A paper co-authored by Dr Eoin Mclaughlin has been announced as the best sustainable development article of 2019 by The International Sustainable Development Research Society.
Co-authored by Neal Millar and Tobias Börger (Berlin School of Economics and Law), the paper examines the conceptual relationship between the circular economy and sustainable development.
Published in Ecological Economics in April 2019, the paper had received over 60 citations before being awarded the prestigious prize due to its ambition to highlight the under-explored and loosely defined nature of the relationship between the circular economy and sustainable development.
As part of the study, Dr Mclaughlin and his colleagues explored some of the inconsistencies surrounding the circular economy and how it can serve as a tool for sustainable development, which has resulted in an incomplete understanding of how its long-term effects differ from those of the “linear” economy.
The article concludes by providing suggestions as to how research associated with the circular economy should proceed if it is to provide a potential approach for achieving sustainable development, before emphasising a need “for further reviews regarding the two concepts to uncover these possible unknown aspects and provide solutions for how they can be altered to legitimise the circular economy as a tool for achieving sustainable development”.
Read an open access version of article here.
