Role of manufacturing towards achieving circular economy: The steel case

Circular economy (CE) has been promoted worldwide as a strategy to reduce material use and to increase the material use efficiency by closing material loops at the societal level. The core concept of CE is to improve the circularity of material use through turning materials at the end of their service life into resources for others, however, there is very little information about the role of manufacturing in achieving CE. Using the concepts of dynamic material flow analysis and stock dynamics, this paper proposes a methodological approach to help understand the role of manufacturing in achieving CE. A number of other strategies such as material efficiency in conjunction with CE are also tested using the case of global steel use to draw conclusions.