Experiences in Assessing the Impact of Circular Economy Interventions in Agrifood Systems – a Review

The circular economy (CE) offers a promising model for sustainable resource management, yet assessing its performance remains challenging. In agrifood systems, circularity can enhance resource efficiency, reduce waste, and support food security, but few studies have examined CE implementation in this unique context, highlighting a need for tailored assessment tools. This study aims to provide insights and recommendations for advancing CE interventions and their performance assessment within agrifood systems. We conducted a realist literature review to examine the approaches and dimensions used, followed by a discussion on insights from agrifood system assessments to help address identified knowledge gaps. Our review highlighted a significant lack of widely accepted methodologies and metrics for performance evaluation. Most existing frameworks focus narrowly on technical or environmental dimensions, with few tools addressing multiple aspects. This trend is likely due to the predominance of lab-based research, underscoring the need for a stronger emphasis on social assessments in real-world contexts. We identify three key aspects to improve CE intervention assessments: i) using systems approaches to highlight multiple dimensions and their interactions; ii) considering scale and local adaptability for context-specific performance metrics; and iii) involving stakeholders in the assessment process to ensure practicality and facilitate improvement.