Barriers for circular economy in policy instruments Sample Clauses

Barriers for circular economy in policy instruments and procedures Overview of barrier types‌ The EMF2 has identified a range of type of barriers groups under four headings, economic, market failures, regulatory failures and social factors in terms of moving towards a circular economy. In summary: • Regulatory failures – of relevance are the barriers of poorly defined legal frameworks which may limit reuse, innovation etc; targets and objectives that may skew or provide insufficient direction for circularity; lack of implementation and enforcement; and unintended consequences of existing regulations that may hamper circular practices. • Market failures – within this category are those that are related to the market not performing in a way to aid circularity. This may be due to materials and products not priced fully to reflect their costs to society (known as externalities) e.g., the cost of disposal is not factored in; insufficient logistics and infrastructure; a lack of competition/markets leading to higher prices and/or lower quality; a lack of robust information affecting market decisions; split incentives (when the goals across the value chain differ) and higher transaction costs. • Economic barriers – these largely relate to the lack of profitability for businesses (based on current business models and costing/valuation techniques); capital intensive and/or uncertain payback times and the issue that circular economy technologies and solutions are not yet available at scale, which is likely to make them more expensive. • Social factors – these include the lack of capabilities and skills either in-house or in the market at reasonable cost such as deconstruction techniques, valuation of reclaimed materials or circularity assessment and the ingrained patterns of behaviour displayed by consumers and businesses, such as the construction industry’ conservative nature. It should be noted that barriers are often interwoven and independent upon each other. The top barriers specific to the construction sector in the UK, identified though previous work are (in order) are18: • Lack of incentive to design for end of life (products) • Lack of market mechanisms for recovery of materials or products • Unclear financial case • Lack of consideration for end-of-life issues (buildings) 18 Xxxxx X.X, Xxxxxx M, Xxxxxx T, Xxxxxxxxx J (2017) Circular economy in construction: current awareness, challenges and enablers. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Waste and Resource Management, Volume 170 (1), pp. 15-24....