About our methodology

We strive to provide accurate measurement of the circular economy and contextualise it by giving holistic overviews of the material flows of the economic systems we analyse. This is most prominently expressed in the Global Circularity Metric and the mapping of global material flows in the Sankey diagrams featuring at the core of each Circularity Gap Report.

Measuring
and Mapping Circularity

The key to the methodologies underpinning both the circularity indicator and the material flow mapping is the quality of the data that is sourced to calculate the gap metric as well as the databases on material flow volumes. Therefore, we make it a priority to choose datasets that are curated by internationally renowned institutions and triangulate aggregated material volumes with other established sources and feedback from our scientific committee.

Measuring Circularity - Technical Methodology Document (January 2023) - PDF

Scientific committee

Circle Economy makes sure to develop its methodologies, datasets and the narratives extracted from the analyses in close collaboration with a group of knowledge partners from academia and research institutes that form the scientific committee.

Participating organisations are consulted on a regular basis through multiple channels and include the World Resources Institute (WRI), The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), The International Resource Panel (IRP), Institute of Environmental Sciences at the University of Leiden (CML), Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS).