Measuring Circular Economy Statistical guidelines for “Material life-cycle and value chain” and “Interactions with the environment” indicators

Introduction

Introduction

The present guidelines are a tool to enhance institutional technical capacities to regularly produce circular economy datasets that should be used to inform and develop evidence-based policies.

The indicators included in these guidelines are based on the UNECE-OECD Conference of European Statisticians – Guidelines for Measuring Circular Economy, part A: Conceptual Framework, Indicators and Measurement Framework , published in 2023.

The Statistical Framework includes 4 building blocks:

Material life-cycle and value chain
Interactions with the environment
Responses and actions
Socio-economic opportunities

Each building block includes a set of core indicators (those indicators that provide key elements of a circular economy, respond to main policy questions and provide insights on new developments or changes required), complementary (provide additional details to the core indicators) and contextual indicators (provide environmental, social and economic background information).

These present guidelines focus on two building blocks and their core set of indicators. These are presented below in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 List of circular economy indicators included in the guidelines.
Framework building block	Core indicator
Material life-cycle and value chain	Domestic material consumption Domestic material consumption per capita Domestic material consumption per GDP, or material intensity Material productivity, or raw material productivity Material footprint, or raw material consumption Material footprint per capita Material footprint per GDP, or raw material intensity Circular material use rate Food waste and loss Material footprint, or raw material consumption Food loss index Food waste index Proportion of waste (MSW) collected and managed in controlled facilities out of total municipal solid waste generated, by cities Hazardous waste generated per capita Hazardous waste generated by type, including e-waste National recycling rate
Interactions with the environment	Level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources Total discharges to water bodies and share of total discharges safely treated Total GHG emissions

For each indicator, the guidelines include the following information:

General information
Additional disaggregation, when applicable
Indicator interpretation
Data availability
Limitations in the use of the indicator
Definitions
Calculations

1.a Indicators: Proposed path for data compilation

Step 1

A national institution will be identified/appointed with the task to compile a specific indicator(s). That institution is expected to carry out a review of all the national and sub-national sources of relevant data, such as maps, reports, yearbooks and articles. The collection shall focus on the most recent data, but without excluding any potential sources of information. Also, partial data, by time or area, shall be collected, such as data produced by local projects. Older data shall also be collected for reference. The data collected will be compared with those available at international level.

Step 2

A participatory analysis of the outcome of step 1 will be done through a technical meeting of all the institutions involved. The final dataset shall be used as the baseline selection. Possible older datasets availability could be indicated if available, to be used to produce a preliminary backward timeline.

Step 3

The indicator will be computed following the indications of the metadata and these guidelines, using the dataset(s) identified in step 2.

Step 4

The outcome of step 3 will be discussed and commented on in a national workshop among national and possible international actors. Needs, constraints for regular data compilation for the indicator as well as the steps to overcome them shall be identified.

1.b Data quality and data quality documentation process

In general, the most recent available data shall be provided accompanied by its reference source. Some data might become outdated faster than others, judgement calls with regards to the reliability of a source shall be made on a case-by-case basis. In some cases, if the latest data are known to be outdated, it should be mentioned. All information judged to be relevant shall be provided. When older data are available, they should be considered to form a time series.

If different sources give significantly different values (especially for the same year), a critical analysis will be necessary to choose the most appropriate value. The other values together with their sources shall be mentioned in the quality report.