A Subnational Hybrid Input-Output Model for Macro-Scale Environmental Analyses of Waste Management and Circular Economy Strategies

We live on a planet with finite natural resources and human activities creating pressures on the environment. The Circular Economy (CE) is gaining momentum as a means to cope with the environmental pressures from human activities. One of the main elements of CE is to maintainproducts and materials at their highest application level as long as possible, while minimising the environmental impact. Hence, a CE implies to minimising the natural resource consumption, reducing waste generation, rethinking waste management (WM), reinforcing the recycling andreuse of products and materials, in tandem with reducing emissions. Measuring is key to take the first steps for a transition towards a CE. This includes the quantification of the environmental pressures of human activities in a CE context as well as the quantification of the degree ofcircularity, i.e. how much materials are recovered from waste. Several tools and methods exist to measure and monitor how circular an economy is, but it is the input-output (IO) model that is of interest in this thesis. The general objective of this thesis is twofold: 1) develop a suitable IO model and 2) demonstrate the applicability and limits of that model. For the second point several applications (or tests) of the model are carried out with different types of analyses. The focus on the subnational level is justified by the Belgian legal and policy context in which WM and CE are mostly regional competences. This thesis has developed the first multiregional hybrid input-output (MRHIO) representing theBelgian subnational level for 2011. This development constitutes the major methodological contribution of this thesis. The critical scientific literature review that was carried out in this thesis showed that the MRHIO model is conceptually the most suitable model for WM and CE analyses at the macro scale. The developed model has been applied to analyse the environmental pressures induced by the regional household demand. Three main applicat
Option Gestion de l’environnement et d’aménagement du territoire du Doctorat en Sciences
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