Jan Brusselaers

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | VU · The Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM)

This study provides a comprehensive review of the literature on climate risk insurance modeling to identify lessons learned and knowledge gaps to be addressed by future research. These models are increasingly relevant due to the rising losses attributable to climate change. Insurance models estimate risk for different perils and simulate risk‐relat...

Lithium-ion batteries are essential for Europe's renewable energy transition. By 2030, the EU will need 18 times more lithium, and by 2050, 60 times more. For that reason, Europe aims to increase domestic sourcing and achieve nearly full self-sufficiency by 2030. However, lithium mining has a high environmental footprint and can have severe social...

An important presumed social impact of the circular economy (CE) is job-creation for vulnerable groups. This creates opportunities for Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs), which are established to organize economic activities for workers with a distance to the labour market. In this paper, we identify challenges, opportunities, and sustaina...

While being acknowledged for its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals, the proliferation of renewable energy causes an upcoming waste problem and creates new geopolitical vulnerabilities due to reliance on a very limited number of countries for critical raw materials. Therefore, it is relevant to study circular economy strategies for r...

This study aims to evaluate the impact of export product concentration on the ecological footprint in the European Union between 1995 and 2018, using the environmental Kuznets curve framework. We utilized the pooled mean group/autoregressive distributed lag approach, which confirmed the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis within the European Uni...

Environmental degradation due to human over-exploitation is one of the most pressing global issues. The ten Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) have recently witnessed substantial economic growth and involvement in global trade. In the discussion on environmental degradation, trade has a crucial role. Scholars use trade openness to test the scale...

This paper introduces a generic hybrid methodology for assessing economic and environmental impacts along interconnected supply chain markets, considering both the material/product level and the market mechanisms that govern resource allocation. The methodology is illustrated by considering a competitive market and benevolent social planner variant...

International trade is recognized as a key contributor to environmental degradation. However, researchers and policymakers do not distinguish between the trade of green and non-green products. The Non-Green Trade Openness Index was developed to examine the effect of non-green products on environmental quality. This study examines the effect of trad...

In Europe, NACE codes are used for the official classification of sectors, however, the circular economy is not sufficiently captured in this classification. Therefore, this paper improves previous attempts for defining circular activities and jobs by web scraping techniques applied to each company in Belgium. We analyze their first, second, and th...

The European Union (EU) is a frontrunner of the circular economy (CE) and has established an ambitious agenda to achieve increased circularity. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the policies which address circularity at the national level, prior to the implementation of the EU’s new CE Action Plan in 2020. As such, this paper presents...

Waste management and recycling efforts have been shown to align with the principles of the circular economy (CE). In this research, we present a methodology for mapping the waste and recycling (W&R) sector in a general equilibrium model based on sectoral NACE codes. We then assess the impacts of three key policy measures outlined in the Circular Ec...

Aside from potential environmental benefits, the implementation of circular economy principles in businesses can have merits for the labour market. The current unemployment in several regions of Europe and the qualitative mismatch between supply and demand could be countered by reskilling the labour force to adjust supply and demand to one another...

This Research Topic gathers research which makes use of indicators to assess the environmental impact of economies and proposed sustainability transitions. A helicopter view of the combined set of insights reveals a number of relevant trends in this area of research. First, we can distinguish between indicators at different levels (macro versus mic...

Novel recycling technologies aim at increasing material efficiency by turning former waste products into valuable reclaimed resources. A key question is whether such technologies really reduce primary resource consumption or instead stimulate aggregated market demand. In this study the consequences of a positive shock in ferrochrome supply to the g...

Aside from potential environmental benefits, the implementation of circular economy principles in businesses can have merits for the labour market. The current unemployment in several regions of Europe and the qualitative mismatch between supply and demand could be countered by reskilling the labour force to adjust supply and demand to one another...

Insight in the circular activities of sectors is necessary to provide the appropriate support to the relevant companies in the transition to a circular economy (CE). In Europe, NACE codes are used for the official classification of sectors, however, the CE is not sufficiently captured in this classification. Therefore, this paper improves previous...

Editorial on the Research Topic Green indicators to inform circular economy under climate change This Research Topic gathers research which makes use of indicators to assess the environmental impact of economies and proposed sustainability transitions. A helicopter view of the combined set of insights reveals a number of relevant trends in this are...

The COVID-19 pandemic had large repercussions for our economy and organizations. Improved resilience can give organizations the ability to withstand crises and build back better and faster. This article assesses resilience of organizations and sole proprietorships in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic with eight circular strategies as explanatory...

Environmental degradation is one of the most important and vital issues of today. In this context, many researchers are testing the environmental impact of different indicators. Many economic parameters affect environmental degradation. At the forefront of these parameters is the productive economic structures of the countries. For the first time i...

The circular economy (CE) has gained prominence in recent years in government and business policies, as well as academic research. Yet, its alleged wholesomeness is increasingly questioned and few quantitative studies include both the outer (e.g. recycling) and inner circles (e.g. reduce or reuse), respectively the ex-ante least and most efficient...

Unfortunately, in the original article, the affiliation numbers for all the authors are updated wrongly, and the correct affiliations are given below.

Environmental degradation is one of the main drivers of climate change. One of the most broadly accepted tools to minimize that environmental degradation is the introduction of ‘Green Products’. This paper introduces the “Green Trade Openness Index” to a) measure the importance of green products in a region, and b) revisit the trade-environment nex...

This paper investigates the economy-wide impact of the uptake of circular economy (CE) measures for the small open economy (SOE) of Belgium, in particular the impact of fiscal policies in support of lifetime extension through repair activities of household appliances. The impact assessment is completed by means of a computable general equilibrium m...

There are many economic parameters that may affect environmental degradation. At the forefront of these parameters is the productive economic structures of the countries The present paper discusses the dynamic relationship between carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions, economic growth and productive capacity index (PCI) for a panel of 38 OECD countries s...

Energy is pivotal for sustainable economic growth. Undoubtedly, the role of the composition of the export basket (measured as economic complexity) is one of the crucial variables influencing energy consumption. Despite its importance, the existing body of literature does not intensively study the relationship between economic complexity and total e...

This CLEG CRE index is calculated based on OECD’s CLEG list "cleaner and more resource efficient technologies and products" and consists of 47 products and an annual basis from 2007 to 2019 for 31 OECD countries. This index is useful to use while testing the impact of GOP on renewable energy and non-renewable energy consumption. Also, it can be use...

This version of Green Trade Openness index is calculated based on OECD’s CLEG+ list and consists of 40 products and an annual basis from 2007 to 2019 for 31 OECD countries. This period is determined by the data availability in UN Comtrade because of the fact that the data starts in 2007 based on HS2007. What is Green Openness Index? Green Openness...

Green Trade Openness shows how an economy open to green trading is calculated is based on the “APEC List of Environmental Goods” and contains 54 products and an annual basis from 2007 to 2019 for 31 OECD countries. This period is determined by the data availability in UN Comtrade because of the fact that the data starts in 2007 based on HS2007.

About this Research Topic The obstacle of climate change is among the major concerns that mankind is experiencing today. Climate change poses remarkable risks to the planet and human health such as extreme weather conditions, unpredictable rain fall, decreasing of agricultural productivity, and lack of food. Thus, we need to find solutions to prote...

SPECIAL ISSUE About this Research Topic The obstacle of climate change is among the major concerns that mankind is experiencing today. Climate change poses remarkable risks to the planet and human health such as extreme weather conditions, unpredictable rain fall, decreasing of agricultural productivity, and lack of food. Thus, we need to find sol...

This paper presents a spatial equilibrium model to analyses the leverage impact of the legality requirements in the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR). The EUTR is part of the EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) program, which aims to stimulate legal wood production and sustainable forest management at global level. This leverage eff...

The COVID-19 pandemic induces the worst economic downturn since the Second World War, requiring governments to design large-scale recovery plans to overcome this crisis. This paper quantitatively assesses the potential of government investments in eco-friendly construction projects to boost the economy and simultaneously realise environmental gains...

This paper empirically investigates to what extent consumers of eco-certified wood are driven by self-interest instead of environmental or altruistic concerns. This is done by making use of a questionnaire. The questionnaire allows to establish distinct consumer profiles in terms of demographics, attitudinal and behavioral characteristics. The prof...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent a consumer’s repair strategy impacts the annual costs of ownership of a washing machine and two types of vacuum cleaner. Design/methodology/approach The annual cost of ownership is determined by calculating the annual life cycle cost (LCC) for the respective devices. The annual LCC...

The project has made substantial progress in different areas related to circular economy. First, it has enhanced our understanding of the circular economy concept by developing a novel theoretical framework to ground indicators. Second, extended input-output modelling tools have been developed and used to study the interlinkages within the Belgian...

The overall aim of this study is to evaluate and, if possible, quantify the ease of repair for energy-related products (ErPs) considering the economic impact from a consumer perspective. In order to meet this objective, repairability criteria for ErPs are proposed. The developed criteria are in accordance with the ongoing initiative of the CEN-CELE...

This paper empirically investigates the impact of the implementation process for the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) in Cameroon on the volume of exported wood from Cameroon to the European Union (EU). This is achieved by applying time series analysis, change point detection, and vector autoregression with exogenous variables. No previous res...

This paper presents an economic analysis of small-scale agricultural production efficiency and household welfare in Burundi. We used recent advances in data envelopment analysis (robust DEA) to generate standard and bootstrap-bias-corrected technical efficiency scores for a nationwide sample of farms in the country. Next the correlation between the...

•Certified and conventional products are not traditional substitute goods.•Green public procurement stimulates certification globally, but not in each region.•Public procurement of the cheaper unsustainable product does not maximise welfare.•Increasing the price premium for certified wood creates a trade barrier.•The high costs of forest certificat...

The European Commission wants to create a favourable policy environment for supporting the establishment and development of farmers' cooperatives and other producer organizations. This paper - for the first time - presents the results of an effectiveness measurement of the existing support measures for farmers' cooperatives throughout the EU (in ei...

This report documents the findings of the analysis of the supply chain of organic coffee from Uganda to the Netherlands using a Chain Risk Model (CRM). The CRM considers contamination of organic coffee with chemicals as a threat for the supply chain, and analyses the consequences of contamination in one stage of the supply chain for the subsequent...