title: Advancing the understanding and impact assessment of circular economy product legislation in the European Union
Creators: name: Barkhausen, Robin
Publisher: name: UNSPECIFIED
Year: 2024

description: Products, especially energy-related, are responsible for large environmental impacts along their supply chains. Circular economy is seen as a way to reduce environmental impacts and legislation can serve as a lever to facilitate the implementation of circular economy related measures. Against this background, this dissertation is located at the intersection of the three domains of circular economy, legislation and (energy-related) products, with the aim of improving the understanding of circular economy product legislation, including its impact assessment.
The research conducted as part of the cumulative dissertation combines a variety of methods such as directed content and keyword analysis, systematic literature analysis, policy analysis using the advocacy coalition framework with qualitative content analysis and interviews, and scenario modelling using a combination of material flow analysis and life cycle assessment. 
The results show that while the focus of EU product legislation in the past has been on reducing energy consumption during the use phase, environmental impacts beyond the use phase are becoming increasingly important and a clear increase in circular economy related requirements could be identified, with differences between product families and circular economy categories. 
In order to reduce the conceptual ambiguity around the term “circular economy”, a taxonomy of circular economy requirements was developed based on the analysis of the Ecodesign implementing measures and the EU battery legislation. 
The battery legislation was also used as a basis to analyse the policy making process for the underlying drivers of the evolution towards a stronger consideration of circular economy aspects. A hypothesis was derived that circular economy is the common denominator aligning economic, environmental and social interests. 
The apparent increase of circular economy related aspects in product legislation requires an improvement of existing environmental impact assessment methods. A scoping of impact assessment methods and a systematic literature review showed the suitability of combining material flow analysis and life cycle assessment for such an impact assessment. The combination allows to extend the in-depth environmental assessment of life cycle assessment by considering the interactions of material flows over long time periods and large spatial scopes of material flow analysis. Subsequently, a model was developed for the ex-ante assessment of material flows and environmental impacts of a range of circular economy product policies. The model uses a layered approach where material and environmental impacts are derived from product flows via a product database that defines physical properties for product variants. To demonstrate its utility, the model was applied in two case studies of industrial motors and traction batteries. The case study results demonstrated the broad range of policy requirements that can be assessed and the multi-dimensional and product specific nature of the results.
Circling around circular means and promises this dissertation aims to advance the understanding and impact assessment of circular economy product legislation in the European Union.