Tourism and Economic Growth Nexus: The Case of Mediterranean Countries

1. Introduction

The opportunity to design, rethink, and redesign the vary materials we made before is the art of innovations and creativity. The perspective of rethinking and redesigning our economy is equal to designing products to be made again and powering our system with renewable energy. The question is whether with these innovations and creativities can ready build a restorative economic to satisfy the demand of the 21th century while reducing environmental impacts. Innovatively, the concept known as circular and green economy has emerged to satisfy mounting demand for restorative our economy without ecological problems that have existed for decades following linear economy exploitation (Desing et al., 2020). In fact, the sustainable development model is incorporated circular and green economy model as governance model for the entire world to adopt. The concept is effectively constructed for all level of scales (i.e., for small and large businesses, for individuals and organizations, and as well as local and global).

Categorically, green economy is a connected economy system introduced to better human wellbeing on a sustainable basis through production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, as well as avoiding ecological risks; while circular economy embodies development strategy that reduce environmental impact. Thus, combined concept of circular economy and green economy in this chapter is known as “Circular Economy” (See European Directive of 2014). The application of circular economy does not only reduce the destructive environmental impact, rather a systemic shift to long-term resilience societal benefits and sustainable economic model (European Directive of 2014) that never transpired.

While issues of circular economy has become prominent only relatively recently, dating back to the last centuries, origins for “circular economy” go back thousands of years to when the notions of blue economy concept, zero waste, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and cradle-to-cradle, which differ from bio-based cycles and were first adopted in national strategic development in Japanese and German (Moriguchi 2007). The concept of stewardship and the role of the country as someone who would check that proper stewardship has taken place remain critical. This new concept inspires the People Republic of China to formulate their major policies framework for industrial development to circular economy (Feng & Yan, 2007). In order to make the circular economy concept public, European Union, China, and Japan among others have made massive global policy efforts and awareness in both social and print Medias (Ghisellini et al. 2016).

Although, the concept of circular economy is progressively expanding in recent years, a “world without waste” requires holistic approach. Currently, the scientific and policy content of the circular economy application differs in geopolitical jurisdictions to some extent. The application model of circular economy seems to be develop from semi-scientific and ideas collected from several fields of studies, and it descriptions of practical applications only exist as general descriptions in government policies documents, which are insufficient for a thorough understanding. Usually, this would require a person first to study the legislative proposals on waste management that include targets for recycling, and measures for reducing ecological risk, before reading through governmental policy action plan line by line which is a considerable task. For instance, the application of circular economy in Japan, Europe, and China seems to be entrenched with the fundamental basic ideologies of circular economy, however, country specific application slightly differ in methodologies. In the Europe Union, the main focus of circular economy application is primarily put on an effective waste management and policies aiming at promoting efficient and improving recycling in Europe areas (Ghisellini et al., 2016). Similarly, Japan embraces the 3R principles (i.e., Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) and adopted a more inclusive approach that is implemented through an established vision for material cycling’s society (Moriguchi 2007). In contrast, circular economy application in China is structure through their country political strategy (i.e., decisions are made from top-to-bottom) and implementations follows horizontal and vertical approach (Feng & Yan, 2007). Further, the theoretical basis of circular economic model in China is pull directly from “Industrial Symbiosis (IS)’ and Industrial Ecology (IE) systems”, targets for application shows different level as it relate to societal issues and business firms (Yong, 2007).