater picture of the global environmental problems and certainly the overall solution to such problems. It is likely that the existing experience of the other levels would form a good groundwork for designing adequate CE frameworks to solve environmental problems through a systemic and systematic approach. One further substantial weakness of the current literature reviews is their emphasis on the analysis of the CE concept through one scientific principle such as environmental, management sciences, or engineering sciences. However, the concept of CE is also associated with topics of different academic fields, which are necessary and useful to solve the environmental problems. Thus, several studies to date promote the interdisciplinary nature of these issues (Korhonen et al., 2018a,b).

3: Methodology

This study conducts a systematic review of the current literature regarding CE from engineering/nature-based and management/economic-based perspectives (Nikolaou et al., 2021). This review is based on quantitative and qualitative approaches. Particularly, a bibliometric methodology is utilized to assist in conducting quantitative and qualitative research.

3.1: Research structure

The structure of the suggested methodology is based on five interrelated steps (Fig. 1). The first step designates the basic research questions of this study, in keeping with the classical approach, before conducting a study, of determining suitable research questions that should be answered through the suggested methodology. The second step describes the necessary processes of gathering the appropriate data in order to answer the defined research questions. This section is considered very substantial since it provides the essential information to examine the concept of CE from two basic academic fields: engineering/nature-based and management/economic-based sciences. The next step contributes to the analysis of the most common techniques and methods used to describe the most crucial topics of the current literature. The fourth step presents the results of this research and the final step provides the implications for the engineering and management literature.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1 Structure of the research framework.

3.2: Research questions

Nowadays, the term CE is very popular, and many scholars have conducted studies to make its content clearer (Lewandowski, 2016; Cecchin et al., 2021; Hart and Pomponi, 2021; Kirchherr et al., 2018; Nikolaou et al., 2021; Webster, 2021). Similarly, several principles have been suggested as fundamental CE concepts, arising from different academic fields (Bocken et al., 2021; Ghisellini et al., 2021; Ozili, 2021; Stefanakis et al., 2021). One significant stream of literature, which is associated with the engineering and nature-based academic fields, puts greater emphasis on pinpointing applied solutions to solve large environmental problems, and closing materials loops (Molina-Moreno et al., 2017; Avraamidou et al., 2020). Their first task is to study the potential technical and biological cycles in order to preserve materials over a longer period in both the production and consumption procedures and obviously to avoid the use of virgin natural resources. The second stream of literature emerges from the management and economic sciences, and focuses on identifying certain ways to incorporate CE ideas into organizations in operationally effective and cost-efficient ways.

Essentially, these scientific fields are necessary to make CE useful, functional, and efficient for contemporary and future economies and societies. However, a mapping of the CE territory is necessary to show the key topics of each field, the common topics, and the potential connections among such fields. To examine these ideas, the research questions of this study are as follows:

Research Question 1 (RQ_1): Which scientific fields have covered the greatest part of CE literature?

Research Question 2 (RQ_2): What has been the evolution of CE studies over time?

Research Question 3 (RQ_3): What level of analysis attracts the greatest emphasis regarding the concept of CE?

3.3: Data selection processes

One significant subject in conducting a study is to create suitable conditions to collect all necessary data. To do so, a robust context is needed to collect necessary information from the existing literature. As aforementioned, this study utilizes a bibliometric methodology to gather data by analyzing the existing literature through specific steps. Table 1 shows the steps that are adopted for the purpose of this chapter.

Table 1

As a first step, the appropriate scientific databases are selected, considering where the majority of the relative studies are available. For the scope of this study, the best-known and most scientifically transparent databases for finding journals are Scopus, Scholar Google, and the ISI Web of Knowledge. In particular, the choice of such databases is based on certain criteria such as the quantity and the quality of scientific studies that are published in them. The second step focuses on designing a methodology to include or exclude the necessary studies from the overall studies gathered in the previous step. Some representative excluding or including criteria are: the title of the study, the year of publication, the impact factor of the journal, the academic field that the journal focuses on, and so on. As a third step, a mathematical formula is suggested to calculate the final score, which ranges from 0 to 46 points. The final selection of the studies has been made based on them achieving a higher final score.

Another task in the first step is the selection of suitable keywords on which the search procedures are based. Some significant keywords are circular economy in engineering, circular economy in environmental science, circular economy in natural-based science, circular economy in economic-based science, circular economy in management science, circular economy in micro-level, circular economy in meso-level, and circular economy in macro-level.

3.4: Data analysis techniques

To analyze the content of selected studies, a framework is designed that is based primarily on the classical threefold level approach that includes micro-, meso-, and macro-levels (Fig. 2). The first (micro) level encompasses studies with emphasis on CE strategies, methodologies, and practices in relation to the production, operation, and products processes. The second (meso) level includes studies regarding the industrial ecology and symbiosis that advocate cooperative actions among firms to exchange the waste materials of some firms as raw materials for others. Finally, the last (macro) level includes studies regarding the principles and policies of CE at a national level. These levels also include studies from two general academic fields: engineering/nature-based sciences and management/economic-based sciences (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

Fig. 2 Methodological framework structure.

4: Results

To answer the first research question (RQ_1) of this study, a classification of selected papers by academic field is made. This implies that selected papers could be classified in engineering/nature-based science and in management/economic-based fields. The selected studies have an engineering/nature-based or management/economic-based orientation, and the highest score achieved in FDI. Table 2 shows some indicative studies for both fields.

Table 2

Fig. 3 shows a total of 11,565 studies regarding the circular economy from different academic fields. The majority of such studies are associated with engineering and nature-based sciences, i.e., 11,926 studies, and 2718 studies are associated with management and economic-based sciences. Finally, 76 of the selected studies use multidisciplinary scientific fields.

Fig. 3

Fig. 3 Allocation of studies based on engineering and management sciences.

It should be noted that the field of engineering and nature-based sciences includes studies related to environmental science, engineering, energy, materials, chemical engineering, agriculture and biological sciences, and earth and planetary sciences. The majority of the studies have emerged from environmental science (35%), engineering science (25%), and energy science (18%) (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

Fig. 4 Allocation of studies in engineering and nature-based sciences.

Similarly, Fig. 5 shows the allocation of studies in management/economic-based sciences, i.e., business, management and accounting, economics, econometrics, finance, and decision sciences. The majority of the selected studies arise from the business management and accounting field (57%) and the economics, econometrics, and finance fields (31%). The final category of decision science includes 12% of the selected studies.

Fig. 5

Fig. 5 Allocation of studies in management/economic-based sciences.

The second research question (RQ_2) requires an analysis of the studies of CE over time. To this end, the numbers of examined studies regarding CE seem to have grown rapidly over the last decade. The relevant studies have quadrupled in this decade; specifically, from 320 in 2003, they reached 4600 in 2020. A gradual evolution during the last decade (Fig. 6) is identified. Many of these papers focused on reviewing existing studies for a variety of topics on the CE concept.

Fig. 6

Fig. 6 Evolution of CE studies over time.

The last research question (RQ_3) focuses on examining the allocation of such studies into three levels. Fig. 7 shows the allocation of CE studies in relation to the first (micro) level. The majority of studies emerge from environmental science (720) and engineering science (510). Overall, engineering and nature-based sciences (e.g., environmental science, earth and planetary sciences, engineering, and energy material sciences) represent the major part of these studies, totaling 1749 studies, while management and economic-based sciences (e.g., business, management and accounting, social sciences, economics, econometrics, finance, and decision sciences) total 1178 studies.

Fig. 7

Fig. 7 Allocation of micro-level studies in various academic fields.

In this level, the subjects of studies coming from the field of engineering and nature-based sciences are mainly focused on sharing resources, substituting nonrenewable mineral sources, proposing product-service systems, converting CO2 to CO2-based polymers, reprocessing fly ash, carbide slag, and iron oxide, among others. Actually, the main idea of this literature is to provide certain technological solutions to reuse or recycle by-products in order to transform them to raw materials for various production and consumptions uses. Similarly, management and economic-based sciences put more emphasis on circular business models, accounting systems, circular design principles, and cost-effectiveness solutions.

Fig. 8 describes some characteristic studies that could be classified into the meso-level from a range of academic fields. Similar to the micro-level, the majority of the meso-level studies are associated with engineering and nature-based sciences (e.g., environmental science, earth and planetary sciences, engineering, energy, and chemical engineering), totaling 614 studies; the rest of the studies, from management and economic-based sciences (e.g., business, management and accounting, social sciences, economics, econometrics and finance, and social sciences), total only 273. The topics of these fields focus on industrial symbiosis, industrial metabolism, industrial ecology, and eco-industrial parks.

Fig. 8

Fig. 8 Allocation of meso-level studies in various academic fields.

About 3000 studies are selected from macro-level studies to be analyzed (Fig. 9). The majority of such studies are associated with nature-based science and engineering. Specifically, the fields of environmental science, earth and planetary sciences, and agricultural and biological sciences provide 36% of the total macro-level studies. The rest of this field consists of engineering (30%) and management- and economic-based sciences (33%). The topics of such methodologies are based on policy tools (e.g., command and control, market-based, and voluntary instruments) and complete decision-making tools for local or national public organization regarding CE issues.

Fig. 9

Fig. 9 Allocation of macro-level studies in various academic fields.

Finally, Fig. 10 shows the allocation of the total number of studies (see Fig. 3) per level and academic field. This shows that the macro-level includes the greatest number of studies in both scientific fields: engineering/nature-based sciences and management/economic-based sciences. As expected, the meso-level of the CE represents a more advanced part in the literature in the field of engineering and environmental sciences. This is because the focus of this literature is on industrial ecology issues that date back to the 1970s, which has contributed to their faster transformation into a circular economy. The field of management/economic-based sciences pays more attention to the micro- and macro-levels by examining business circular models.

Fig. 10

Fig. 10 Allocation of studies per level and academic field.

5: Conclusion and discussion

This chapter presents a bibliometric analysis regarding CE studies. Specifically, a methodological framework has been developed to analyze the literature. It is based on the classical threefold structure of micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. Another significant point of the suggested framework is its intention to identify the emphasis of current studies between engineering/nature-based and management/economic-based sciences. The threefold level and science fields are the main pillars that the framework of analysis was built on.

The results have shown that the macro-level includes the majority of CE studies. This is expected, since the majority of studies have only lately paid more attention to waste management and general policies at the municipal and international levels, with many studies suggesting complete plans to reuse and recycle materials from the building sector, from food waste, and from waste management. Indeed, the majority of existing studies focus on end-of-life strategies.

Another important section of literature has focused on the meso-level. In engineering/nature-based sciences, it seems that the meso-level includes over 3000 studies that focus on industrial ecology and symbiosis. These studies examine how by-products of firms or sectors could be raw materials for other firms and sectors. The idea is based on ecosystems functions. Finally, the micro-level also plays a critical role by covering a number of interesting themes such as reuse, recycle, remanufacture, and redesign.

It is worth noting that the majority of the current studies focus on literature review and normative models. Actually, the majority of the current literature focuses on recording the current situation regarding CE and not on proposing specific technologies and successful examples to solve current and future problems. This is a possible and necessary future research field for CE. Another absence in the current research is the supply side (production), while very little work focuses on examining the demand side (consumers). For this, further studies to explore the intentions and awareness of consumers regarding CE are necessary.

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Chapter 2: Steering the circular economy: A new role for Adam Smith's invisible hand

Keith R. Skene    Biosphere Research Institute, Angus, United Kingdom

Abstract

This chapter explores aspects of policy and management in the circular economy, reexamining the concept of the invisible hand within the economic theory of Adam Smith. The significance of this concept, its failure to deliver societal change and to reduce inequality, and its potential relevance to the circular economy are discussed. We then examine the honey economy of the Ogiek people, an indigenous tribe from Kenya, and introduce the concept of the invisible tripartite embrace, a more expansive version of the invisible hand, which interconnects the three arenas of sustainability: economics, society, and the environment. It is suggested that only such connectivity can steer the circular economy in such a way as to integrate our economic activities within the Earth system, thus delivering true sustainability. The role of technology is explored within a strong sustainability setting. We conclude by realigning the circular economy within a truly sustainable context.

Keywords

Earth system; Emergence; Feedback; Nonlinearity; Ogiek people; Strong sustainability; Suboptimality; Systems theory; Weak sustainability

Acknowledgment

This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Professor Klement Rejšek.

1: Introduction

1.1: Defining economics

Robbins (1935) defined economics as the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses. What is interesting about this definition is that it positions economics as a social or behavioral science, rather than a mathematical subject. Robbins was a great admirer of the work of Adam Smith, who underpinned his economic theory with social theory. Indeed, Smith's work in economics, as espoused in his second book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1776) was built upon his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith, 1759), wherein he emphasized the emergent morality of a functional society as underpinning the invisible hand that would steer free trade in a positive direction. This in turn would strengthen that society. He wrote: [The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity . . . . they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species (Smith, 1759).

Unfortunately, the interconnected concepts within these two books, society and economics, became separated and the outcome has been an increase in inequality that has damaged society, resulting in a withered hand and the death of societal feedback. Zucman (2019) reports that wealth inequality has increased dramatically since the 1980s. In the USA, the share of the national wealth owned by the richest 0.00025% of the population (amounting to around 400 individuals) has increased fourfold since the early 1980s.

In this chapter, we explore the significance of the invisible hand and its relevance to the circular economy. We then examine the honey economy of the Ogiek people, an indigenous tribe from Kenya, and introduce the concept of the invisible tripartite embrace, a more expansive version of the invisible hand, which interconnects the three arenas of human activity: economics, society and the environment. It is suggested that only such connectivity can steer the circular economy in such a way as to integrate our economic activities within the Earth system, thus delivering meaningful sustainability. We conclude by realigning the circular economy within a truly sustainable context.

1.2: The circular economy

The circular economy is a broad church with a global outreach. The Chinese version, ensconced within the 5-year plans of recent times, has a very different political context in comparison with that proclaimed by the EU (Skene and Murray, 2017). The underpinning theory was in place many years ago. Waste in food (Simmonds, 1862) and industrial symbiosis (Devas, 1901; Parkins, 1934) can be traced back over a century, while Desrochers (2001, 2002, 2008) argues that the concepts of recycling and resource-use efficiency can be found in ancient times, driven by a scarcity of resources due to technological shortcomings in terms of extraction, rather than the current drivers of excessive extraction and the profligacy of waste.

Kirchherr et al. (2017) encountered 114 different definitions of the circular economy, and summarized these with the following working definition: a regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimised by slowing, closing, and narrowing material and energy loops. This can be achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing and recycling.

Quite clearly, the circular economy is defined strictly within the limits of resource use and waste. Obviously, this is important, but it misses out on two other essential elements of sustainability: society and the environment. Economics is not an isolated realm, wherein greening of supply and waste chains will deliver a perfect world. While the circular economy relates to the economics-environment nexus, the restoration of ecosystem function requires a much deeper response than this; and ecosystem function is an essential component of sustainability. Adam Smith recognized the importance of the society-economy nexus, and his foundation was not economics, but society.

In order to understand the environment-society-economy nexus, we need to ask what sustainability actually means.

1.3: What do we mean by sustainability?

Sustainability is often interpreted as a form of dynamic equilibrium, where losses and gains balance each other, resulting in the maintenance of some status quo (Giampietro and Mayumi, 1997; Lozano, 2007; Sakuragawa and Hosono, 2010). In terms of sustainable resource use, for example, some form of circular flow is envisaged, where materials are used but then recycled in such a way that the stock is not diminished. There are three forms of sustainability recognized today: economic, social and environmental. These are often referred to as the three arenas and are frequently represented as three overlapping circles.

The history of humankind in many ways reflects changes in the emphasis between these arenas. For around 95% of our existence as a subspecies on Earth, Homo sapiens sapiens, akin to the rest of nature, found ourselves within the environmental arena. Our evolution, ongoing existence and societal structure were emergent from and contingent upon this arena and represented our natural ecology, wherein we interacted with each other and the landscape, which in turn formed the context of our survival.

Some 12,000 years ago, near the conclusion of the last ice age, we began to settle, to farm, and to trade. The economic arena was formed and steadily grew, coming to dominate our behavior and our relationships both with each other and with our environment. Nature was no longer recognized as the designer, director, and arbitrator, but merely as a sink and source, a utility. The surplus theory of stratification became a reality, wherein surplus food allowed the population to proliferate, leading to specialization in work, with increasing complexity in social organization, ownership, inheritance and exchange. Inequality also increased, as did the emphasis on individualization as opposed to the collective. In many ways, the rest of our history has merely been an intensification of all of these characteristics, through industrial and technological development.

Nature's value became unilateral, wherein the benefits to humans were not counter-balanced by the costs to ecosystem functioning (Costanza et al., 2014; Seják et al., 2018). Since the end of the 19th century, it has been acknowledged that any objective valuation of goods and services cannot be derived from benefits to humans alone. Marshall (1920) attempted to reconcile the classical (cost) supply-side and neoclassical demand-side (marginal utility) theories of economic value in his two blades of scissors analogy. Yet today, the unilateral value concept has regained traction, where valuation of ecosystem services, also referred to as nature's contributions to people (Diaz et al., 2018), is seen as representing natural value. One of the reasons for this is that our thinking is dominated by empirical, reductionist philosophy, wherein interventionist strategies are legitimized by a comprehension of the planet as being built of small blocks, which can be rearranged and shifted at will, allowing us to replace natural capital with man-made capital. To understand the meaning of this, we need to discuss the two schools of sustainability: weak and strong sustainability.

2: Weak and strong sustainability

Weak sustainability is defined as development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987). The focus is on our needs, and the three arenas are interchangeable, meaning that it doesn’t matter if the environmental arena diminishes, as long as the economic and societal arenas can replace it. Technology is seen as central to this exchange of capital.

It is argued that technology can replicate nature in providing ecosystem services for our future survival, whether it be through genetic engineering (Gates, 2018), cloud seeding (Rasch et al., 2009), iron enrichment of the oceans (to move CO2 from the atmosphere into the hydrosphere) (Zhang et al., 2015) or biomimicry, where we borrow ideas from nature and implant them within technology (Benyus, 1997). Weak sustainability allows for almost unlimited substitution between man-made and natural capital (Pearce and Turner, 1990).

In a weak sustainability paradigm, provided that mean global wealth and welfare increase, those countries doing the best (i.e., the developed nations) can compensate the less successful. Not only can each arena compensate for the others, paying our way out of trouble, but the inequalities, while maintained, can be ironed out too. It is a morally contestable position, but lies at the heart of this form of thinking.

On the other side of the sustainability argument lies strong sustainability, which advocates that nature cannot be replaced by technology, but rather, each pool of capital (economic, social, and natural) should be maintained independently (Brekke, 1997; Daly and Cobb, 1989). Strong sustainability can be defined as development that allows future generations to access the same amount of natural resources and the same economic and social capital as the current generation. Ott (2003) argues that: Natural capital is characterized by internal and dynamic complexity. Its components form a network of relationships. In principle, they are mutually non-substitutable.

There is a problem at the heart of both schools of thought, in that, given the damage that already exists, these definitions translate as the maintenance of the current damage as well as the current capital, be it total capital or in separate pools, without including any measure of restoration. The circular economy suffers from a similar weakness, allowing no pathway to recovery, but, rather, halting the increasing depletion. However, the Earth system is seriously damaged already, and halting the damage will not be enough.

Thus, we see that any position on sustainability will depend upon which school is advocated, and can have a very different meaning, according to this choice. These differences depend on your philosophical foundations. The reasoning underpinning strong sustainability arguments lies in the reality that the Earth system is an emergent system. Weak sustainability rests upon reductionist thinking, where we can build structures that substitute for the Earth system, in a form of terraforming. To understand the importance of this we need to examine systems theory.

3: Systems theory

Any complex system, such as the Earth system, is composed of multiple parts, which are connected to and interdependent upon each other and their environment (Nicolis and Prigogine, 1989). Systems are self-assembling and self-organizing. The Earth system has self-assembled, self-organized, reassembled, and reorganized many times over the last 3.4 billion years, recovering from mass extinctions along the way. It has a creative force within it that allows it to restructure itself without human intervention. Nature has no need for the wisdom of humankind and doesn’t require the formation of an organizing committee nor an action plan to repair itself.

Systems have a number of key characteristics. They are nonlinear, meaning that they do not display cause and effect, but are asymmetrical. Folke et al. (2010) highlight the point that Causation is often non-linear in complex adaptive systems with the potential for chaotic dynamics, multiple basins of attraction, and shifts between pathways or regimes, some of which may be irreversible. This is important, because systems can undergo dramatic change with little warning, switching to a new state. Unintended consequences can result, wherein outcomes are unpredictable and rapid in nature. Such outcomes are an expected result of the dynamic nature of complex systems (Aoi et al.,