DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PILLAR IN THE CONTEXT OF CIRCULAR ECONOMY ASSESSMENT: BALTIC SEA REGION CASE

Circular Economy (CE) is an economic approach which aims to save the environment by eliminating waste and efficiently using resources by applying recycle, reuse, repair, remanufacturing and recycling strategies. The purpose of the article is to propose a concept of measurement the development of Environmental pillar in the context of Circular Economy, apply and provide empirical evidence based on the data of Baltic Sea Region countries. The research augmented for the analysis of Circular Economy which includes assessment model creation. The multi-criteria decision methods MULTIMOORA and TOPSIS were used to assess the development of Environmental pillar of Circular Economy in Baltic Sea Region. Results are useful to add to theoretical building and evaluate the Environmental aspect in the concept of Circular Economy.


Introduction
Circular economy approach can be represented as a closed loop with the material and process flow ensuring zero waste in every step of the production or product consumption. Circular economy is seeking to minimize material input, water, land and air pollution. Circular economy seeks to integrate strategies that would help to achieve a zero-waste aimrecycling, remanufacturing, repair, reuse, reduce and others to turn the waste into the resource for another process. Circular economy approach corresponds to sustainable development and sustainability goals, seeking well-being in a long term, consists of three pillars: environment, economic and social. Many countries have already created some strategies to implement circular economy approach, however, still there are concerns about circular economy assessment model creation. Integration of circular economy is relatively new approach, which actively is being discussing among scientists. Circular economy is a multi-disciplinary approach, which connects environmental and social sciences. Thus, assessment model with the possibility to analyze circular economy as a whole concept and its pillars separately would be useful to evaluate todays situation, see the dynamics of the development by areas and integrate the assessment model in other model which would analyze circular economy and lead to its integration.

Circular Economy strategies and targets
Circular economy became a popular approach for policy makers, government and scientists to discuss about transition from linear economy to circular economy contributing to sustainable development. Today, in the times of economic growth and technological development, huge volumes of economy brought a negative impact on environmentthe greenhouse effect, air, water and pollution, scarcity of materials and many others. Linear economy model helped society to build effective business models, which aimed to increase production and volumes. However, environmental problems became a very popular topic to discuss recent years, as many environmental changes we are facing now due to human activities.
Circular economy approach offers a decision how to keep economy healthy and reduce the harmful environmental activities. Circular economy offers new approach based on re-use, reduce and recycling of materials (Morseletto, 2020). Circular economy promotes the idea of reducing waste and resources used, replacing them by recycled and re-used materials (Homrich et al., 2018). China was one of the first countries who officially has started promoting circular economy concepts (Geng, et al., 2008;Li, et al., 2007). However, circular economy concept was related to economic and environmental pillars in china making circular economy concept highly related to environment and less to social pillar (Geng et al., 2012;Ghisellini et al., 2016).
Lately, many authors discussed about the necessity of social pillar to be included in circular economy model as social pillar represent human well-being as the aim of circular economy (Nikanorova et al., 2020). Circular economy corresponds to the sustainable development goals (Schroeder, et al., 2018) and includes environment, economic and social dimensions. According to m. Lewandowski (2016), many different size enterprises are becoming to implement the concepts of circular economy. European union has introduced an action plan about circular economy implementation across the member states (EC, 2015). In 2018 european commission has introduced key indicators for a monitoring circular economy development grouped in following classifications (CE, 2018): 1. Self-sufficiency for raw materials 2. Green public procurement 3. Waste generation 4. Food waste 5. Recycling rates 6. Recycling / recovery for specific waste streams 7. Contribution of recycled materials to raw materials demand 8. Trade in recyclable raw materials 9. Private investments, jobs and gross value added 10. Patents related to recycling and secondary raw materials Mainly, the indicators suggested by CE (2018) are related to responsible production and consumption. Green public procurement (2), Waste generation ( Indicators proposed by EU for circular economy development monitoring can be grouped by the EU strategies, area of the target or object of the target. J. Potting, et al., (2017) has introduced 10R circular economy strategies (Table 1). The strategies, represented in Table 2 are classified by circularity level, which means, that R0 has the lowest circularity level, while R9 has the highest circularity level. R0 Refuse strategy lets the product be unnecessary by abandoning its function or which can be easily replaced by different product. By R1 Rethink strategy the product is being used more intensively (multi-functional products), while R2 Reduce strategy increases efficiency of product manufacture or consuming less natural resources. R3 Reuse strategy offers to reuse the product by another customer, while the product is still in a good condition. R4 Repair strategy allows product to be modified or repaired, while R5 Refurbish strategy restores an old product up to date. R6 Remanufacture allows to use parts of discarded product in a new product with the same function, while R7 Repurpose strategy allows to use parts of discarded product or its part in a new product with different function. R8 Recycle strategy allows to process materials to obtain the same or lower quality. R9 Recovery strategy has the highest circularity level and allows incineration of material with energy recovery.

Selection of indicators for monitoring environmental pillar of circular economy
Environmental pillar of Circular Economy should include a complex set of indicators covering the targets and strategies set by European Union. The indicators could be classified by the area of target or Circular Economy strategies.   1). Indicators of Environmental pillar are divided into six groups related to the areas of European Union targets for Circular Economy. Also, strategies of European Union are being selected according to the scope of researchfrom micro level including product, product creation stepsto macroanalysis of cities, regions, nations or world.
In this research Circular Economy is being analyzed only by Environmental and Economic pillars, however it is possible to analyze Circular Economy including all the pillars: Environmental, Social and Economic. Ability to analyze one of the pillars separately would have benefits of the possibility to follow the development of separate pillar or part of the pillar represented as a group of indicators.  (81) emissions, including air pollution and greenhouse gas emissionscorresponds to air pollution reduction approach of circular economy. Energy group of indicators concentrates on the quantity of renewable energy is being produced and used in production or householdscorresponds to the circular economy approach of green energy. Economic opportunities and policy responses group of indicators analyses the financing of green policies, green patents and number of jobs in green technology industry corresponding to circular economy approach of promoting eco-technologies and eco-innovations. Material management group includes material management aspects as well as material circularity and recycling of materials. Economic context connects environmental and economic pillars, by the indicating whether the economy is being stable or growingas one of the aspects of circular economy is a formation of strong sustainable economy based on the environmentally friendly decision making.

MCDM Methods in assessment of environmental pillar in the context of circular economy
Environmental pillar of circular economy is represented as a set of indicators divided into the group of areas. As indicators collected for environmental pillar measurement have different units of measurementthe methods of assessing environmental pillar should be selected accordingly. Multiple-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM) can be applied to assess the set of criteria with different units of measurement, could evaluate and rank the criteria. To assess environmental pillar of circular economy MULTIMOORA and TOPSIS methods have been selected. (2010) TOPSIS method based on identifying geometric distances from best and worst solutions: the shortest geometric distance from the best solution and the longest geometric distance from the worst solution (Zavadskas et al. 2016). TOPSIS method has been used in the selection of sustainable supplier by Memari et al., (2019). Comparison of sustainability models in development of electric vehicles has been presented using TOPSIS method by Samaie et al., (2020). Gorgij et al., (2019) has used TOPSIS method in the ranking of groundwater quality. Economic and environmental energy performance of EU countries has been assessed with TOPSIS method by Vavrek and Chovancova (2019). Credit card platforms have been evaluated using TOPSIS method by Yildirim (2019). The ranking of Development of Environmental pillar in the context of Circular Economy can be assessed in the different periods of time and can be compared among selected countries or region for further analysis.

The assessment of environmental pillar in the context of circular economy
The first Macro-Regional Strategy in Europe has been established for the countries with geographical location around Baltic Sea and named Baltic Sea Region. The action plan for this strategy has been introduced by the European Commission (2009). The strategy is based on key challenges regarding saving the sea, connecting the region and increasing prosperity. The strategy has several objectives which relate to different areas and policies, such as: clean water in the sea with healthy wildlife, safe shipping, and reliable energy markets with the perspective to make a single energy market, climate change adaptation with risk management and other contributions to Europe 2020 (European Commission, 2010) strategy. Baltic Sea Region includes Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Data for Environmental pillar s was collected in the period of 2014-2018 years using the following databases: European Statistical Database -Eurostat (2020), Organization for Economic Co-Operation and development (2020) and European Commission (2020).  Table 3. According to MULTIMOORA method the highest ranks were received by Sweden, Denmark and Finland, while the lowest rank received by Estonia and Ploand. TOPSIS result shows, that the best evaluation of Environmental pillar in 2014 were received by -Sweden, Germany and Denmark. The lowest rank according to TOPSIS method was received Poland in 2014.
The result of Environmental pillar evaluation by MULTIMOORA and TOPSIS methods for 2015 is represented in Table 4. According to MULTIMOORA method the highest ranks were attributed to Sweden, Denmark and Germany and the lowest rank attributed to Estonia. TOPSIS result shows, that the best evaluation of Environmental pillar in 2015 were ranked -Sweden, Denmark and Germany. The lowest rank according to TOPSIS method received Poland in 2015. The result of Environmental pillar evaluation by MULTIMOORA and TOPSIS methods for 2016 is represented in Table 5. According to MULTIMOORA method Sweden, Denmark and Finland were tagged the highest rank and Estonia the lowest rank. In respect of this, TOPSIS result shows, that the best evaluation of Environmental pillar in 2016 received -Sweden, Germany and Denmark. The lowest rank according to TOPSIS method received Poland in 2016 therein.
The result of Environmental pillar evaluation by MULTIMOORA and TOPSIS methods for 2017 is represented in Table 6. According to MULTIMOORA method, the highest rank received were that of Sweden, Latvia and Denmark and the lowest rank received belongs to Estonia. TOPSIS result shows that the best evaluation of Environmental pillar in 2017 received were that of Germany, Sweden and Denmark. The lowest rank according to TOPSIS method received was that of Poland in 2017.      The development of Environmental pillar in Baltic Sea Region and development of Eco-innovation in the context of Circular Economy is represented in Fig. 5. According to the data represented, it is possible to see the tendency of growing or decreasing of Environmental pillar in the context of Circular Economy. The represented data is already ranked according to MULTIMOORA and TOPSIS. The gradient shows the ranked position of the selected country by the yearthe darker font means lower rank the country owes, and opposite, the lighter fontthe higher position holds the country.

Conclusion
Circular Economy is an opposite economic approach to Linear Economy, which integrates Environmental aspects in Economic model. Opposite than Linear Economy, which promotes "take, make, dispose" approach, Circular Economy suggest representing Economic model as a closed loop with high attention to Environment on every step of production and consumption.
Environmental pillar of Circular Economy is a multidisciplinary approach, connecting Environmental and Social sciences. The set of indicators are being selected based on European Union policies, promoting Sustainable Development and Circular Economy. Based on established strategies and targets indicators are being grouped according to the aim of the targetwhich make a system of indicators representing Environmental pillar of Circular Economy.