Circular Economy – Circular Visions of the Future

Interest in the circular economy (CE) is growing in scientific circles, at the state level, as well as among businesses. At the same time, the question of what the circular world will be like remains insufficiently studied and even formulated. Scientific research is focused on the analysis of circular strategies (R-strategies) in the context of sustainable development, exploring the benefits of CE and the barriers to achieving it. At the same time, R-strategies without reference to the images of the future can interfere with the achievement of the goals set and the solution of a number of environmental problems. The article presents images of a circular future and gives a definition of CE, without which a different understanding of the concept is inevitable, leading to the introduction of different indicators for measuring progress in achieving circular goals. Main findings: CE is an evolving concept, which explains the lack of a single definition. It should reflect the images of the future, which will create the basis for the development of a unified system of indicators to measure the degree of achievement of goals and compare them at the international level. Images of the future must be interpreted as a process of improvement, because they can be transformed. The study used general scientific methods of system analysis, abstraction, synthesis, a review of Russian and foreign scientific literature, data from the official websites of the government of the Russian Federation was carried out to determine the CE, its determinants in order to consolidate research on this topic. Such a review is a reproducible, scientific and transparent method of identifying a research area. For this, we used the data presented in the bibliographic databases eLibrary.ru, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect. The results will find a response in the scientific, political, business circles for a better understanding of the CE, developing of strategies for the transition to it, forming of images of the future; serving as a basis for developing indicators and measuring the progress of such actions.