Following the Circular Economy in European rural municipalities through the Spanish Urban Agenda.

The Circular Economy (CE) is a driver of change and regeneration at a global level, and especially for rural areas. However, there is a missing link regarding the CE in municipalities, i.e. at the macro level encompassing the built environment, which is even more pronounced concerning rural environments as a result of an existing scientific literature primarily focused on large cities. The present paper addresses these issues by means of parallel analysis of two key research axes targeting, on the one hand, the concept of CE tailored to the field of study of the built environment and, on the other hand, the implementation of CE in European rural areas. The former puts forth an adapted definition of CE, while the latter generates a database tool for CE strategies based on benchmark CE and sustainability databases, relying on the case study strategy adopted: the Spanish Urban Agenda. This analysis allows for a broader relevance of findings, as it can be extrapolated to other international official documents, on top of illustrating the CE decision-making process applied to municipalities and its respective strategy selection. • Circular economy definition is adapted to the built environment based on pre-existing concepts on the subject. • A database of circular economy strategies in European rural municipalities is provided as a reference. • An analysis of strategies is applied through the Spanish Urban Agenda as a policy directive with a decision support tool. • Decision-making on the circular economy in municipalities and the selection of related strategies are exemplified. • An equivalence model facilitates extrapolation to other international policy directives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]