Sustainable development has become a strategic priority for the European Union in response to climate change, resource constraints and environmental degradation. Despite common policy objectives, Member States exhibit substantial differences in sustainability performance and transition capacities. This study investigates sustainable development pathways in the European Union using an integrated framework combining cluster analysis, transition analysis, panel econometrics and a conceptual Petri Net model. The empirical analysis is based on a balanced panel dataset covering the 27 EU Member States during the period 2015–2024. K-means clustering was employed to identify sustainable development regimes, transition matrices were used to evaluate regime persistence, and panel data models were estimated to examine the determinants of environmental performance measured through greenhouse gas emissions per capita. The results confirm the existence of four distinct sustainable development regimes characterized by different combinations of economic performance, environmental pressure and resource efficiency. Transition analysis confirms heterogeneous transition dynamics characterized by a generally high degree of regime persistence, while only a limited number of countries experienced regime changes during the study period. The econometric findings confirm that renewable energy deployment and resource productivity are the principal determinants associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions. Based on these results, a Petri Net framework was developed to represent alternative sustainability pathways and transition mechanisms. The integrated analytical framework confirms that combining sustainability regime identification, transition dynamics, panel econometric modelling and conceptual Petri Net representation provides a more comprehensive understanding of sustainable development pathways in the European Union. The findings provide relevant insights for policymakers seeking to support the transition towards more sustainable development trajectories in the European Union.

The transition towards a circular economy is widely expected to reduce dependence on primary resources, yet higher levels of circularity do not necessarily translate into proportional reductions in absolute material use. This study investigates the relationship between circular material use and dematerialization across the EU-27 over the period 2010–2024, with particular attention to whether this relationship remains constant at different levels of circularity. Using Eurostat data, the empirical analysis combines descriptive statistics with linear panel regression models and nonlinear threshold regression. Domestic material consumption (DMC) and raw material consumption (RMC) are employed as complementary indicators of material use. The results indicate that higher circular material use is associated with lower material consumption after controlling for country-specific heterogeneity and common time effects. However, this relationship is not constant across different levels of circularity. The threshold analysis identifies a significant nonlinear relationship for RMC, showing that the negative association between circularity and material use is substantially stronger at lower levels of circularity and weakens as circularity increases. A robustness analysis using DMC reveals a similar regime-dependent pattern, although the statistical evidence for threshold nonlinearity is weaker. These findings do not provide evidence of a circular economy rebound effect in the strict sense but instead suggest diminishing marginal dematerialization effects as circularity advances. Overall, the results indicate that increasing circularity remains an important component of sustainable resource management but is unlikely to achieve substantial reductions in absolute material use without complementary structural changes. Circular economy policies should therefore combine material recirculation with measures promoting resource-efficient design, product longevity, reuse, and reductions in overall material demand.