Driving Circularity Through Governmental Initiatives: Insights from Leading Global Economies and Influential Countries

Navoda Ranasinghe¹, Niluka Domingo¹, Ravindu Kahandawa¹

1. Massey University

Published in Proceedings of the International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Built Environment (SASBE 2024), edited by Ali GhaffarianHoseini, Amirhosein GhaffarianHoseini, Farzad Rahimian and Mahesh Babu Purushothaman. Springer Nature, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, volume 591, 2025, pages 668 to 680. DOI 10.1007/978-981-96-4051-5_65.

Abstract

The contemporary era has witnessed a significant demand for natural resources, especially in the construction sector, driven by population growth, urbanization, and rapid infrastructure development. Concurrently, substantial waste generation results from the linear economic model that is commonly followed. Circular economy (CE) is an accepted concept to avoid this massive environmental impact. Despite extensive discussions on circular strategies in research and academia, practical implementation remains limited. One of the prominent obstacles is low government involvement in legislation, financial incentives, and action plans toward circularity.Thus, through a comprehensive literature review, this study examines the CE implementation strategies by governments in leading economies and influential countries to uncover the optimal approaches for achieving circularity. CE implementation in countries with the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were explored, focusing on the resource intensity, waste generation, and the environmental impact of significant CO2 emitters. The analysis includes governmental involvement in enacting CE-related laws, regulations, policies, CE action plans, standards, roadmaps, and guidelines.This study found that leading countries commonly adopt a top-down approach to systematically implement CE. This involves pushing society through laws, acts, and policies and achieving targets through roadmaps, standards, and action plans. Significant attributes of CE implementation procedures following the top-down approach were summarised to assist countries in the early stages of CE implementation. The findings highlight the importance of government involvement through legal frameworks as the fundamental driver for transitioning towards circularity.

Keywords

Session

Presented in Track J, Saturday 9 November 2024, 11:00 to 13:00, room WA 224 B, Auckland University of Technology. Session chair Dr Eziaku Rasheed.

How to Cite

Ranasinghe, N., Domingo, N., & Kahandawa, R. (2025). Driving Circularity Through Governmental Initiatives: Insights from Leading Global Economies and Influential Countries. In A. GhaffarianHoseini, A. GhaffarianHoseini, F. Rahimian, & M. B. Purushothaman (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Built Environment (SASBE 2024) (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, Vol. 591, pp. 668–680). Springer Nature Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-4051-5_65

About the Conference

Presented at SASBE 2024, the International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, held in Auckland from 7 to 9 November 2024 and chaired by Professors Ali and Amirhosein GhaffarianHoseini, founders of GDI Academy. The version of record is published by Springer Nature; this page is the conference archive record kept by GDI Academy.