International trends in indicator development on circular materials towards the achievement of decoupling

Abstract

This study focuses on the indicators for evaluating the use of secondary materials in production activities, which are set in national circular economy plan (strategy) mainly in the EU, European countries, Japan and China and examined effective use of the indicators to achieve circular economy and decoupling.

While, EU, France, Germany and Finland have set up similar indicators and targets to Japan's cyclical use rate (input) among the target countries, only Japan and Finland have set targets. The use of recycled materials is useful to achieve decoupling and the role of indicators to measure the progress is important. However, there are some issues to be solved for effective operation, such as the necessity to set up evaluation indicators for the reduction of primary resources in parallel with the development of secondary resource statistics and methodologies.