Circular deals – an international analysis of how deals and certificates can increase the use of secondary resources

In the transition to a circular economy, the transformation of waste into products is central, but has proven difficult in practice. Therefore, we intend to investigate the space between waste and products to understand what it is, its function and whether it should be expanded.

Project name: Circular deals - an international analysis of how deals and certificates can increase the use of secondary resources
Project leader: Nils Johansson, SEED
Participating universities/companies/other organisations: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Linköpings universitet, Stena, Avfall Sverige, Tekniska Verken, Outokumpu
Project period: 2019-2020
Financing: Vinnova

It is difficult to find a market for waste. Partly because the waste legislation is designed to control and dispose waste, rather than circulation. To facilitate the transformation of waste into resources, the EU has developed end of waste criteria. However, these criteria focus on increasing the legitimacy of already established waste markets and the negotiation of the criteria have halted. For this reason, we take a closer look at the space between classifying waste-based resources as waste and as products. An increasing number of alternative legal solutions have emerged in the form of different types of certificates, standards and agreements in the EU. This research project takes a closer look and compares these alternatives and examines if they can be of interest to a Swedish context.