Integrated environmental-economic circular economy assessment: Application to the case of expanded polystyrene

Circular Economy (CE), despite its great potential, is often challenged for not being sustainable from an environmental, economic and social perspective, or at least not in all dimensions simultaneously. Therefore, assessments that integrate different sustainability dimensions are necessary to facilitate CE implementation, particularly before entire value chains are reconfigured or incentivized to do so. However, integrated CE assessment methods remain scarce, especially at a value-chain level. We aim to bridge this gap by suggesting an approach that evaluates and integrates the environmental and economic impacts of implementing CE at the value-chain level. The approach is based on material flow analysis, life-cycle assessment, life-cycle costing, and scenario development. The application of the approach to the expanded polystyrene (EPS) value chain revealed that EPS recycling can be environmentally and economically beneficial in the long term. The approach was developed to support political and industrial decision-makers seeking to implement a sustainable CE.