一项关于循环经济的环境经济学的介绍性说明【外文翻译】

外文翻译
原文
An introductory note on the environmental economics of the
circular economy
Material Source:Sustainability Science(2007)2Author: Mikael Skou Andersen Introduction
The concept of a circular economy – currently widely promoted in Asia – has its conceptual roots in industrial ecology, which envisions a form of material symbiosis between otherwise very different companies and production processes. Industrial ecology emphasises the benefits of recycling residual waste materials and by-products through, for example, the development of complex interlinkages, such as those in the renowned industrial symbiosis projects (see Jacobsen 2006). However, in more general terms, it promotes resource minimisation and the adoption of cleaner technologies (Andersen 1997, 1999).
In industrial ecology, it is implied that a circular economy will be beneficial to society and to the economy as a whole. Benefits will be obtained, not only by minimising use of the environment as a sink for residuals but –perhaps more importantly –by minimising the use of virgin materials for economic activity. Intuitively, the potential benefits seem straightforward, but it is important to stress that the perspective prevailing within the circular economy approach is, in fact, based on physical rather than economic observations.
The assumed benefits are based on the fundamental observation that the loss of material residuals, in physical units, is minimised. But how far should society go in the recycling of materials? While the first and most straightforward recycling options provide evident benefits, once the recycling road is embarked upon, the subsequent benefits gradually become more and more difficult to achieve. It has to be acknowledged that at some stage there will be a cut-off point where recycling
will become too difficult and burdensome to provide a net benefit. A circular economy cannot promote recycling in perpetuity.
Many adherents of the circular economy approach are strong proponents, on environmental and ethical premises, of material reuse and recycling. However, in a market economy (and in some planned economies as well), the prices of materials and natural resources will be too low and will mainly reflect the costs associated with mining and short-term values, but not with depletion nor the environmental costs. In such cases, only a limited range of circular options will make sense from the perspective of company managers. It can be argued that if companies are rational and profit-seeking, the recycling and reuse options should already have been realised. In a conventional capitalist economy, recycling will be undertaken only where it is desirable from a private economic viewpoint.
Decision-makers responsible for public policy-making need to transcend such narrow perspectives and institute mechanisms that secure that recycling and reuse takes place where it is socially desirable and efficient. As a first step, it is necessary to analyse more carefully from a socio-economic perspective how circular economy principles can provide net benefits. Environmental economics offers an analytical approach that can be of considerable help in identifying which material streams and which recycling options provide the greatest benefits to the economy –if circular rather than open-ended principles are introduced. Environmental economic analysis in public policy-making presumes, in practice, an in-depth understanding and description of the environmental consequences of various choices, thereby making the analysis interdisciplinary in nature. Environmental economics also offers the basis for introducing “externality adders” to market prices in the form of environmental taxes and charges, so that prices can reveal the true situation, thereby allowing market actors to take account of the real costs in their mutual transactions.
This paper provides an introduction to the approach of environmental economics and indicates its potential for achieving a sound and efficient circular economy.
Sustainable development and sustainable economic welfare
Before examining how values can be attached to the economic services and disservices related to the environment, we need to consider briefly the implications associated with requirements for sustainable development with respect to the choice of economic approach.
The UN’s World Commission defines sustainable development as a trajectory where future generations are secured the same level of welfare as present living generations. The implication of this approach, as seen from an economics standpoint, is a requirement for constant consumption or, phrased in a slightly more abstract manner, constant utility. In order to maintain annual yield at a constant level, there will be, in the absence of technological progress, a requirement for the stock of environmental resources to be kept constant. Environmental resources should be managed in such a way that the future yield does not diminish and future generations will not be worse off. In this manner, environmental resources can be viewed as a bank account where the capital (deposited amount) remains constant so as to generate a steady stream of interest to live on.
The requirement for constant yield and a constant stock of natural capital is restrictive. It has become customary to distinguish between strong and weak versions of sustainable development. Within the weak form of sustainability, the substitution of natural capital and other types of capital is allowed, such that the depletion of natural capital has to be compensated through savings in other types of capital, such as human capital or physical capital. While often regarded as a relaxation of the sustainability criteria, even this weaker definition of sustainability would be a challenge for many countries which do not have systems in place that are able to account for whether or not the extraction of fossil fuels is compensated through reinvestments in education (human capital) or infrastructure (physical capital). The strong version of sustainable development, which does not allow for substitution, is normally made less rigid so that focus is on the non-substitutability of certain types of critical capital.
The economic sustainability definition is usually associated with Hartwick’s savings rule, which suggests that the rents from natural resource extraction should be reinvested in other types of capital and that the government should ensure this by instituting a tax on natural resource extraction so as to guarantee a sustainable level
of savings. In the case of fossil fuels, Hartwick’s savings rule implies tha t income from fossil fuel taxes would be reinvested in other types of capital and that these would yield a level of annual rent in the future similar to the present extraction of fossil fuels.
Socio-economic analysis of the circular economy
The externality estimates can be used in the analysis of projects that are considered to improve the circular aspects of the economy. In the case of recycling, the potential benefits are basically comprised of three elements:
–the market value of the recycled materials;
–reduced burden from waste disposal (incineration or
landfill);
–reduced burden due to reductions in extraction of virgin
materials.
In the case of the circular economy, companies with residual waste streams may often be some distance from the market where they obtain the value of materials. As such, the waste products do not relate to their main area of activity and the companies may be forced to dump them at unfavourable prices to nearby plants that are willing to accept them. However, if the authorities institute a set of taxes on the key pollutants, any activity that will diminish the net environmental burden will become profitable for both the receiving and the disposing companies. Alternatively, the authorities may require a socio-economic analysis of the benefits of recycling, as outlined above.
Conclusions
Significant advances in the pricing of externalities have been achieved in recent years by means of complex interdisciplinary analyses that attempt to account in
detail for the environmental consequences. The monetary estimates reached as a result of such interdisciplinary research are gradually being applied by the authorities to the economic analysis of environmental policy priorities. A prominent example was the assessment that emerge d from the EU’s 6th Envir onmental Action Programme (RIVM,2001). This assessment relied on the results of the ExternE project, and the economic analysis was based on the use of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment of the Netherlands' (RIVM) expertise and models for the natural scientific basis.
The challenge in accounting for external effects is very much related to the necessity to transcend disciplinary orientations and to combine the knowledge and data available in various subfields. That environmental issues are complex has been acknowledged for decades, and the resulting predominance of symbolic politics been deplored by many observers. Whether the insights obtained by combining natural science models with economic principles of accounting for external effects will lead to an environmental policy that is more rational and less sensitive to abuse by vested interests is perhaps to early to say, but we can at least hope that a more confined playing field for the clash of interests can be defined.
The establishment of a future trajectory for a circular economy will require that this approach be extended so that the broader issue of sustainability can be addressed more comprehensively. Whereas external effects relate mainly to the present generations, the sustainability issue implies a need to address the future generations as well when the implications of the environmental pressures are quantified. Although the available estimates for external effects provide only a partial and incomplete picture of the environmental costs at stake, they help support and expand on the analysis of the virtues of a more circular economy.
译文
一项关于循环经济的环境经济学的介绍性说明
资料来源: 可持续发展科学（2007）2 作者：迈克尔•斯科•安徒生
简介
目前循环经济的概念被广泛推广到亚洲。

其概念扎根于工业生态学，在理论上与公司的生产模式同出一辙，但有别于公司的生产过程。

工业生态学所强调的好处是残渣回收材料和副产物,例如,通过发展复杂的紧密联系,如著名的工业共生项目(见雅各布森2006)。

然而,从更广泛的来说,它促进资源的减少、更多地采取清洁技术(安德森1997年和1999年)。

在工业生态学中,它暗示循环经济将对社会和整体产生有益的经济情况。

福利的获得,不仅仅是因为最小化使用环境作为代价,也许更为重要的是,通过减少原材料的使用来从事经济活动。

显而易见的是,其潜在的利益似乎简单明了,但要强调的是,在普遍的角度去衡量循环经济的方法是有偏颇的,事实上是根据物质身体，而不是经济的观察。

循环经济所假定的好处都是基于下列的观察：损失的生产资料残差,在物理单位上取其最小。

但是对于社会生产物质的循环利用可以走多远?而第一个也是最直接的一个因素为循环选项提供明显的效益,一旦回收路变得障碍重重,后续效益将逐渐变得越来越难实现。

必须承认,在某个阶段将会很难出现一个回收系统可以利用循环经济而产生经济效益。

其将成为循环经济阻碍环保的永久成员。

很多支持循环经济的追随者认为,关键在环境和自然场所、材料重用及循环再造。

然而,在市场经济条件下所运行的计划经济里(一些),材料的价格和自然资源被贬值了,相关的成本主要体现在采矿所产生的短期价值,而且不计所消耗的环境成本。

在这种情况下,只有有限的范围的循环选项将会有生存的可能。

对于公司的经理来讲，可以这样说,如果公司是理性地回收利用和营利,在其投资股票期权前就应该已经意识到，只有在传统的资本主义经济里，循环才能进行。

这是合乎情理的,所以仅仅是当成一个私人观点。

掌握公共政策的决策者需要超越这种狭窄的观点,建立机制,确保为建立循环经济而提供必要的场所和政策支持。

作为第一步,有必要从经济角度更仔细地分析循环经济的基本原则,以及如何可以提供净效益。

环境经济学的分析方法展示了一个可以有助于鉴别相当大的物质流和循环选项提供经济的最大利益，而不是无限制的使用原理进行介绍。

环境经济分析,假设公共政策在实际中,一个有深刻的理解和对环境后果有分析的选择,从而使分析有跨学科的性质。

环境经济学还提供依据“蝰蛇”理论介绍从其外部性形式的市场价格计算费用、环境税、价格等来揭示。

从而在允许的情况下,市场运营费的实际成本考虑在他们共同的交易中。

本文介绍了方法,并指出了环境经济学的潜力,使其达到合理和有效的循环经济。

可持续发展、可持续发展的经济福利
在审查如何把价值观贴在经济服务和环境有关的问题上，我们需要考虑的方面简要地概括成以经济方式的选择为可持续发展相关的问题。

联合国世界委员会定义了可持续发展的轨迹,对此,我们的后代是固定在相同的水平上生活并为其后代谋福祉。

考量这种方法的内涵,例如从经济学的观点来看,通过抽象的方式来表现消耗与产出的效用比。

为维持年度产量在恒定水位将会出现的情况是,在缺乏技术进步的情况之下,只能要求环境资源的存量需求保持不变。

环境资源管理应以这样一种方式来表达,保证这样并不会抹杀子孙后代的资源且子孙后代不会为此而生活变得更糟。

在这种方式下,环境资源可被看作一个资本(存款金额)保持不变的银行账户,然后使其产生持续不断的利息来维持生活。

产量和固定收益被自然资本所限制。

使之成为了一种惯例来区分强、弱版本的可持续发展。

在弱式可持续性中,替代自然资本与其他类型的资本是被允许的,这样自然资本的消耗的补偿是通过储蓄在其他类型的资本、人力资本或者物质资本来提供的。

故而常被认为是一种放松的可持续发展,即使以这个标准为定义弱可持续发展对于许多国家来说，由于系统的不到位故而考虑是否用所提取的化石燃料通过教育再补偿(人力资本)从而进行基础设施(物质资本)。

较强版本的可持续发展,是不允许被替代的，通常不那么僵硬地被动于集中在不可替代性的某些类型的批判资本中。

经济可持续发展的相关定义通常遵照Hartwick储蓄的规则,这表明从自然资源提取租金应该再投资于其他类型的资本，并且政府应该从自然资源提取中收取税收以保证可持续发展的储蓄率。

如果Hartwick化石燃料的储蓄规则意味着从燃料的税收收入将被再投资于其他类型的资本,这些从萃取矿物燃料中所得到的税收的做法将会为现在和未来提供深远影响。

循环经济社会经济分析
外部性估计可用于分析的项目,这被认为是提高循环率的经济。

如回收,其潜在的利益基本上有三个要素:
–再生资料的市场价值;
–减少废弃物处理的负担（焚烧或填
埋）;
–减少从原始资料提取资源的负担.
在循环经济情况下，公司生产产生的残留及废弃流也许经常是从他们得到材料的价值到市场的某一距离。

同样地，废品与他们的主要活动范围不关联，并且公司被迫以他们不赞成的价格接受其附近植物的保护成本。

然而，如果当局设立一套收取关键污染物的税收制度，将减少保护环境负担的所有活动变成利益为公司和配置的公司所接受。

或者，当局可能需要对回收所产生的好处在进行积极的社会经济分析，如上所述。

结论
外部性因素定价近年来通过复杂的跨学科的分析取得了显著的进展,试图详尽地分析环境所产生的经济效应的影响。

估计将货币达到这样的跨学科研究正逐渐被应用在当局的经济分析中，从而影响环境政策的优先顺序。

一个很突出的例子是评估,出现在欧盟第六环境保护纲领计划（RIVM 2001年)。

这个评估的结果依赖于ExternE项目、经济分析是基于国家研究所对公众以及健康和环境“RIVM”(荷兰)使用的专业知识和模型给出的自然科学为依据的。

挑战与其密切相关的外部效应,有必要超越学科方向,在不同的领域获得数据以及用知识跨领域研究。

环境问题是棘手的这个观点被承认了几十年,为突出政绩而发展循环经济为许多观察家痛恨。

与是否获得自然科学模型的会计经济原理为外部效果相结合将会使得环境政策更合理，也许不会对于即得利益的过早虐待而感到敏感,但至少希望对于限制更多的战场利益冲突来说是必须的。

未来走势应建立在循环经济需要之上,促使该方法扩展,这样有利于解决更广泛的问题并使可持续性的内容更加全面。

而外部效应主要在于本代人的时间内,可持续发展问题的解决与否意味着未来几代人对于环境生存的量化。

虽然目前对于外部环境的估计可能还不是很充分，或许只停留在纸上，但是对于循环经济的分析的拓展与实施还是提供了帮助的。