In 2015, the European Commission recognized the circular economy as the official way to achieve a “sustainable, low-emission, resource-efficient and competitive economy”. Therefore, all EU members, including Poland, should develop appropriate national policies that will be consistent with the assumptions defined by the European Commission. This is a challenge for Poland because it requires reformulating existing environmental policies and finding a way to integrate them. The specific policy-making process in Poland has been ongoing since the EU’s decision. Due to the professional nature of the policy subject, circular economy is not subject to broad public debate, and the inclusion of this concept in national policy takes place through political discourse, formulating arguments and conducting dialogue. Language is a natural material in the policy-making process, but in this particular case, knowledge about its course is very important for two reasons.

Firstly, the diagnosis of the political discourse on circular economy in the policy-making process is the only way to understand the future rules of strategic policy orientation, especially economic policy. Circular Economy – as a term, will soon become a valid development idea in Poland. This means that today’s topic of political discourse will have a real impact on the functioning of state administration, enterprises and consumers. In this particular discourse, a small group of political stakeholders create a concept and its practical dimensions that can have a broad economic and social impact.

Secondly, the term circular economy is an example of conceptual blur. There is no single universally accepted definition of a circular economy. Despite many attempts to systematize this idea, it is perceived as an umbrella concept, covering technical and technological solutions of the production process and the idea of ​​sustainable development, contributing to the implementation of a certain normative vision of economic space. This creates a situation in which the meaning is freely interpreted by different actors. Differences in the interpretation of concepts between stakeholders may have the greatest impact on environmental public policies, which is related to the implementation and practical approach to circular economy and reveals barriers to the development of circular economy theory in research and business areas. Conceptual blurring when implementing an idea into social or economic practice becomes a visible barrier, often indicated as a factor deciding not to adopt a given concept, an example of which may be corporate social responsibility, sustainable development or green economy.

The aim of this study is to identify and reconstruct the circular economy (CE) policy-making process from EU to national policy. The subject of the analysis is the ongoing political discourse on circular economy. For this purpose, appropriate legal acts and Twitter entries will be selected. Interviews with key stakeholders will be conducted to complement the main part of the analysis. The process will be presented by identifying the concepts most closely related to the idea of ​​circular economy, determining the process dynamics of the circular economy discourse in the years 2015-2022, defining the context of the circular economy concept in the discourse, identifying the most important members of the communication community and the dominant discourse path expressed in the conceptualization of the circular economy into policy public and the selection of strategic goals. The research is theoretical and exploratory in nature, conducted based on discursive methodology. We assume not only the identification of the meaning of the term CE and the process of its introduction into Polish politics, but also the development of a discursive approach in public policies.

Team members: prof. dr hab. Marek Ćwiklicki (Full Professor)