Circular economy monitoring increasingly recognizes that recycling and recovery do not by themselves demonstrate lower material pressure. Less developed is a comparative framework for diagnosing national waste systems in which downstream treatment improves without a corresponding reduction in the waste entering municipal systems. Partial circularity is developed as a diagnostic concept for this mismatch and is operationalized through national waste regimes. A merged OECD country-year dataset covering 38 countries from 2015 to 2023 is used to distinguish municipal waste generation per person (waste burden) from treatment pathways. Four 2022 regimes are derived by crossing waste generation with broad recovery, and country-year models examine associations with consumption, material throughput, fiscal, spatial, and institutional conditions. Median municipal waste generation rose from 456.5 kg per person in 2015 to 497.2 kg in 2023, while broad recovery rose from 66.7% to 83.0% and landfill dependence declined. Several high-recovery systems nevertheless remained highly waste intensive. Multicollinearity diagnostics and robustness checks indicate that the most stable statistical pattern is the association between consumption and waste burden, while pathway outcomes also vary with material, spatial, and institutional conditions. Partial circularity complements existing indicator critiques by identifying and comparing cases in which downstream progress outpaces upstream burden reduction without proposing a causal theory of transition.
The uptake of deep energy renovations in European condominiums remains limited, despite the emergence of innovative Integrated Home Renovation Services (IHRS) that aim to reduce recognized barriers. Despite introducing new renovation possibilities, the extent to which these services are adopted is shaped by homeowners' views of their relevance, feasibility, and associated risks. The paper examines homeowners’ experiences with market-driven renovation pathways and highlights the key conditions required to enable their wider adoption. This study aims to answer the question: How are market-driven renovation pathways perceived and adopted by homeowner associations, and how do different renovation pathways shape these adoption dynamics? The study draws on four Dutch case studies representing different pathways for energy renovation. These include two integrated renovation concepts built around a living-cost-neutral approach, a phased pathway combining completed and planned renovation measures, and a financing strategy based on densification through rooftop extensions. Empirical material was gathered through semi-structured interviews with private IHRS providers and homeowners, together with document review and expert workshops. Homeowners differed in how they experienced financial risks, governance issues, trust, and uncertainty during the process. The cases showed that progress was often slowed by the need for collective agreement, long and demanding processes, and a lack of alignment between institutions. Based on these findings, the study identifies implications for IHRS service and business-model design and for policy support, with lessons for adapting market-driven renovation pathways to other European condominium contexts.
