The burgeon concept of Circular Economy (CE) has fundamental issues hindering clarity and comprehensive assessments. This paper uses established ontological criteria to review and improve the CE definition and (assessment) frameworks. The review reveals that mainstream CE definitions and assessments are fuzzy, shift problems, oversimplified and not synchronized. This causes many loopholes that not lead towards sustainability. Therefore, an improved definition and framework is proposed, specifically for CE of XL to XS regions (scales from planetary to neighborhoods). A CE should strive towards self-sufficiency on each scale to avoid problems shifting to other regions or future society. The framework elaborates on a comprehensive systems-approach, which connects the triple bottom line across nine ecosystem processes, eight societal processes, and six economic production processes. The proposed definition and framework are demonstrated in an assessment of regional pressures and their impacts of Australia with 2020 data. The framework aims to better inform decision-makers on trade-offs between vital processes to minimize unintended problem shifting. The definition and framework have improved universal application for meaningful comparisons and optimization towards a sustainable CE in any region.

循环经济 (CE) 的新兴概念存在阻碍清晰和全面评估的基本问题。本文使用已建立的本体标准来审查和改进 CE 定义和（评估）框架。审查表明，主流 CE 定义和评估是模糊的、转移问题、过于简单化和不同步的。这会导致许多无法实现可持续性的漏洞。因此，提出了一个改进的定义和框架，特别是针对 XL 到 XS 区域（从行星到邻域的尺度）的 CE。CE 应努力实现各个规模的自给自足，以避免问题转移到其他地区或未来社会。该框架详细阐述了一种全面的系统方法，它将跨越九个生态系统过程、八个社会过程、和六个经济生产过程。拟议的定义和框架在使用 2020 年数据对澳大利亚的区域压力及其影响进行评估时得到证明。该框架旨在更好地告知决策者在重要流程之间的权衡，以尽量减少意外的问题转移。该定义和框架改进了对任何地区的可持续 CE 进行有意义的比较和优化的普遍应用。