From the circular economy to the sustainable development goals in the European Union: an empirical comparison Rodríguez Antón, José Miguel Rubio Andrada, Luis Celemín Pedroche, María Soledad Ruiz Peñalver, Soraya María Circular economy Sustainable Development Goals Sustainability 2030 Agenda European Union Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain within its National Program for Research Aimed at the Challenges of Society under grant ECO2016-79659-R (Ecoinnovation and Circular Economy in Services Industries). The European Union (EU) is trying to accelerate the transition from the current linear economy to a circular economy (CE). In fact, the CE is considered a tool to attain sustainable development goals (SDGs). In this sense, this paper aims at analysing the interaction between the CE and SDGs in the context of the new 2030 Agenda and the European CE strategy; thus contributing to the scarce empirical literature that links the potential of the European CE strategy to the achievement of the SDGs set by the 2030 Agenda. Three specific research questions have been formulated. First, could the objectives defined in the 2030 Agenda be considered homogeneous, and could they uniquely measure the concept of sustainability? Second, are there significant correlations between the implementation of a CE in the EU and the SDGs? Finally, is the behaviour of the 28 countries that make up the EU homogeneous in terms of the results of the initiatives aimed at the implementation of a CE? From these questions, nine hypotheses are put forward concerning the possible relationships between a CE implementation and the fulfilment of SDGs in the EU. Using a correlation analysis, an exploratory factor analysis, and a cluster analysis, it has been demonstrated that (a) SDGs do not univocally measure the concept of sustainability; (b) there are significant relationships between CE and SDGs in the EU; (c) the behaviour of these European countries is not homogeneous. 2021-11-24T13:32:44Z 2021-11-24T13:32:44Z 2021-11-01 journal article Rodríguez-Antón, J.M... [et al.]. From the circular economy to the sustainable development goals in the European Union: an empirical comparison. Int Environ Agreements (2021). [https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-021-09553-4] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/71728 10.1007/s10784-021-09553-4 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ open access Atribución 3.0 España Springer