Accumulation of Circular Economy Policy in China: Goals, Instruments and Demonstration Projects Over 2006–2022

This chapter presents the accumulation of policies regarding Circular Economy (CE) in China over the 2006–2022 period, and focuses more particularly on developments in terms of policy goals, policy instruments and demonstration projects. Results show that the central government issued and implemented a growing number of CE policies and instruments over time, and more intensively following the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016–2020), when a sudden increase was witnessed in terms of diversity of policy instruments, whilst demonstration programs moved from “CE Pilots” via “National Circular Economy Demonstration Cities” to “Zero-Waste Cities”. Approximately simultaneously, governance and implementation of CE policies witnessed a shift from a primary focus on production efficiency via lowering of consumption patterns, to embracing a whole life cycle perspective, with policies covering the entire supply chain. The main reasons for this shift concern: (1) the government acknowledging that China’s economic development had reached a stage which called for more attention to environmental protection; (2) CE becoming firmly tied to the national planning and strategy on “Ecological Civilization” at a time when there was a fierce competition between national government institutes; and (3) the occurrence of policy learning from foreign CE programs, policies, demonstration projects, and practices.