**1. Introduction**

Sustainable development objectives and main principles have been at the core of European policymaking for a long time, being firmly anchored in a range of European Treaties and put forward in key projects, initiatives, and sectoral policies [1,2]. Combining the tasks of socio-economic development and environmental conservation through the priority development of green technologies and considering social, environmental, and economic factors constitute the aim of implementing the concept of sustainable development. Institutional impact with the goal of introducing innovative transformations that minimize the impact on nature and compensate for the weakness of the market for the development of activities for the transition to sustainable development includes the following universal areas: public financing; environmental taxation; improvement of legislation; development of international cooperation in the field of rational environmental management.

During the last decade, a very ambitious policy has begun in Europe to minimize the amount of waste to be disposed of by rethinking the process of waste disposal and improving recycling, recovery, reuse [3–6]. For these countries, industrial symbiosis could

**Citation:** Cudeˇcka-Purin, a, N.; Atstaja, D.; Koval, V.; Purvin ¯ , š, M.; Nesenenko, P.; Tkach, O. Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals through the Implementation of Circular Economy and Developing Regional Cooperation. *Energies* **2022**, *15*, 4072. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15114072

Academic Editor: Donato Morea

Received: 14 April 2022 Accepted: 30 May 2022 Published: 1 June 2022

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become a good mid-term solution to save resources and move towards a circular economy on a landfill basis [7,8].

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020 is likely to have a negative impact on all European Union (EU) member states and the EU's overall progress towards achieving the SDG goals [9,10]. On the other hand, this situation has been a motivator for economies to reconsider their further development and in some cases even to foster the development of circular economy strategies or guiding documents.

The circular economy is of particular value to the energy sector for a range of reasons. Basically, all EU and a range of non-EU countries have set already very ambitious targets towards net-zero, and this means that not only business as usual is obsolete, but also our daily habits as a society will have to be reshaped. The energy transition has also become a crucial issue especially in 2022 for the EU countries.

In addition to that, energy transition will be underpinned by a boost in recycling capacities, fostering the market for recycled materials (as it thus becomes possible to conserve primary critical resources). The net-zero itself will also require the boost of clean technologies. Last, but not least, the use of renewable energy means that a solution will have to be found on recycling or reuse of earliest generation renewables (solar, wind turbines) and new technologies are required to make the new renewables more durable and recyclable.

Taking into account the current vulnerable times and the simultaneous necessity for a prompt action to foster transition to the circular economy, the authors have undertaken research to assess the possibility of implementation of regional or cross-country industrial symbiosis (IS), to identify current obstacles and develop a methodology that could be used by policy makers or practitioners in order to successfully implement industrial symbiosis.
