A growing interest in the circular economy concept has pushed the discourse in various management-related disciplines beyond established boundaries, with calls to better address how such a model may be developed in a world of global value chains. Still, the conventional linear economy model continues to dominate business, society, and research. While the concept of better connecting physical output and input flows at multiple production or consumption levels is becoming more accepted, it remains unclear how to make this happen while ensuring that sustainability targets are met or exceeded. Multiple scientific communities contribute different perspectives to this discourse, with promising opportunities for research. Circular economy and sustainability from business and economics perspectives are multifaceted. The existing body of knowledge needs to be advanced to assist private individuals, business managers, investors, or policymakers in making informed decisions. In this article for the inaugural issue, we provide a snapshot of the discourses among those who have studied the circular economy and its related topics. We outline conceptual inroads and potential research questions to encourage further circular economy and sustainability research and discourse from business or economics perspectives as well as from the broader transdisciplinary angle. We propose three research pathways: (1) connecting output with input needs in a global circular economy; (2) beyond today’s business logic for a global circular economy; and (3) inclusion of the Global South in North-dominated circular economies. For each, we propose concepts, theories, or methodological approaches and offer various perspectives from the micro, macro, and meso levels.

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Despite the spread of policy and business initiatives aiming at transitioning to a Circular Economy (CE), the concept is criticized in the scientific literature for its lack of emphasis on social contexts. Implementing CE initiatives to production systems can indeed lead to "unintended side effects," that is, both rebound effects and other indirect shifts in consumption patterns. In this forum article we address the question: "How to make the unintended side effects of implementing CE initiatives knowable and actionable?"We argue that the ability of life cycle assessment (LCA) to address unintended side effects from CE initiatives is limited, as LCA can model how different product systems interact with each other, but does not attend to the socio-technical dynamics taking place within and across different life cycle phases. To extend the potential of LCA in supporting decision-making, our suggestion is to complement LCA with other types of analytical approaches, such as Practice Theory (PT) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which can improve our understanding of the unintended side effects of CE initiatives.These theories consider societal dynamics as socio-technical and focus on the processes and practices through which production and consumption dynamics change.Thus, they can provide analyses of whether and how CE initiatives are capable of realizing novel relations within/among socio-technical systems. Ultimately, they can provide explanations on why things end up the way they do, thus supporting LCA in the investigation of more "real" rather than ideal scenarios.