Impact of circular economy on the decarbonization of the Italian residential sector

Circular economy is a new economic model that aims at overcoming today's linear "take, make, dispose" pattern, decoupling global economic development from finite resource consumption. Household appliances are a promising field for the adoption of Circular Economy, being one of the most resource-intensive industries and due to the global e-waste problem. The aim of this work is to quantify the potential contribution of making the household appliances sector more circular to the decarbonization of the Italian energy system, using the TIMES-RSE model. First, a literature review of the available circular measures was performed and used as a basis for modeling assumptions. The following circular measures were considered: extending the lifetime of appliances, increased adoption of remanufactured appliances, growing importance of leasing, lower average washing tem-perature for washing machines, and lower usage of tumble dryers. Second, each circular practice was modeled either as a new technology available for the optimization of the system or as a change in demand for a certain commodity. The reference scenario is the Italian Long Term Strategy. It is shown that the modeled circular practices can reduce the energy consumption of household appliances in 2050 by 0,327 Mtoe (-16%) and cut in half their costs through the 2020-2050 period, saving 96 billion euros (-47%). Moreover, savings could be even higher if efforts are taken to remove barriers to their diffusion, including consumers' habits and manufacturers' inertia. As the energy weight of appliances is low within the overall residential sector, energy savings of these circular practices are negligible at the sectoral level, however, economic savings of 107 billion euros are achieved over 2020-2050 (-22%).