Stakeholders’ engagement and decision-making process: methodologies and techniques to assess strategies towards a Just Circular Economy

The transition to a CE is now a necessary step to address pressing environmental challenges such as climate change, resource depletion and biodiversity loss. Consequently, it is of growing interest to characterise decision support methods that can guide analysts towards more sustainable investment choices. However, despite increasing research efforts, the literature on economic-environmental assessments and decision-making processes related to CE is still limited and fragmented. Current visions of the circular economy are narrowly focused on economics and technology, while there is an apparent lack of reflection on political and socio-cultural dimensions as well as justice issues (social, environmental and gender). In this context, stakeholders’ involvement, which to date is passive and unstructured, becomes a key factor for the transition to a socially conscious circular economy. Therefore, this contribution intends to address the issue of the still marginal stakeholder involvement at all stages of the decision-making process. This paper has a twofold aim. First, we provide a brief overview of existing research on methods and techniques for the economic, environmental, and multi-criteria evaluation of strategies for the transition to the CE, highlighting their limitations and strengths. Secondly, we outline a methodological approach that can support decision-makers: (i) in assessing the economic and socio-environmental performance of a single CE strategy; (ii) in selecting the most sustainable CE alternatives, considering the targets of the different stakeholder groups involved. In other terms, we propose a methodological framework, structured in different steps, to identify the stakeholders and apply integrated indicators to evaluate the CE strategies and their impacts (environmental, economic, and social). This methodological approach not only represents a valuable tool for policy makers, but also becomes necessary to promote shared decision-making processes within the CE transition.