The circular economy in action: the case of digestate markets

L'économie circulaire en action: le cas des marchés des digestats

Elena Fourcroy (), Sylvie Lupton () and Ion Lucian Ceapraz ()
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Elena Fourcroy: INTERACT - Innovation, Territoire, Agriculture et Agro-industrie, Connaissance et Technologie - UniLaSalle
Sylvie Lupton: INTERACT - Innovation, Territoire, Agriculture et Agro-industrie, Connaissance et Technologie - UniLaSalle
Ion Lucian Ceapraz: UniLaSalle, INTERACT - Innovation, Territoire, Agriculture et Agro-industrie, Connaissance et Technologie - UniLaSalle

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Abstract: Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been much promoted in the European Union (EU) in the last two decades. It is considered as a model of circular economy that produces both energy from renewable sources and recycles nutrients in the form of digestates. The EU is experiencing an important growth of AD and therefore an increasing production of digestates. However, very little is known on digestate markets while controversies and oppositions to their growth emerge. Our paper is a preliminary study that explores the dynamics of these markets, based on a literature review and empirically supported evidence. We identify three co-existing and overlapping models of development of digestate markets, that correspond to different understandings of circular economy. We present six main groups of factors that influence the evolution of these models. We show that competing visions of circular economy have a strong influence on the structure of markets. Also, circular economy is quite always presented as an answer per se to environmental issues. We find that the impacts of digestate markets are much more complex than this idealized vision of circularity. Digestate markets are not spared by environmental and health-related controversies, and problems are often displaced along the circular flows of biomass and nutrients, instead of being solved.

Keywords: Digestates; Uncertainty; Wastes; Anaerobic digestion; Circular economy CE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-12-09
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04369253
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Published in 15ème Journées de Recherche en Sciences Sociales, Société Française d'Economie Rurale, Dec 2021, Toulouse, France

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