On the circularisation of territorial metabolism

Stephan Kampelmann

ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: The circularizsation of urban metabolism has appeared as policy objective in cities around the world. But many policies are not “authentically” circular and based on wrong assumptions (Arnsperger and Bourg, 2016). This article prolongs extends this critical perspective and examines the implications of circularisationcircularization for throughput intensity, the spatial structure, and socio-technical agengytscies of metabolisticmetabolic exchanges. This approach underlines the salience of pPolitical eEconomy issues that have so far not been addressed in the literature on circular economy. More specifically, we document the existence of cleavages such as pro-growth vs. post-growth and technocratic vs. emancipatory that are inherent to alternative interpretations of circular economy. Taking into these issues into account these issues leads to a more accurate understanding of the social-ecological complexity of urban metabolism, but it comes at the cost of lower practical applicability. In order provide operative input to current policy discussions, the complex and mostly idiosyncratic nature of circular metabolism should be addressed in localised, case-specific studies that combine the (mostly quantitative) research on biophysical flows with the (predominantly qualitative) insights on socio-economic transitions.

Date: 2018-02-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:ulb:ulbeco:2013/268034

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://hdl.handle.ne ... lb.ac.be:2013/268034

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Benoit Pauwels ().