Regional Space From the Perspective of Circular Economy

Abstract

The basic principles of the development of territorial space have attracted the interest of researchers for several decades. An important aspect is a study and research for the relationship between impact factors and the resulting development effects. Achievement of sustainability in transforming space is extremely important not only from the economic and political perspective, but also from the perspective of social development. Recently, the focus has shifted from a linear-type economic model to a closed-loop model, due to a number of objective new economic and ecological reasons. To continue learning the phenomenon of circular economy on the example of regional subjects of Russia the article carried out the procedure of their clustering on the basis of actual statistical data, revealed the distinctive features describing the specific development of space due to "circular principles" and gave the characteristics of cluster formations on the basic descriptive features of each group of cluster elements. More effective implementation of the principles of circular economy in the socio-economic space of the regions opens new horizons for strategic planning and management of their development. The information obtained from the analysis will contribute to the optimization and early establishment of equalization and harmonization of regional policies on sustainable development and the circular economy.

Keywords: Circular economyeconomic spaceregional developmentsustainable development

Introduction

The study of territorial space from the cluster approach has special advantages especially evident in the current crisis period of the global economy caused by the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Territorial clusters are strategic points of support for management decisions in the regional and national blocs, contribute to the formation of investment attractiveness of regions, create new jobs, thus strengthening the position of sustainable development. Nowadays it is extremely important to find new stimuli for economic growth, part of the scientific world community believes that its source is the shift of the economic growth paradigm model from linear to circular. Consequently, there is a certain interest in defining the specificity of economic space under the influence of circular economy.

Problem Statement

The Russian researchers repeatedly note the relevance of the cluster approach in improving management decisions. For example, in Savzihanova (2014) wrote about the role and formation of the cluster; Zharkova (2017) considered the integration of the cluster and the special economic zone; Groshev et al. (2019a, 2019b) paid a close attention to systemic contradictions in the cluster initiatives; Malov and Letyagina (2019) proposed a neural network model of the clustering of the economy; the work of Kookueva and Tserceil (2019, 2019b) and other researchers (Andreeva & Astanina, 2018; Yagolnitzer & Kolobova, 2018) studied the questions of the formation of innovative territorial clusters.

Research Questions

The hypothesis assumes that the circular economy imposes distinctive, specific features conditioning the development of the regional space, allowing to identify new cluster formations at the regional and sub-regional levels, thereby contributing, in the future, to modernize management decision-making and reach a qualitatively new level of development of regional sustainability, additionally forming a favorable circular environment for strengthening the key R-principles of circularity.

Purpose of the Study

As the main purpose the author designates identifying specific features of regional space development from the position of circular economy by conducting clustering and, based on the identified clusters, developing program proposals for the implementation of principles of circular economy.

The elements of scientific novelty are in the procedure of clustering the subjects of Russia from the position of the achieved level of circular economy development (using QuiiskMap2 software products, VBA Projects, IBM SPSS Statistics) and in the elaboration of possible scenarios for the strategic development of circular economy.

Research Methods

Due to the interest of the world scientific community in the search for new sources of social and economic growth and the increased interest of government and business representatives in ecological issues, considering the move of ongoing programs related to sustainable development, it is necessary to have a picture about specifics of the impact of the circular economy on the activities of the Russian regions for developing the most effective managerial decisions.

Figure 1 shows the proposed standard algorithm for determining the type of territorial cluster belonging of the analyzed region from the perspective of the level of circular economy development in the common space of the Russian Federation.

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According to modern ideas about the sustainable development of society, the research has previously identified key indicators that incorporate the main characteristics necessary to assess the level of development of the circular economy and reflect the specifics of the economic space. To continue the study, it tested the developed formula of dynamic model of circular economy described by the multiple regression equation (Guryeva, 2020). The scale of calculations is performed on the base of statistical data from 85 Russian regions in the 2014-2019 period (Federal State Statistics Service, 2019; Federal State Statistics Service, 2020; Russian Government, 2020; Unified portal of the budget system of the Russian Federation, 2020).

Findings

The received data are processed in the software product of QuiiskMap2 package (Practical Science, 2020) and visualized by means of equally filled distribution of the calculated values on 7 groups according to recommendations at social and economic space planning (Kurushina & Druzhinina, 2016; Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 17.11.2008 No. 1662-R, 2017). Figure 2 shows the infographic representation of the map of circular economy development in Russian regions for 2019.

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The presented classification groups of regions make it possible to generalize several obvious specific features of space development under the influence of the circular economy:

• the high level of development of the circular economy manifests largely in the regions with more favorable ecological conditions. Consequently, we can assume an interdependency between the degree of personal ecological literacy and society's ability to transmit it to the natural environment;

• regions with increasing economic prosperity, as a rule, demonstrate a relatively negative level of circularity development, which directly proves the insufficiently balanced strategy of the region, where economic goals prevail over ecological ones. Targeted application of the existing competitive conditions and investment attractiveness of these subjects will contribute to the rapid growth of the circular economy;

• regions with weakened economic component have higher level of circularity, which may mean, on the one hand, openness and flexibility in search of new opportunities to achieve a sustainable state, some increased readiness for dynamic changes; on the other hand, it may mean anthropogenic impact, caused by less active economic activity of the person, causes less damage to ecology. Subjects need a concentrated superstructure in the block of management decisions to realize the existing potential of the regions-subjects in the stability area.

To further study the phenomenon of circular economy on the example of regional subjects of Russia, the author conducted a procedure of vertical hierarchical clustering in the IBM SPSS Statistics 26 (Predictive Solutions, 2020) software package by means of the Classification tool, Ward methods and intergroup communication, using the interval measure "Euclidea Square" in both cases. The comparative analysis uses the Ward method of clustering, which initially considers each subject as a single cluster (Table 1 and Table 2 ).

Table 3 shows the main descriptive characteristics of each cluster group.

More effective implementation of the principles of circular economy in the socio-economic space of the regions opens new horizons for strategic planning and management of their development. The information obtained through the analysis will contribute to the optimization and early establishment of the equalization and harmonization processes of the regional policy in the field of sustainable development and circular economy, which is fully consistent with the goal 2.3 "Sustainable nature management" and objectives 2.3.1 " Ecological education", 2.3.2 "Ecology of the natural environment, human ecology", 2.3.3 "Ecology of production, ecobusiness", prescribed in the Strategy of socio-economic development of the Tyumen Region until 2030 (Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, 2020).

Conclusion

Depending on the combination of external and internal factors, it is reasonable to provide for several most probable scenarios of strategic development of circular economy in the Tyumen region, presented in Table 4 .

The main practical effects resulting from the study include increased efficiency in the elaboration of strategic development programs for regional subjects of the Russian Federation, optimization in the achievement of key parameters of life quality to fulfill basic obligations in the field of sustainable development, and circular economy. We see further development of the fundamental concept in the possibility of creating a regional integrated program of circular economy for the socio-economic territorial space of the region, which should be scaled up and modernized into national projects of Russia, in the case of proved efficiency of implementation.

Acknowledgments

The research was carried out with the financial support of the Grant of the President of the Russian Federation to support young scientists of Candidates of Sciences within the framework of research MK-587.2019.6 "Development of theoretical and methodological foundations of the concept of circular economy as a new trend of formation of sustainable socio-economic space".

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