DN Group Seminar Discourse and Sustainability Fidelis 23 January 2026

Teresa Fidélis (University of Aveiro), One Concert, Multiple Tunes: Evidence from the Circular Economy Narratives Across EU Member States’ Action Plans

ABSTRACT
Policy discourses play a central role in shaping how environmental challenges are framed, prioritised, and translated into coherent policy action. In response to European Union (EU) priorities, Member States have adopted circular economy (CE) action plans to promote resource efficiency and sustainability. Although CE frameworks conceptually include natural resources such as water and land, their integration into policy remains insufficiently understood. This seminar, based on a published article, analyses the EU CE action plans from 2015 and 2020 and nine subsequent national action plans, examining how water and land are embedded across Member States’ policy narratives. Drawing on discourse analysis, the study assesses the frequency and consistency of water and land related references across key policy components. The findings show that water and land play a marginal and uneven role compared to materials and waste. Water is more consistently addressed in southern Member States, while land-related concerns remain inconsistent. Overall, the results point to a common policy concert in which Member States play different tunes, highlighting the need for stronger and more coherent integration of water and land to enable a truly holistic transition to circularity.