Circular economy principles aim to contribute towards sustainability and resilience through several simultaneous agendas including economic growth, social development and environmental responsibility. Stakeholders from each perspective have their own interests and priorities, which often result in conflict. There are several and varied methodologies which address the decision-making process, however in engineering spheres these techniques are usually limited to optimising resources, time or costs. Decisions that are comprehensive in scope and integrated across all affected systems are required to transition towards a circular economy, effective cross-disciplinary thinking is imperative and cooperation amongst diverse areas is essential. Game theory is a useful technique when analysing the interactions of stakeholders with multiple objectives and perspectives. This paper aims to critically review methodological approaches used in waste management practice and provide a guidance on how game theory differs from, and is complementary to, the primary decision-making tools available where cooperation is a feature too often missing. This review seeks to justify the development of game theory to complement waste management decision-making methods in civil engineering, where resource consumption and waste management is often voluminous. An application of game theory to a waste management example illustrates that this methodological approach is of complementary value. The contribution of this study to circular economy and solid waste agendas is to emphasise the capability of game theory to help facilitate conflict resolution, competition, and stakeholder consensus when capturing multiple (sometimes conflicting) values in line with circular economy principles.

Introduction

Population growth, and the concomitant increase in the demand for goods and services, is resulting in the progressive depletion of energy and resources stocks around the globe. Since the planet is experiencing a growing scarcity in resources and is becoming rich in waste, the concept of a ‘Circular Economy (CE)’ has emerged from increasing concerns over resource use efficiency, waste management and materials security (Rogers et al., 2017). CE principles aim to contribute towards sustainability and resilience through several simultaneous agendas, including economic growth, social development and environmental responsibility. Contributing towards CE transition (and certainly sustainability) implies capturing multiple types of value (Rogers, 2018). Conflict is expected to arise when stakeholder groups from different perspectives have their own interests and priorities. An integrative Decision-Making (DM) process should be able to overcome such barriers to cooperation; this is where Game Theory (GT) presents a promising potential to facilitate such an enabler to the transition towards a CE. The aim of this paper is to critically review different techniques in the CE literature. The review provides guidance on how GT differs from, is both complementary to and able to enhance, the primary DM tools available within a waste management context in civil engineering.