The circular economy, like industrial ecology, are concepts that are becoming increasingly important in debates and responses to economic and environmental challenges. Lastly, the Roadmap of the last En-vironmental Conference has made it a priority for development, and more particularly for the regions.
If the concepts are innovative, they nonetheless refer to old eco-nomic questions and Community and national policies already in place. These strategies are all aimed at decoupling the dynamic of economic growth and resource consumption in the medium and long term. Chapter 1 of this study lays the foundation for the circular economy and recalls global resource issues. A brief review of the strategies in place and the existing margins of progress is also established, in the light of the principles of action of the circular economy.
Chapter 2 proposes to illustrate this concept in Ile-de-France scale and to identify the circular potentials of the Ile-de-France economic ecosystem. In the absence of an ad hoc methodology to apprehend these margins of maneuver in a systemic way, we have gathered here several registers of information that provide partial but complementary insights into the potential of the regional circular economy. The first is based on material flow accounting and shows, in large numbers and by major category of resources, the functioning and dependencies of the regional economic ecosystem. The second proposed lighting is based on the performance of waste recovery, downstream of the value chain, from a "classical" perspective of development of industrial sectors. Special attention is given to the specific issues of the construction sector. Lastly, an overview of the orientations of the main regional policies which are already directly or indirectly involved in setting up the circular economy provides a final element of lighting.
But beyond the light of the ideas proposed at this stage, it is undoubtedly in the search for new articulations between economic actors that future potential in the circular economy reside. Thus, chapter 3 presents the founding principles of the territorial projects of industrial ecology and illustrates them by various national and international examples. There will also be developed the main lessons and feedback. Finally, we will see, throughout this study, that other levers still remain to be experienced. Because the implementation of a circular economy requires above all a paradigm shift on all modes of production and consumption.
This document, although not exhaustive, proposes to gather first regional framework elements on circular economy. It is hoped that it will provide a cross-reference frame of reference for discussion from both a methodological and a more operational point of view on the priorities to be given and the action plans to be implemented to define and develop a regional circular economy strategy.