Chapter 2: Sustainable Development and the Circular Economy: Concepts, Progress and Prospects

The rate of progress towards meeting the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the target date of 2030 has slowed substantially, affected especially by the COVID-19 pandemic. Investment in SDGs is underfunded, while the contributions of both the public and private sectors are still overwhelmingly directed towards the linear economy. Developed economies and stable polities score well overall relative to challenged economies and unstable regions, exacerbated by chronic underinvestment in low- and middle-income countries. Although originating from different starting principles, the concepts of sustainable development and of the circular economy have many features in common, such that the latter has direct relevance to a number of SDGs. However, the circular economy as currently defined and applied is a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieve the SDGs, requiring supporting systems to action and optimise the social and environmental agendas. The challenge is to embed all three sustainability pillars into a formal, consistently applied operational circular economy framework. There are encouraging signs of convergence, though a robust theoretical assimilation and underpinning of the two concepts has yet to be attempted. The extent of integration will determine how and with what speed the circular economy will be systematically applied to achieving the SDGs.