Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110

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Sustainable Production and Consumption

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spc

Social circular economy indicators: Selection through fuzzy delphi

method
Alejandro Padilla-Rivera a,∗, Breno Barros Telles do Carmo b, Gabriella Arcese c,
Nicolas Merveille d
a
CIRAIG, Department of Mathematical and Industrial Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Montreal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada
b
Department Engineering Centre - Federal University of the Semi-Arid Region – UFERSA, Brazil
c
Faculty of Economics, Niccolò Cusano University, Via Don Carlo Gnocchi, 3, I-00166 Rome, Italy
d
CIRAIG, Department of Strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility, ESG, UQAM, Montreal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Circular economy (CE) promotes better resource use by reducing waste and keeping products and mate-
Received 15 June 2020 rials in use and supports natural system regeneration. However, the social dimension of CE is virtually
Revised 23 September 2020
non-existent. Moreover, there is no holistic framework to select the social indicators to be used to assess
Accepted 24 September 2020
the positive or negative impacts of CE strategies. Thus, this paper proposes an approach to identify key
Available online 28 September 2020
social indicators of CE through qualitative (Delphi) and quantitative (fuzzy logic) tools that objectively
Editor: Prof. Konstantinos Tsagarakis account for the uncertainty associated with data collection and judgement elicitation and number of at-
tributes (indicators) by considering the vagueness of the data. The research includes a hybrid approach to
Keywords:
Circular economy explore multiple social indicators, a survey of social indicators for CE experts to arrive at a consensus re-
Social indicators garding the social measures that are required and an analysis of the resulting survey data to converge on
Fuzzy delphi method the key social indicators relevant to CE.. The results show that the most relevant social indicators for CE
Decision making, social impacts experts are consumer health and safety, followed by poverty, food security and governance. These find-
ings suggest that indicators such as the eradication of poverty and hunger are priorities for CE experts.
This could be attributed to the power of CE practices to help achieve several Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) targets, particularly those that are most directly related to CE strategies.
© 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction value of products and virtually occults the social dimension.

Current linear models of production and consumption gen-
erate environmental, social and economic issues, jeopardizing
Earth’s life-support systems (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017), raising
major challenges in terms of natural resource scarcity, waste
and environmental pollution. In this sense, in recent years, sev-
eral strategies have been proposed to manage these issues, and
the concept of circular economy (CE) has gained momentum
amongst academics and practitioners everywhere (IEDDEC 2018).
An alternative solution to liner economy (take-make-waste), CE
is based on the principles of designing out waste and pollution,
while keeping products and materials in use and regenerating
natural systems (MacArthur 2013). CE should also contribute to
the well-being of individuals and communities. However, many
authors have remarked that CE is focused on the economic
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: alejandro-de-jesus.padilla-rivera@polymtl.ca, apadillar@iingen.
unam.mx (A. Padilla-Rivera).
The societal impacts of circular economy strategies have re-
ceived little attention and, in some case, no consideration at all
(CIRAIG 2015; Moreau et al. 2017; Korhonen et al. 2018; Merli
et al. 2018; Schroeder et al. 2018). It is therefore unclear how CE
will contribute to the well-being of individuals and communities.
Despite CE’s vague boundaries, there is an urgency for spe-
cific methods to measure CE progress, which is an essential com-
ponent of CE transition (Moraga et al. 2019), to help practition-
ers understand whether the transition is proceeding as planned
or adjustments are required. In this sense, approaches were pro-
posed to measure the social impacts of CE strategies. For exam-
ple, Borrello et al. (2017) carried out an assessment of consumer
contributions to CE strategies to reduce food waste; Girard and
Nocca (2017) compared the social impacts of the linear and cir-
cular tourism sectors; Fischer and Pascucci (2017) analysed the
role of institutions in creating new organizational forms and col-
laborations to transition to CE; and Iacovidou et al. (2017) iden-
tified key social metrics and social assessment methods to op-
timize the multidimensional value of resources recovered from

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2020.09.015
2352-5509/© 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A. Padilla-Rivera, B.B.T. do Carmo, G. Arcese et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110

waste in CE. In Circularity Indicators: An Approach to Measuring Cir-

cularity (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2015), the Ellen MacArthur
Foundation led a project to generate tools to measure how effi-
ciently organizations are making the transition from linear to cir-
cular models. In terms of the social dimension, multiple subcat-
egories and aspects were proposed as complementary indicators.
Other studies such as Saidani et al. (2019) proposed a taxonomy
classification of 55 circularity indicators bringing some clarity on
their purposes and therefore support their appropriate use and
dissemination. It is mentioned that the information provided by
circularity indicators has to be translated into suitable actions for
managing the CE transition. Moreover, Parchomenko et al. (2019)
categorized CE 63 metrics used to assess CE 24 elements, linked
to specific locations and generic materials metabolic system. Their
analysis allowed to distinguish three main clusters of metrics, i) a
resource efficiency cluster, ii) a materials stocks and flows cluster,
iii) a product-centric cluster. However, it is concluded that further
research is necessary particularly in elements such as policy, eco-
nomic or business aspects which would enrich the overall field of
CE metrics, requiring for monitoring and accelerating the CE tran-
sition.
All these efforts demonstrate the gap in terms of the compre-
hensive view of the social dimension of CE and selection of so-
cial indicators. As such, a few methods, tools and resources have
been used to assess social and sociological aspects of CE strategies
(Benoît et al., 2010; Goedkoop et al., 2018), their actual and poten-
tial positive as well as negative impacts along the life cycle, but
they were not developed in connection with CE, thus, the frame-
works have yet to achieve a formal consensus, and a comprehen-
sive indicator framework for the social dimension within CE has
yet to be developed.
The aspects to be quantified in the social dimension of CE is Fig. 1. Research steps to carry out the study.
a topic of debate and ambiguity, since there is no universal con-
sensus and the indicators could lead to incoherent conclusions. In
addition, one of the main challenges of measuring CE transition is 2.1. Social indicators in ce
the amount and variety of indicator frameworks monitoring top-
ics related to the concept. To shed light on the social dimension of Despite the research area on circularity indicators is in expan-
CE, a consensus amongst CE practitioners that considers key social sion and becoming increasingly discussed through the academia,
indicators associated with the main impacts of CE strategies could there is still lack of in-deep investigation on their completeness,
lay the foundations of CE metrics harmonization and lead to the classification, possible complementary and applicability from in-
assessment and identification of the main societal impacts of CE dustrial or political perspective (Saidani et al., 2019). Moreover,
strategies. To our knowledge, the selection of relevant social indi- some circularity indicators are not always very explicit on what
cators that accurately describe the benefits and impacts of CE has they aim to measure, or are not properly positioned, and therefore,
yet to be developed. Thus, the goal of this work is to identify and multiple interpretations have been surged.
select social indicators applicable to CE by means of a fuzzy Del- Based on the above, to define potential social indicators for CE,
phi method (FDM). The use of qualitative (Delphi) and quantitative researchers and experts must reach a consensus through discus-
(fuzzy analysis) tools objectively account for the uncertainty asso- sion. To select the social indicators for this study, a literature re-
ciated with data collection and judgement elicitation and number view was carried out by Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020), who analysed
of attributes (indicators) by considering the vagueness of the data. the social impacts and indicators of CE. The literature review sug-
This research present an holistic approach to explore multiple so- gests that efforts to quantify the social impact of CE strategies have
cial indicators; it consists of two parts: 1) a survey of social indi- increased in past decade. The main findings reveal that the key so-
cators for CE experts to arrive at a consensus regarding the social cial indicator considered when transitioning or implementing CE
measurement that are required and 2) an analysis of the resulting strategies in the sixty papers that were reviewed was job creation.
survey data to converge on the key social indicators relevant to CE. The indicator is mainly related to total job creation, but there were
no specifics on the quality of the jobs, skills or training. Other indi-
cators used to measure the social impacts of CE are related to local
2. Material and methods participation, quality and well-being and social inclusion. However,
there is no international consensus to decide how to evaluate the
A five-step methodological approach (Fig. 1) is proposed: (1) social dimension of CE in terms of its positive and negative im-
identification of potential social indicators for CE; (2) development pacts.
of social targets based on SDGs; 3) questionnaire design; 4) infor- Following the literature review, a screening derived from grey
mation on social indicator collection and analysis and (5) indica- literature (reports, websites) was conducted to have a broader per-
tor ranking based on relevance and importance. The following sec- spective of the social indicators in CE. From this process, 10 new
tion describes the hybrid framework used to integrate the Delphi indicators were collected. The selection criteria consisted in search-
method (experts’ questionnaire) and fuzzy analysis (expert judge- ing different combinations of search words, using keywords “circu-
ment uncertainty) to select the indicators. lar economy” and “social indicators/issues/aspects”. Each one was

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A. Padilla-Rivera, B.B.T. do Carmo, G. Arcese et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110

Table 1
Linguistic evaluation scale adopted for this study.

Linguistic parameter Reference code Description Numeric scale

Absolutely essential AE The social indicator is fundamental in CE. 9

Very important VI The social indicator is very significant in CE. 7
Important I The social indicator is significant in CE. 5
Moderately important MI The social indicator is quite essential in CE. 3
Slightly important SI The social indicator is slightly relevant in CE. 1

assessed based on its relevance to sustainable development and Table 2

Frequencies of the Sample Variables.
then verified to avoid redundancy. Both processes generated a total
of 43 potential indicators that were used to design the question- Variables Frequency Percent (%)
naire. They were classified according to the Ellen MacArthur Foun- Female 20 44
dation circularity indicators. An others category was proposed for Gender
Male 25 56
the indicators that were not matched in the original classification.
18–24 1 2
25–34 15 33
2.2. Social targets in ce Age 35–44 15 33
45–54 8 18
55–64 6 13
New targets, including environmental impact reduction as a
guiding principle, targets for cost reduction, design improvement 1–5 22 49
and targets for product use intensity and efficiency, were proposed Years of experience 6–10 12 24
in CE 11–15 6 13
to facilitate the transition to CE (Morseletto, 2020). In this sense,
16 and more 5 11
these targets could facilitate CE transition. However, targets do not
necessarily account for the social dimension of CE or help measure North America 13 29
South America 2 4
the social benefits of CE strategies. Therefore, targets should seek Region
Europe 27 60
to adverse social impacts. Schroeder et al. (2018) determined the Asia 3 7
extent to which CE strategies are relevant to SDG implementation.
Their findings clustered the goals according to economic, social and
environmental pillars and the type of links with CE practices. The websites, personal contacts and industrial partners. Approximately
strongest relationship between CE strategies and the social pillar 150 individuals were identified, and 120 questionnaires were dis-
of SDGs is responsible consumption and production (SDG12). How- tributed (because personal addresses were not available). The sur-
ever, other SDGs can potentially create synergies between the so- vey was active for one-month, mid January to mid February 2020.
cial pillar and CE practices: no poverty (SDG1), zero hunger (SDG2), We use google forms to design the questionnaire.
decent work and economic growth (SDG8). The experts were contacted by e-mail. The average time to
complete the full questionnaire is around five minutes. Because the
2.3. Questionnaire design group of academics encompasses a wide range of publications and
leadership in CE, they represent the majority (75%), while industry
The 43 potential indicators identified in the previous section (18%), government (5%) and NGOs (2%) complete the sample. The
were categorized according to five assessment dimensions: labour valid response rate was 38% (45 respondents). 75 surveys were
practices and decent work (8), human rights (9), society (12), eliminated, either incomplete or not valid. This number did not
product responsibility (7) and others (7) (Global Reporting Initia- impact the quality of the decisions, since there is only a weak
tive, 2013). Based on this, the primary questionnaire was designed relationship between the number of participants and quality of
with reference to the literature and qualitative method experts. A the expert decisions (Ocampo et al. 2018). Table 2 shows the main
questionnaire pretest was carried out with certain experts to iden- characteristics of the expert group.
tify and adjust unclear questions. The results of the test were used
to edit, delete or modify ambiguous questions in order to increase 2.5. Fuzzy Delphi method (FDM)
the convergence of the questionnaire. The survey is divided into
two sections and ten questions. Section 1, with questions 1 to 4, The 45 expert responses were analysed through a computa-
focuses on personal information (age, location, field and years of tional process based on FDM that is described here.
expertise). Section 2, with questions 5 to 10, aims to identify the FDM was Developed by Murray et al. (1985), it combines Del-
importance/relevance of indicators for the social dimension within phi method and fuzzy theory analysis to achieve a consensus by
CE based on the experts’ opinions (see Supplementary Informa- solving the vagueness and ambiguity of expert judgments to im-
tion for further details). We designed a survey questionnaire in prove the efficiency and quality of traditional Delphi method sur-
which experts were asked to express their judgement about the veys through fuzzy set theory, which addresses situations in which
level of significance of each social indicator within the CE context. humans cannot precisely describe a judgement. The use of fuzzy
They were asked to rate the indicators using a fuzzy linguistic scale theory avoids the distortion of individual expert opinions, captures
(Table 1). the semantic structure of predicted items and considers the un-
clear nature of the data collected (T. H. Lee and Hsieh 2016). There-
2.4. Expert selection and data collection fore, the combination provided by FDM requires a small number of
samples and offers a more complete expression of expert knowl-
One of the most important elements in forecasting techniques edge (Ma et al. 2011). In other words, the robustness of FDM lies
is the selection of qualified experts. The expert panel was com- in the fact that every expert opinion is considered and integrated
posed of four different categories of CE practitioners: academia, to achieve a consensus and generates additional benefits by reduc-
industry, government and non-governmental organizations (NGO). ing investigation times and decision-making costs (Kuo and Chen
The search for experts was carried out through scientific papers, 2008; C. H. Lee et al., 2018).

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A. Padilla-Rivera, B.B.T. do Carmo, G. Arcese et al.
The FDM process used in this study is detailed below.
a Gather expert opinions from surveys: Firstly practitioners were
asked to rate the significance of each social indicator in CE,
then these answers were collected. The judgments of every ex-
pert for each assessment indicator were obtained using the lin-
guistic parameters shown in Table 1.
b Calculate fuzzy numbers: To calculate the fuzzy number of each
indicator, triangular fuzzy numbers (W) were used, as shown
Eq. (1), which aggregates all judgments from all k experts, as
follows:
⎛ 1

k k
W j = (a jL , b jM , c jN ) = ⎝mink akjL , ( bkjM ) , maxk ckjN
k=1
Where Wj is the aggregate triangular fuzzy number of indicator
j; J represents the set of indicators; K represents the set of
experts; ajL is the minimum of the expert assessments; bjM
indicates the geometric mean of all the expert evaluations
for indicator j and cjN indicates the maximum of the expert
evaluations. In this step, the max and min values of expert
opinions are taken as the two terminal points of triangu-
lar fuzzy numbers, and the geometric mean is taken as the
membership degree of triangular fuzzy numbers to derive the
statistically unbiased effect and avoid the impact of extreme
values. This method may create a better effect of criteria selec-
tion. It features the advantage of simplicity, and all the expert
opinions can be encompassed in one investigation.(Kuo and
Chen, 2008)Defuzz: In order to obtain the final weight of every
indicator, the fuzzy number of each evaluation indicator must
be defuzzed using the centre of gravity method (Eq. (2)). We
decided to use Simple center of Gravity Method (SCGM) pro-
posed by Hsu et al. (2010) to achieve consensus regarding the
importance of the identified variables. The SCGM is the most
common method for creating a quantifiable result in defuzzi-
fication, computing the weighted average of the membership
function as follows:
P a jL +b jM +c jN
j= 3
Where Pj is a crisp score that indicates the aggregate impor-
tance of each potential social indicator j.
c Determine selection criteria: To determine the list of indica-
tors, a threshold value (β ) must be set to select the more im-
portant social indicators from the expert group. According to
Shen et al. (2010), the threshold value depends on fuzzy lin-
guistic scale and user preference, meaning that the greater the
series of fuzzy linguistic scale, the smaller β , and vice versa. In
this study, we adopted the 9-fuzzy scale (Table 1), and thus, as
stated by Zhang (2017), the threshold value for a 9-fuzzy scale
is β = 5.6.
d Select social indicators: The final step in FDM is the establish-
ment of the final list of indicators according the threshold cri-
teria as follows:
• If P
j ≥ β then the social indicator is selected.
• If P
j ≤ β then the social indicator is omitted.
3. Findings and discussion
The results of the FDM (Section 3.1), i.e. indicators identi-
fied as relevant for CE experts (Section 3.2), a sensitivity anal-
ysis (3.3) as well as the relation between indicators and SDGs
(Section 3.4) and the using social indicators for planning circular
economy (Section 3.5) are presented for the thematic areas.
Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110
3.1. Results of fdm
The research determined the potential social indicators for CE
based on a previous literature review. Thus, 43 potential social in-
dicators were determined for initial FDM analysis, as presented in
Table 3.
As mentioned in the introduction, there is no expert consensus
on which indicators should be considered when evaluating the so-
cial dimension of CE strategies. Indeed, a challenge for social met-
rics is to identify valid social impact categories (Jørgensen et al.,
2010) and related socioeconomic indicators, thus, some indica-
⎞ tors may not necessarily be essential for all sectors and contexts
(Traverso et al., 2016) . This does not mean that discarded indica-
⎠ (1) tors are irrelevant, but it has, compared to other social indicators, a
lower priority for the interviewed experts. This work looks to FDM
to establish the final representative indicators.
3.2. Selected indicators
In terms of selection criteria, the threshold value (β =5.6) was
applied to each defuzzification number (Table 4) to select the fi-
nal indicators. Fig. 2 shows that 12 indicators were retained and
31 were discarded. The significant cut is explained by the num-
ber of indicators that are hardly essential to the social dimension
of CE according to the experts. The use of FDM makes it possible
to determine a group consensus by addressing the ambiguity of
experts’ decision-making processes when judging each preselected
indicator. The 12 indicators that were selected represent the inter-
ests of different expert CE stakeholders (academia, industry, gov-
ernment and NGOs) who make high-level decisions. Of the 12 indi-
cators, consumer health and safety (7.30) ranked the highest in the
experts’ questionnaires, followed by poverty (6.53), food security
(6.47), governance (6.34) and occupational health and safety (6.34).
The other indicators included in the selection are employment
(6.30), fair trading relationships (6.27), access to tangible resources
(6.24), assessment of social impact (6.23), product and service la-
belling (6.10), child labour (5.71) and forced or compulsory labour
(5.70). Most of the selected indicators agree with the social sub-
categories in social life cycle assessment (Benoît et al. 2010). Only
(2) food security and poverty eradication are not taken into considera-
tion in these subcategories but will be included in an updated ver-
sion. As seen in Fig. 2, worker and consumer health and safety are
relevant indicators to CE experts. Health and safety is amongst the
keys to the CE transition since it is tied to potential risks with ma-
jor consequences on production processes, raw materials use, new
technology roll out, the development of repair and reuse activities,
waste transformation for reuse and more (Malenfer et al. 2019).
In addition to workers as operators, consumers may also be im-
pacted by health- and safety-related consequences. One example
is the case reported by IPEN (a global network that promotes safe
chemical policies and practices) and the environmental organiza-
tion of the Czech Republic, which found that samples from Ru-
bik’s cube toys contained toxic flame retardants that were origi-
nally used in the plastic casings of electronic products (Straková
et al. 2018). Circularity models must be fully transparent with re-
gard to the substances contained in products. Moreover, informa-
tion must be shared with all supply chain stakeholders to enable
industries to substitute hazardous substances for cleaner alterna-
tives and provide risk-free products to consumers. Legal require-
ments pertaining to transparency and information sharing are also
necessary, as well as a proposal to restrict certain hazardous sub-
stances in electrical components and electronics in a CE context.
Unlike other works (Wijkman and Skånberg 2015;
European Commission 2018), our findings indicate that em-
ployment is not the most relevant indicator for the CE experts that
were consulted. This is particularity interesting: circular economy
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A. Padilla-Rivera, B.B.T. do Carmo, G. Arcese et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110

Table 3
Thematic areas and indicators (adapted from Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2015 and Global Reporting Initiative, 2013).

Thematic areas Labour practices Human rights Society Product responsibility Non categorized

Indicators Employment Investment Social inclusion Consumer health and Technology

Labour relations Non-discrimination Social networks safety Corruption
Occupational health and Freedom of association Participation and local Product and service Sanitation
safety and collecting democracy labelling Sharing economy (not
Training and education bargaining Compliance supplier Marketing in my back yard)
Diversity and equal Child labour Assessment for impact on communications NIMBY
opportunity Forced or compulsory society Consumer privacy Governance
Fair and distribution labour Cultural traditions Compliance Odours
income Security practices Tourism and recreation Anti-competitive
Quality and well-being Human rights mechanisms Sense of community and behaviour
Work-life balance Inclusiveness belonging Fair trading relationships
Effectiveness and comfort Food security
Poverty
Land rights
Access to tangible
resources

Table 4
Aggregate fuzzy judgments.

Thematic Scores
areas Indicators
Min Max Geometric mean Aggregate fuzzy number Final (defuzzification)

Labour practices Employment 3 9 6.917 3,9,6.917 6.39

Labour relations 1 9 5.670 1,9,5.670 5.37
Occupational health and safety 3 9 7.020 3,9,7.020 6.43
Training and education 1 9 6.404 1,9,6.404 5.62
Diversity and equal opportunity 1 9 5.347 1,9,5.347 5.45
Fair and distribution income 1 9 6.122 1,9,6.122 5.59
Quality and well-being 1 9 6.213 1,9,6.213 5.60
Work-life balance 1 9 4.787 1,9,4.787 5.20
Human rights Non-discrimination 1 9 5.834 1,9,5.834 5.4
Freedom of association and 1 9 5.927 1,9,5.927 5.59
collecting bargaining 1 9 5.658 1,9,5.658 5.44
Child labour 1 9 7.134 1,9,7.134 5.96
Forced or compulsory labour 1 9 7.107 1,9,7.107 5.94
Security practices 1 9 6.345 1,9,6.345 5.59
Human rights mechanisms 1 9 5.862 1,9,5.862 5.50
Inclusiveness 1 9 4.988 1,9,4.988 5.35
Effectiveness and comfort 1 9 5.097 1,9,5.097 5.20
Society Social inclusion 1 9 6.357 1,9,6.357 5.59
Social networks 1 9 5.587 1,9,5.587 5.35
Participation and local democracy 1 9 6.180 1,9,6.180 5.60
Compliance supplier 1 9 5.866 1,9,5.866 5.41
Assessment for impact on society 3 9 6.701 3,9,6.701 6.31
Cultural traditions 1 9 4.628 1,9,4.628 5.19
Tourism and recreation 1 9 3.766 1,9,3.766 4.83
Sense of community and belonging 1 9 5.328 1,9,5.328 5.31
Food security 3 9 7.413 3,9,7.413 6.54
Poverty 3 9 7.609 3,9,7.609 6.6
Land rights 1 9 6.275 1,9,6.275 5.56
Access to tangible resources 3 9 6.750 3,9,6.750 6.34
Product responsibility Consumer health and safety 5 9 7.914 5,9,7.914 7.34
Product and service labelling 3 9 6.300 3,9,6.300 6.18
Marketing communications 1 9 4.699 1,9,4.699 5.10
Consumer privacy 1 9 5.018 1,9,5.018 5.25
Compliance 1 9 6.133 1,9,6.133 5.53
Anti-competitive behaviour 1 9 4.727 1,9,4.727 5.08
Fair trading relationships 3 9 6.814 3,9,6.814 6.36
Non categorized Technology 1 9 5.766 1,9,5.766 5.47
Corruption 1 9 6.476 1,9,6.476 5.68
Sanitation 1 9 6.380 1,9,6.380 5.65
Sharing economy 1 9 6.007 1,9,6.007 5.54
NIMBY syndrome 1 9 5.713 1,9,5.713 5.41
Governance 3 9 7.023 3,9,7.023 6.40
Odours 1 9 4.120 1,9,4.120 4.98

and employment have often been closely related since CE is
likened to a means to create job opportunities associated with
sustainability principles (improving product durability, increasing
recycling, reducing carbon and environmental footprints, restrict-
ing single-use products and countering premature obsolescence).
For example, in the Netherlands, a 2017 report (EHORE 2017)
found that employment linked to CE strategies (8% of total jobs)—
and jobs created in the reuse and recycling industries in particular
(42% of CE jobs)—were focused on activities to preserve and
extend what was already made. However, jobs that incorporate
digital technology represented 24% of total CE jobs. Currently, most
of the social impacts of CE estimate the employment impacts of

105
A. Padilla-Rivera, B.B.T. do Carmo, G. Arcese et al.
Fig. 2. Selected indicators for social circular economy (β =5.6).
CE strategies (jobs created), and little attention has been paid to
other labour practices, such as child labour or occupational health
and safety. This is important because recycling and waste, and
electronics waste in particular, are expanding around the world,
and, in developing countries, most of this waste is still routed
to the unorganized sector, causing irreparable environmental and
health damages. Therefore, robust and integrated value chain
frameworks must be created to assess not only job creation but
also the impacts (health and safety, child labour, discrimination)
of the CE strategies on the entire value chain.
Remarkable indicators, such as participation, local democ-
racy and social inclusion, are generally mentioned in literature
(Borrello et al. 2017; Iacovidou et al. 2017; Laurenti et al. 2018)
as metrics to create positive social capital and enable decision-
making, however, according to the FDM these indicators are not
part of selected indicators for CE experts This can be controver-
sial since social participation has been seen as a positive impact to
drive environmental changes, promote climate change mitigation
and address local inefficiencies that, in the end, could improve hu-
man, social and cultural capital (Chong et al., 2016).
Poverty and food security are two social aspects that have not
received enough attention in CE (Santagata et al. 2017; Elena Seg-
neanu 2018). However, in this study, the CE experts considered
these aspects to be highly relevant when evaluating the perfor-
mances of CE strategies. With regard to food security, the nature of
food production is a constant challenge due to several factors, in-
cluding water consumption, greenhouse gases emissions, high en-
ergy consumption, tremendous waste production and the higher
demand for food and its unequal distribution. Circularity is there-
fore important because it can become a tool to develop sustain-
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Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110
able food policies. Though current CE strategies and food policies
share principles and mutually influence each other, there are still
no obvious solutions. A framework that considers and analyses ev-
ery stage in the value chain of food production, including strategies
to reduce food waste, is required. Moreover, CE should not only
aim to reduce waste but also recognize the value of food for the
health, well-being and prosperity of humans in an urban context
and create a paradigm shift to manage food in a circular way in an
interconnected urban infrastructure.
While it fights poverty in indirect ways, CE has also been pro-
posed as a solution to eradicate poverty, since efficient materi-
als recycling can generate new jobs and create economic growth.
Moreover, the United Nations is committed to ending extreme
poverty by 2030, and the SDGs should focus on circularity solu-
tions to fight poverty. However, the countries that have taken the
lead in CE investments are developed countries (e.g. Finland, Ger-
many, Japan), and only a few developing nations (e.g. India, Ghana,
Brazil) are taking steps toward CE. It is necessary to improve syn-
ergies and partnerships between highly developed and less devel-
oped countries to provide economic and environmental benefits to
those who need them the most and address poverty issues not just
now but in the future as well. In this regard, CE plays an important
role, since related strategies must be designed to last and evolve
with a changing planet to ultimately end poverty. Currently, the
link between CE and the social context of poverty is inexistent.
Another important social aspect highlighted by the experts is
related to governance and particularly its role in enabling a CE
transition, since it involves high-level ambitions by national and
local government bodies (Flynn et al. 2019). Although the literature
review on CE and governance pointed out the ways in which gov-
A. Padilla-Rivera, B.B.T. do Carmo, G. Arcese et al.
ernance systems may help change directions, there still much to
be developed in terms of how urban transitions may exist. Some
approaches, including Lieder and Rashid (2016), note that social
science contributions to CE are mainly meant to inform policy de-
bates, and CE decisions tend to underplay the significance of gov-
ernance arrangements. Clearly, there is room to improve standards,
guidelines and frameworks to facilitate and build the CE transition.
Moreover, CE requires the collaboration of a wide range of actors
and individuals. While this may occur because stakeholders have
the same interest in achieving successful CE outcomes, there is still
some scepticism surrounding CE and the activities required to set a
common vision. As pointed out by Flynn et al. (2019), each country
promotes its own notions of CE around economic benefits and the
creation of new markets, and these notions are constructed around
neoliberal economic relations that not all governments agree
with.
Child labour is an indicator that has not been well studied in
CE. However, the eradication of child labour is now a priority for
some governments and industries (i.e. textile industry), particularly
those seeking to be more sustainable. Moreover, other industries,
such as manufacturing, have greater interest and involvement in
the discussions to eradicate child labour. The issue has grown in
importance since 2016, when 218 million children (ages 5 to 17),
mostly in developing countries (70%) were involved in an economic
activity (Dammert et al. 2018). Thus, child labour should be rele-
vant in CE because it has long-lasting consequences for the eco-
nomic development of countries through its interactions with ed-
ucation and productivity later in life.
The other indicator selected by the experts is related to forced
labour. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO),
in 2014, there were nearly 20.9 million victims of forced labour
around the world (Simas et al. 2014). Historically, most forced
labour has been associated with non-technical economies (i.e. agri-
culture, domestic services and forest clearing). However, other in-
dustries involved in the supply chains of CEs also rely on forced
labour (i.e. brickmaking and textile manufacturing). It should be
noted that not all forced labour is performed by adults: one quar-
ter is executed by children. Particular attention is therefore re-
quired to eliminate, monitor and measure all forms of forced
labour across the supply chains of CEs.
3.3. Sensitivity analysis
It is important to mention that the threshold value (β =5.6) is
the most important factor when selecting or discarding indicators,
since a lower value can generate a higher number of indicators
(and vice versa). However, as mentioned in Section 2.5, defining a
threshold value depends on the linguistic scale. A sensitivity anal-
ysis was conducted to determine how the final list of indicators
changes with a change in threshold value (β ). From the established
β = 5.6, two different threshold values were proposed following a
similar analysis (Ocampo et al. 2018), β 1=5.6 + 0.5 and β 2=5.6
−0.5, for an illustrative differentiation of the final list of indicators.
As shown in Fig. 3, there are drastic changes in the total num-
ber of acceptable indicators with β 2=5.1: 34 indicators were se-
lected. On the other hand, no significant variability was presented
for β 1=5.6 + 0.5, since 10 indicators were accepted (only two less
than originally with β 1=5.6).
The most important change in the sensitivity analysis was ob-
served in indicators in which the defuzzification value was close
to the original threshold (β 1=5.6.). For a lower β , most indica-
tors met the selected criteria, and thus made the final list. For
a higher β 1, no significant change was observed and the final
list is basically identical (Fig. 3). These very slight changes in
the FDM demonstrate the strength of the proposal, the sensitivity
analysis helped determine how the threshold leads to substantial
107
Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110
changes in the parameters and estimates to select or discard indi-
cators. Therefore, it may be concluded that the original threshold
(β 1=5.6) was appropriate and FDM constitutes a robust decision-
making tool.
3.4. Weighting SDGs targets and selected ce indicators
To obtain a final single index, an exercise was carried out
to match the selected indicators with SDGs. As mentioned in
Section 2.2, there are direct and potential relationships between
the social dimension and CE strategies, including responsible con-
sumption and production (SDG12), poverty eradication (SDG1),
hunger eradication (SDG2) and decent work and economic growth
(SDG8). In this sense, 8 of the 12 selected indicators could be
matched with these four SDGs, as follows:
• SDG12: social impact assessment (6.23), product and service la-
belling (6.10), fair trading relationships (6.27)
• SDG1: poverty (6.53)
• SDG2: food security (6.47)
• SDG8: employment (6.30), occupational health and safety
(6.34), child labour (5.71), forced labour (5.70)
According to Schroeder et al. (2018), four indicators do not
match the direct SDGs (access to tangible resources and consumer
health and safety) because they follow other directions. However,
these four indicators present potential links with other SDGs and
can therefore be matched with other SDGs:
• SDG10 (reduced inequities): access to tangible resources
• SDG3 (good health and well-being): consumer health and safety
• SDG16 (peace, justice and strong institutions): governance
Typical weighting was carried out to obtain a final index
amongst SDGs. The defuzzification value of each of the 12 selected
indicators was used and then aggregated according to an algebraic
sum. The total sum was then transformed into rankings, from high
to low. The final ranking (Table 5) first makes it possible to link
the selected indicators with SDGs and thus visualize the most sig-
nificant SDGs for CE experts.
Table 5 reveals that CE practitioners believe decent work and
economic growth must be the most important target in the so-
cial dimension of CE. The target includes evaluating employment,
child labour, occupational health and safety and forced labour. The
second most important is responsible consumption and produc-
tion, which relates to social impact assessment, product and ser-
vice labelling and fair-trading relationships. The third corresponds
to good health and well-being and thus the assessment of con-
sumer health and safety. The rankings from 4 to 7 are no poverty,
zero hunger, peace, justice and strong institutions and reduced in-
equities, respectively. The analysis shows that CE strategies can
help achieve SDGs targets.
3.5. Using social indicators for planning circular economy
Different approaches have been used to evaluate the effects of
circular economy, one of them, the life cycle assessment (LCA)
(Chen and Huang, 2019) has been recognized as a robust, scien-
tifically based tool which can measure and evaluate products and
business models coming from circular economy. Regarding the so-
cial dimension, and previously mentioned, social life cycle assess-
ment (SLCA) has been also used as a metric to evaluate the social
effects of circular economy. However, there is still a gap on achiev-
ing a formal consensus of what social metrics and indicators are
the most relevant, transparent, accurate and feasible when evalu-
ating the social effect of circular economies. So, in this paper, it
has been analysed and discussed the selection of social circular in-
dicators that could help monitoring progress of social performance
A. Padilla-Rivera, B.B.T. do Carmo, G. Arcese et al.
Fig. 3. Sensitivity analysis of the change of β =5.6.
Table 5
Overall values in terms of the relationship between the selected indicators and SGDs.
SGDs/number
Decent work and economic growth (SDG8)
Responsible consumption and production (SDG12)
Good health and well-being (SDG3)
No poverty (SDG1)
Zero hunger (SDG2)
Peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG15)
Reduced inequities (SDG10)
of CE strategies. Moreover, all indicators selected could enable the
identification of both positive and negative trends, with the aim
of knowing in which point closing the lops have been effective or
have created negative impacts or a regression from the point of
view of social life cycle assessment.
In addition, this work could be integrated not only in the SLCA
framework, but also in environmental LCA or life cycle costing for
the selection the indicators to be assessed by considering those
that make sense to stakeholders. Furthermore, this methodology
is complementary with the economic and environmental Life Cy-
cle Assessment, providing a holistic evaluation and accomplish-
ing a sustainable approach. It might be a very useful tool for
the decision-making related to sustainability and circular economy
policies along the value chain. However, in order to apply the se-
lected indicators and to demonstrate its usability, future research
work is necessary, where the methodological framework developed
will be applied to assess the implementation of circular economy
innovations in the value chains of different sectors in real case
studies.
108
Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110
Total value (sum of fuzzification number) Ranking
24.0591 1
18.5838 2
7.3048 3
6.5363 4
6.4709 5
6.3409 6
6.2499 7
4. Concluding remarks
This work presents a proposal to identify and select social in-
dicators applicable to CE by means of a FDM.. It is based on
a hybrid methodology that combines qualitative methods (Delphi
method) and mathematical tools (fuzzy analysis) to consider the
multi-criteria decision-making issue. The proposal makes it possi-
ble to objectively select and prioritize key social indicators in CE to
reduce the uncertainty associated with data collection and judge-
ment elicitation. It includes a holistic approach to account for the
multiple expert opinions behind the survey data relevant to CE.
The main advantage of this research is that it makes it possi-
ble to document the various considerations in the decision-making
process in a CE context. Based on the literature review (43 indica-
tors), 12 indicators were selected and ranked according to CE ex-
perts’ value judgments. The significant cut is due to the number of
indicators, which does not meet the threshold criterion (lower β
generates a higher number of indicators to be included in the final
list). The use of this approach makes it possible to reach a group
consensus. The 12 indicators are representative of the interests of
A. Padilla-Rivera, B.B.T. do Carmo, G. Arcese et al.
the different CE stakeholders (academia, industry, NGOs and gov-
ernment).
The results lead to significant findings. More specifically, the
study highlights key issues that should be stressed by CE policy
makers. According to our calculations, the most relevant indicators
for CE experts are: 1) consumer health and safety; 2) poverty; 3)
food security and 4) governance. Contrary to many works, employ-
ment and participation and democracy are not amongst the high-
est ranking indictors, despite the fact that they were selected for
assessment. This suggests that issues such as eradicating poverty
and hunger are new priorities for CE experts. It is important to
mention that 75% of the CE experts are academics with different
ideological backgrounds. However, the composition of only having
few industry practitioners could explain this and a different distri-
bution might bring different priorities.
Health and safety is also a matter of concern for CE experts
because the transition to a CE could bring implications for the
stated priorities of human health. These implications may affect
the health and safety of individuals both positively and negatively.
The CE could also promote supportive environments and resilient
communities to the extent that this translates into improved well-
being and quality of life. Up to now, however, the coverage of the
health link to transition to a circular economy has been nearly in-
sufficient.
Our analysis also reveals that, when grouping and weighting se-
lected indicators according to the relationships between CE prac-
tices and SDGs targets, the most important SDG is decent work and
economic growth (SDG8), which includes occupational health and
safety, child labour, forced labour and employment. At the same
time, the results suggest that the proposed CE indicators can help
to monitor and assess the progress of SDGs where the strongest
relationships exist (and SDG8 and SDG12 in particular).
Current limits and potential solutions of this study are data is-
sues and implementation, so we recommend further analysis to
understand the scope of the indicators and use them in real case
studies. Another key challenge of this proposal is the proper com-
putation of social indicators by non-CE experts. Much of this infor-
mation is difficult to obtain and must be provided by the actors in
the assessment. The data issue is indeed a major barrier to wider
use of social circular indicators in real case due to time and cost
needed to collect them, the lack of information exchange in busi-
ness, as well as confidential aspects.
In terms of assessment, social tools such as social life cycle as-
sessment could contribute to the evaluation of circular economy
strategies, notably because they include a life cycle perspective and
consider multiple stakeholders. Even so, more efforts are required
to determine whether the societal benefits of CE may be quanti-
fied using social life cycle assessment. Social tools can also help
compare linear and circular economy strategies. Finally, in terms
of the SDGs, challenges must still be addressed to explore the rela-
tionships between social circular indicators and the contributions
to achieve SDGs.
Finally, further developments of this proposal could be ex-
tended for economic or environmental indicators or even for cir-
cularity indicators and then by identifying the relevant indicators
more coherently respect to the sector or company analysed. As a
next step, the set of selected indicators could be integrated in life
cycle circularity assessment framework in a real case study in or-
der to assess their social performance along the value chain and
monitor the CE strategies over time. This approach could also be
a guide for practitioners and decision makers in the field of CE as
well as SLCA in terms of identification of the relevant subcategories
for the assessed sector or product. It is important to allocate data
required for assessing these indicators (sites visit, consultation of
reports and questionnaires), however it will always be privileged a
site-specific analysis.
109
Sustainable Production and Consumption 26 (2021) 101–110
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement
This research was funded by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tec-
nología (México) grant number: 740519. The first author acknowl-
edges the support by the CIRAIG and Polytecnique Montreal.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be
found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.spc.2020.09.015.
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