Impact of the regional development specifics on the system of circular economy assessment

Abstract

A circular economy (CE) is a sustainable development initiative aimed at reducing the linearity of social production and consumption systems. The degradation of environmental systems is quite an acute issue nowadays. The negative impact on the environment has a harmful effect even on economic indicators, as it reduces the quality of natural and human resources. At the same time, the country’s ability to compete in global markets directly depends on the development of high-tech industries, which does not consider the task of maintaining environmental stability to be of paramount importance. At first glance, the task of reconciling the economic and environmental needs of society seems to be contradictory, but it requires coordinated actions in all spheres of life and constructive repositioning towards norms of sustainable development of social, economic and environmental institutions. This determines that studying the aspects of the socio-economic system transition to a circular type of development is essential. The CE offers special opportunities for industrial regions: being the basis for competitiveness they are leading in the environmental system degradation. This study focuses on the analysis of the region’s ecological and industrial space and attempts to identify indicators that help integrate regional historical and economic specifics into the CE assessment.