A Complex Circular-Economy Quality Indicator for Assessing Production Systems at the Micro Level

Zygmunt Kowalski (), Joanna Kulczycka, Marcin Banach and Agnieszka Makara
Additional contact information
Zygmunt Kowalski: Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, 31-261 Cracow, Poland
Joanna Kulczycka: Faculty of Management, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30-067 Cracow, Poland
Marcin Banach: Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Cracow University of Technology, 31-155 Cracow, Poland
Agnieszka Makara: Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Cracow University of Technology, 31-155 Cracow, Poland

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 18, 1-16

Abstract: Measuring circular-economy progress requires indicators to examine the implementation of management systems. A complex quality indicator for assessing production systems at the circular-economy micro level was proposed. One innovative aspect of this evaluation of quality indicators is the classification of a set of sixty selected options divided into four core groups (technical, environmental, economic, and social). The second one is the use of a trimmed-mean method to summarize the individual options score into core groups and complex circular-economy indicators of analyzed production systems. The individual options were weighed according to indices defined by the professional team. Here is presented a case study of the use of developed complex quality indicators, including a comparison of two sodium tripolyphosphate production processes. The calculated indicator of the new method was higher, at 204.8%, than the indicator of the old method. This confirms the significant advantage of the new technology.

Keywords: circular economy; microlevel; quality indicator; complex quality method; trimmed mean (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/18/13495/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/18/13495/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:18:p:13495-:d:1236107

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().