A transition probability analysis of material flows in the European aggregates industry - Ratio

A transition probability analysis of material flows in the European aggregates industry - Ratio

Liknande innehåll

Artikel (med peer review)

Insider activism in the forest industry: An emerging phenomenon?

Grafström, J., & Karlson, N.

Publiceringsår

2026

Publicerat i

Forest Policy and Economics, 185, 103732

Sammanfattning

Insider activism refers to situations where public officials use administrative discretion to advance personal or ideological preferences. Although the concept has received increasing attention in organizational and political science research, empirical evidence remains limited. This research note examines whether insider activism may influence regulatory practice in the Swedish forestry sector and how perceived enforcement uncertainty affects forest owners’ behavior. A survey of forest owner representatives in southern Sweden indicates low trust in regulatory objectivity and weak perceptions of legal security. Many respondents report experiences of officials acting beyond their formal mandate. The findings suggest that perceived activism-driven uncertainty encourages defensive strategies among forest owners, including early harvesting and reduced willingness to report environmental values.

Artikel (med peer review)

Time as a structural barrier for a circular economy

Publiceringsår

2026

Publicerat i

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 1–13

Sammanfattning

Circular economy debates often acknowledge material lifespans and delays, but time is usually treated as a contextual issue rather than a structural barrier. The contribution is to reframe circular economy transitions as intertemporal processes by treating time as an endogenous structural barrier. A framework is developed that classifies goods into short-, medium-, and long-lived categories, demonstrating how lagged inflows and valuation biases suppress aggregate circularity even when technology improves. By making temporal mechanisms explicit, the analysis explains why indicators remain stagnant despite policy and efficiency gains. The contribution is to introduce time as an endogenous barrier, integrating insights from environmental and resource economics into circular economy theory and showing how delayed substitution shapes both firm investment and policy outcomes.

A silent transition: Growth with less environmental weight

Publiceringsår

2026

Publicerat i

A Green Entrepreneurial State? Exploring the Pitfalls of Green Deals (pp. 259–271). Springer Nature Switzerland

Sammanfattning

Across Europe, environmental performance has improved alongside economic expansion. Since 1990, most EU countries have seen a steady decline in territorial CO2 emissions, improved energy-efficiency, and reductions in pollution, enabled by common instruments such as emissions trading, product regulations, and renewable energy targets. While the broad pattern is visible across member states, some cases demonstrate especially sustained and measurable decoupling. Sweden offers one such example. Between 1990 and 2023, the country reduced territorial CO2 emissions by 38% while GDP more than doubled. Air pollutants fell across nearly all tracked categories, energy intensity declined, and hazardous chemical use decreased despite rising population and output. These outcomes emerged gradually—not through disruption or centralized intervention, but through quiet steps. This essay examines how those long-term shifts unfolded. It draws on empirical indicators of emissions, energy use, and resource flows to illustrate how Sweden reduced its environmental weight while maintaining economic growth.