Societal development has long relied on the intensive use of natural resources, resulting in significant environmental impacts associated with their extraction, transformation, and disposal. Within this context, the construction sector plays a central role as the largest consumer of materials and a major source of solid waste. At the same time, the built environment has accumulated large material stocks that will become available in the future. These stocks represent a potential source of secondary materials through urban mining. However, unlocking this potential requires a detailed characterisation of material stocks.
Despite growing interest in material stock analysis, research remains unevenly developed. Evidence from the Global South is limited, particularly in Latin America, where data constraints hinder analysis and recovery strategies. Furthermore, non-residential buildings remain underrepresented in the literature, despite their scale and distinct material composition.
This study aims to assess the urban mining potential of materials embedded in commercial logistics centres in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile, using this sector as a case study of non-residential buildings in a data-constrained Global South context.
The methodology combines a bottom-up, spatially explicit Material Stock Analysis (MSA) using GIS with a dynamic Material Flow Analysis (dMFA) to quantify and characterise material stocks and estimate their future availability.
The results show that logistics centres in Santiago contain over 5 million tonnes of materials, with a highly homogeneous composition dominated by concrete (over 90%), followed by steel and masonry in minor shares. Material stocks are strongly spatially concentrated, with a limited number of municipalities and large centres accounting for a significant share of the total mass. Temporal analysis indicates that the stock is relatively young, reflecting rapid expansion over the past two decades. As a result, most materials are expected to remain in use for several decades, with peak outflows projected around the 2070s, leading to limited short-term availability and a predominantly long-term urban mining potential.
These findings highlight both opportunities and constraints for urban mining. Spatial concentration and ownership may facilitate coordinated large-scale recovery, whereas the dominance of concrete poses challenges for material recovery under current technological and market conditions. At the same time, the timing of material availability provides a window for anticipatory planning and the development of recovery systems.
This study provides the first spatially explicit assessment of non-residential building stocks in Chile, addressing both geographical and sectoral gaps, and offers a transferable framework for assessing urban mining potential in data-constrained contexts.
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The transition from a linear to a circular economy is essential to confront pressing environmental challenges in Latin American (LATAM) countries, including resource depletion, pollution, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. While circular economy principles have advanced in developed nations, LATAM countries are at an early stage of adoption, facing unique socio-economic and environmental contexts that demand tailored policy approaches. This study focuses on Costa Rica and Uruguay as representative cases, selected for their medium-high income status and their advancement in developing national circular economy strategies. The research evaluates the socio-economic and environmental impacts of nine CIs outlined within these circular strategies, aiming to inform broader regional strategies for sustainable development. This research addresses critical knowledge gaps by evaluating national circular strategies and their broader regional and global implications.
The study applies a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative analysis with a quantitative multi-regional environmentally extended input-output analysis (MR-EEIOA) to evaluate key CIs selected from Costa Rica and Uruguay’s circular national strategies.
This thesis employs a qualitative analysis framed by the DE lens, a conceptual model that defines a "safe and just space" for sustainable development by integrating planetary boundaries ceilings with social foundations. This holistic framework complements circular economy principles by emphasizing the need to reduce environmental impacts and to ensure equitable socio-economic outcomes. This integrated methodology provides a comprehensive evaluation of CIs, capturing environmental benefits, such as decreased Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, and their associated socio-economic trade-offs. To elaborate, the analysis measures the economic dimension of the transition by examining the interplay between job creation in new circular sectors and job displacement in traditional linear industries. It also assesses the social dimension by evaluating how these initiatives generate social value-added through the creation of new skills and enhanced local economic resilience.
Out of all circular interventions qualitatively analysed through the Doughnut Economy lens, two are quantitatively modelled using MR-EEIOA. This is done to demonstrate the modelling process and to explore the strengths and limitations of MR-EEIOA as a tool supporting qualitative analysis.
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This comparison of quantitative results with qualitative insights generates new understandings of the potential impacts of circular economy interventions in the LATAM region.
Key findings reveal that CIs in Costa Rica and Uruguay yield environmental gains, particularly in climate change mitigation and resource efficiency, and promote socio-economic benefits like job creation and social equity. However, these results are constrained by data limitations - especially concerning social impacts - and structural challenges, such as low recycling infrastructure and unclear policy targets. The results of the MR-EEIOA modelling reveal unexpected trade-offs between environmental and socio-economic impacts of the analysed CIs. This analysis highlights a complex reality where an environmental gain (e.g., lower GHG emissions) can coincide with a socio-economic cost (e.g., job displacement). This finding underscores the need for a more holistic assessment of these initiatives by collecting more qualitative data on the micro- and meso-level impacts of CIs on specific sectors, using methods such as semi-structured interviews and surveys.
This research contributes to Industrial Ecology by assessing the impacts of CIs in underrepresented regions and addressing social dimensions that are often neglected in traditional analyses. Specifically, this research highlights the importance of improving mixed-methods data collection by integrating sector-specific qualitative insights and quantitative metrics on key sectors projected to undergo significant change from the analysed CIs.
These insights provide crucial support for national governments and regional institutions like ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) in designing effective, inclusive circular economy transitions. This work helps advance sustainable development across the region by applying the DE model, which seeks to meet social foundations while respecting planetary boundaries. ... Read more

The pharmaceutical industry presents complex challenges and opportunities for environmental sustainability. Despite strict regulations ensuring medication quality and safety, there is a clear disconnect between pharmaceutical and sustainability guidelines. Guidelines, frameworks and regulations for pharmacy do not cover environmental sustainability sufficiently, while those for sustainability are insufficiently applicable to pharmaceutical development.
This thesis examines the global, international, and regional regulatory structures in pharmaceutical development from an environmental sustainability perspective. By evaluating the current practices in pharmaceutical R&D and operations, and modern environmental standards, this study offers a novel perspective by aligning pharmaceutical and sustainability guidelines, providing recommendations for enhancing environmental sustainability throughout the full pharmaceutical life cycle.
Through literature review of 142 sources including 55 on guidelines, regulations, frameworks and standards related to pharmaceutical development (such as ICH, EMA, FDA) and sustainability (such as SDGs, WHO), along with 60 journal and research articles along with 3 expert interviews, the current state of environmental practices in pharmaceutical development was evaluated. This revealed significant structural issues, with most pharmaceutical guidelines not aligned with modern environmental standards. For example, one of the ICH guidelines is 19 years outdated while being active and recently verified, and current practices often focus on minimal compliance.
Results from this study indicate there is significant potential for improving environmental sustainability through practices like lean manufacturing and life cycle analysis (LCA) starting from the earliest stages of drug development and operations as these have an existing structure for life cycle management which currently does not include environmental considerations. The existing structure requires an environmental risk assessment only for the active pharmaceutical component but ongoing research is looking into expanding on this as well.
Key recommendations include: 1. Harmonising global pharmaceutical guidelines with modern sustainability standards and more regular updates. 2. Establishing specific environmental impact indicators and metrics for pharmaceuticals and packaging, adapting chemistry frameworks like SSbD and green chemistry principles to pharmaceuticals. 3. Incorporating LCA methodology in life cycle management and early drug development, along with development of a dedicated database for pharmaceutical environmental impacts. 4. Enhancing collaboration to bridge knowledge gaps and improve transparency between regulatory bodies, industry, and environmental scientists. These recommendations can facilitate a systemic shift toward long term sustainability in pharmaceutical development. ... Read more

The mitigation of climate change and the transition to a more sustainable and circular use of resources are two of the largest challenges of our time. To this end, the European Commission proposed the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) and Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) in March 2023 as further pillars to its Green Deal. While the NZIA focuses on establishing supply chains for net-zero technologies, the CRMA aims to maintain access to the necessary materials. However, these so-called Critical Raw Materials (CRMs), are not only required for net-zero technologies but also for numerous other applications. To ensure their growing demand can be met more sustainably, the European Commission CRMA proposal states that 15% of total CRM consumption in the EU must be satisfied through recycled materials by 2030. In response to the Commission’s proposal and as part of the legislative process, the European Council proposed a more ambitious target of 20% of demand to be satisfied through secondary materials. The European Parliament’s proposal takes a slightly different approach in that it suggests a 45% target for recycling all waste streams, rather than focusing on a set share of consumption.
Given the current dynamic nature of the legislative process, no publicly available literature exploring the extent to which the three proposals can contribute to meeting CRM demand more sustainably could be identified. Hence, the objective of this thesis is to quantify and analyze the implications of each recycling target, leading to the following research question: “How do the Critical Raw Materials Act recycling targets proposed by the European Commission, Council and Parliament compare in their contribution to meeting future demand more sustainably?”. To address this question, a case study on closed-loop neodymium recycling of NdFeB magnets in onshore and offshore wind turbines in Germany between 1989 and 2045 is performed. To map past and expected future neodymium stocks and flows, a dynamic material flow analysis (dMFA) is used. Building on a business-as-usual model without any recycling, explorative scenarios are developed reflecting each of the three CRMA proposals for recycling.
The results reveal that under the expected flow dynamics, the achievement and effectiveness of the targets depends on the time period considered. Because neodymium demand is expected to increase significantly over the upcoming decade, the Parliament’s targets are the most realistic until 2030, given that they are defined relative to actual waste streams. In contrast, achieving the Commission’s and Council’s consumption-based targets is comparably unrealistic, due to the fact that not enough waste streams will be available to satisfy 15 or even 20% of the rapidly growing demand. Extrapolating the targets of the Commission and Council beyond 2030, shows that they are achievable from around mid-2030 onwards. Regardless of the scenario, recycling rates need to increase significantly and rapidly. To meet the Commission’s and Council’s targets in particular, recycling rates of up to 100% until 2035 must be realized. Compared to current recycling rates of below 1%, this appears highly ambitious.
Policy makers are advised to establish targets beyond 2030 and to support relevant stakeholders in creating a recycling infrastructure, both financially and through favorable framework conditions. Future research should explore whether the specific trends observed in this case study also apply to other strategic applications and materials. Moreover, research on how product-life extensions could contribute to decreasing demand for primary materials in the short- to medium-run should be conducted.
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