Project
CircuLaw: enabling the use of law and regulation for the circular economy transition
CircuLaw is an initiative that aims to enable policymakers involved in the circular economy transition to make more effective use of existing law and regulation. By offering various services and tools, including a digital knowledge platform, CircuLaw wants to make the opportunities around circularity that law offers more easily accessible and understandable to policymakers. LAW Group researchers Dr Edwin Alblas and Lars Kwakman contribute to this activation of legal potential.
Background
In the context of escalating climate breakdown, it is necessary to change the way we humans relate to nature. A crucial part of this endeavour is transitioning from a linear to a more circular economy. To bring about such an unprecedented societal shift in consumption and production patterns, the use of law and regulation is indispensable.
Research shows however that existing legal instruments are still underused in the circular economy transition. Policymakers, advisors and civil servants are often not familiar with the circularity-stimulating potential that their legal system offers.
Project description
CircuLaw is a multi-partner initiative determined to change this. It does so not only by producing knowledge about law’s relation to the circular economy, but also by making this information more freely, widely and easily accessible through various means and services. A prime example of such is the recently launched circulaw tool, where those working with policy can find overviews on which legal instruments are most conducive to bringing about circular change, as well as manuals on how to effectively apply those instruments.
The research that WUR LAW Group’s Dr Edwin Alblas and Lars Kwakman are doing within the CircuLaw project focuses on questions around the effective application of legal instruments for the promotion of circularity, the so-called gap between ‘law in the books’ and ‘law in action’. We aim to contribute to closing this gap by using a variety of qualitative methods, such as doing socio-legal action research among relevant communities of practice to gain insight into which approaches, and policy mixes, work best. While this insight into policymakers’ best practices is already valuable in its own right, it is especially helpful as feedback into the broader CircuLaw environment, where it can serve as foundation for the further creation of services that help local, regional and national governments implement circular policy. The current case study that we are focusing on to get such actionable results is the use of law and regulation in the acceleration of circular timber construction in the Netherlands.