Eu countries hierarchical clustering towards circular economy performance indicators

Circular economy indicators can be used for ranking countries and their hierarchical clustering. It shows the differences and similarities in the progress between individual countries, made toward the realization of the principles of the circular economy (CE). CE is a modern concept and the aspiration to preserve resources and protect the environment. The paper presents a cluster analysis at the level of the European Union (EU27) countries, based on the data of CE composite indicators, which is managed by the statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat). SPSS IBM 26.0 statistics software was used for cluster analysis, while the ANOVA method was applied to check the statistical significance of the obtained results. The most important results achieved in the paper are the classification into 6 clusters within the EU27 countries, with similar policies in the area of the circular economy. The best-ranked cluster is cluster 6 which consists of only 1 country, the Netherlands, the European leader in the circular economy. Accordingly, this paper aims to determine the similarities and differences between the EU member states in the implementation of circular economy postulates by dividing them into clusters. In this way, the highest mean values of the indicators within the cluster will be determined, and thus the circular economy model that other clusters should follow.