Does the Circular Economy Decouple Economic Growth from Environmental Pressure? Panel Evidence from BRICS Economies, 2010–2023

Purpose -This paper examines whether the circular economy transition occurring across Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) has been accompanied by a genuine decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressure, proxied by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, over the period 2010–2023. Rather than treating the circular economy as a slogan, the study asks a narrower and more testable question: has the growth elasticity of emissions in these five economies actually fallen, and does the cross-country pattern of material-flow circularity line up with the observed decoupling gradient? Design/methodology/approach -The study builds an original panel dataset for the five BRICS economies covering fourteen years (2010–2023), combining real GDP growth rates and fossil CO2 emissions drawn from World Bank World Development Indicators and Global Carbon Project-based emissions accounts. The Tapio (2005) decoupling elasticity is computed for every country-year and for the cumulative 2010–2023 period, and each observation is classified into one of the eight canonical decoupling states. The elasticity results are then triangulated with a pooled panel regression (country and year fixed effects) that estimates the average and country-specific GDP elasticity of CO2 emissions. A complementary, cross-sectional review of material footprint and circularity-gap indicators, drawn from the UNEP International Resource Panel and the Circularity Gap Report methodology, is used to interpret the regression findings through a circular economy lens. Findings -Emissions and growth remain coupled across most of the bloc: the pooled elasticity of CO2 growth with respect to GDP growth is close to unity (0.99), and a two-way fixed-effects log-log specification returns a long-run elasticity of 0.55, indicating a bloc-wide pattern of weak decoupling rather than the strong (absolute) decoupling that circular economy policy documents often imply. There is, however, marked heterogeneity. South Africa is the only economy to record a negative whole-period elasticity (−0.49), meaning its fossil CO2 emissions fell in absolute terms (−7.99 per cent) while its economy expanded (+16.44 per cent) a pattern of strong decoupling attributable largely to a contracting, coal-dependent power sector rather than a deliberate circularity strategy. China (0.33) and Russia (0.49) show comparatively low weak-decoupling elasticities, Brazil (0.61) sits in the middle of the distribution, and India (0.68) the fastest-growing economy in the panel shows the elasticity closest to the coupling threshold. Material footprint evidence suggests that circularity performance, where it exists, is still concentrated in a narrow set of resource-productivity gains rather than in a systemic circular transition. Practical implications-For BRICS policymakers, the results caution against treating circular economy rhetoric as a proxy for climate performance. Countries that wish to move from weak to strong decoupling need policies that act directly on the carbon intensity of energy supply not only on material recirculation because the data show that emissions intensity, not material throughput per se, is the binding constraint in this period. The findings also imply that Nationally Determined Contributions and circular economy roadmaps within BRICS should be evaluated jointly, since a country can report circularity gains at the micro or sectoral level while its aggregate emissions elasticity stays close to one. Originality/value-Existing decoupling studies on BRICS typically stop at the Tapio elasticity or extend it with energy-decomposition (LMDI) techniques; comparatively few connect the decoupling numbers explicitly to the circular economy literature using verifiable, publicly sourced material-flow evidence, and fewer still extend the observation window to 2023, capturing the post-pandemic recovery phase. This paper contributes an updated, fully transparent 2010–2023 panel, an explicit mapping between the econometric decoupling evidence and circularity indicators, and a discussion of why the two often diverge in practice.