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The Polish economy as the sixth largest EU economy, with its GDP per capita amounting to 71% of the EU average in 2018, painfully experiences the e ects of natural resource exhaustion, which includes rising prices and increasing dependence on foreign suppliers. The situation is particularly onerous in construction, which is among the most resource- and energy-consuming economic sectors, and which has already been struggling with severe labor shortages for the past few years. The domestic consumption of raw materials reveals an increasing trend, whose dynamics vary depending on the material group. For instance, between 2015 and 2018 the domestic consumption of non-alloy aluminum went up by 97.7%, plastics by 29.9%, float glass by 28.2%, metallurgical products by ca. 38.0%, wood-based materials (chipboard) by 25.6%, cement by 21.7%, and paper and cardboard by 10.0%, while the construction industry reported an increase as high as 23.2% in construction and assembly outputs.
Poland's economy as the sixth largest economy in the EU is painfully experiencing the effects of natural resource depletion, which extend to increasing prices and the growing dependence on foreign suppliers. The concept of the Circular Economy assumes the existence of an industrial economy which is renewable by assumption; its supreme objective is to ensure the effective flow of raw materials, power, labor and information so that it is possible to “rebuild” environmental and human resources.
The implementation of essential changes in the way a domestic economy operates is a complex process. The transformation of the linear economy towards the Circular Economy (CE) is a challenge that many European countries, including Poland, currently face. Changes in product management at the final stage of their life cycle are what differentiate the linear economy from the CE. The essence of the CE concept for raw materials is to prevent waste generation, e.g., by extending a product’s life cycle or creating possibilities for repair [1][2]. When it is not possible to avoid waste generation, the product should be suitable for reuse or recycling, according to the waste management hierarchy shown in Figure 1 [3]. Intensive industrial development and the ever growing global population, which at present exceeds 7.8 billion and is forecast to reach 9 billion by 2037 and 10 billion in 2050 [4] are among the key factors responsible for the increase in the rate of natural resources consumption. This is encapsulated in the Earth overshoot day (EOD), which is the day when all natural resources, which could renew in a given year, are exhausted. In 2019, the EOD was on 29 July, which was the soonest in the history of humankind. In the EU, the situation was worse, with overshoot day occurring on 10 May and in Poland on 15 May. By comparison, Qatar’s EOD was on 11 February, while in Kirgizstan it was 26 December [5]. The volume of natural resource consumption in the EU, in 2014, was estimated at 7.4 billion tonnes (3.1 billion tonnes were used for power generation), of which 5.8 billion tonnes were from local mining, 0.9 billion tonnes were net import and only 0.7 billion tonnes were secondary raw materials [6]. OECD expects the global consumption of natural resources to double by 2060 compared to 2011 (when it amounted to 79 billion tonnes), if the current consumption rate is maintained. The emission of greenhouse gases is predicted to increase in the same period from 28 to 50 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent [7].
Figure 1. Waste management hierarchy in the circular economy (CE) [3].
The Polish economy as the sixth largest EU economy, with its GDP per capita amounting to 71% of the EU average in 2018 [8], painfully experiences the effects of natural resource exhaustion, which includes rising prices and increasing dependence on foreign suppliers. The situation is particularly onerous in construction, which is among the most resource- and energy-consuming economic sectors, and which has already been struggling with severe labor shortages for the past few years. The domestic consumption of raw materials reveals an increasing trend, whose dynamics vary depending on the material group. For instance, between 2015 and 2018 the domestic consumption of non-alloy aluminum went up by 97.7%, plastics by 29.9%, float glass by 28.2%, metallurgical products by ca. 38.0%, wood-based materials (chipboard) by 25.6%, cement by 21.7%, and paper and cardboard by 10.0% [9], while the construction industry reported an increase as high as 23.2% in construction and assembly outputs [10].
With regard to the above, closing the circulation of raw materials in the economy seems to be the only way towards hampering natural environment devastation as a result of anthropogenic actions, especially in construction [11][12]. The concept of the CE assumes the existence of an industrial economy which is renewable by assumption; its supreme objective is to ensure the effective flow of raw materials, power, labor and information so that it is possible to “rebuild” environmental and human resources [1][13][14][15]. The EU predicts that the implementation of CE concepts will help to reduce CO2 emissions by 450 million tonnes by 2030, making 600 billion EUR in savings for enterprises (8% of annual turnover) and establishing 580,000 new jobs [16]. Therefore, it seems obvious that reaching the aforementioned targets requires a holistic approach, which engages actors across the supply chain at all stages of a product’s life cycle.
The draft Polish CE roadmap, adopted in September 2019 [17], is based on a model which assumes the coexistence of biological nutrients, designed to re-enter the biosphere safely and build natural capital, and technical nutrients, which are designed to circulate at high quality without entering the biosphere [1][18]. A dramatic decrease in the demand for primary raw materials, with a simultaneous reduction in the number of pollutants and generated waste are expected as the consequences of closing the biological and engineering loop. The actions included in the CE Roadmap are mandatory on a national level and foster the execution of four Polish priorities related to CE implementation [3], namely: (a) innovativeness, strengthening cooperation between the industry and science, and consequently the implementation of innovative solutions in the economy; (b) creating a secondary raw materials European market; (c) providing high-quality secondary raw materials; (d) service sector development. The provisions concerning the following measures are particularly important for the construction industry: