Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 22 ISSUE 2
Written by Vasiliki A. GKOUNTANI, Giannis T. TSOULFAS, Yannis MOUZAKITIS

The agri-food sector is critical for humanity because it has mutual links to all pillars of sustainable development. Circular economy is an emerging paradigm that aims to change human and organizational behaviour and practice patterns by taking a different approach to production and consumption. A shift to a circular model tries to put a stop to the imprudent use of natural resources and replace it with a philosophy of reusing, repurposing and regenerating. The supply chains of the agri-food system constitute a significant area of intervention in the transition of the sector towards sustainability. In this vein, one may find a growing literature on existing tools, techniques and methods (such as material flow analysis, water footprint, social life cycle analysis, etc.) which can be used for the sustainability assessment of (existing and planned) agri-food networks. This paper adopts a circular economy perspective and discusses the afore-mentioned methods with respect to their potential to depict the transformation of the current inefficient, wasteful, and linear production and consumption model.

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