Circular Economy Initiatives: Strategic Implications, Resource Management, and Entrepreneurial Innovation in a Brazilian Craft Beer Ecosystem during the COVID Era

Abstract

A new brewery is founded in Brazil every two days. Yet with climate change, drinking water is increasingly scarce. Previous studies have begun exploring the brewing industry, but an examination of circular economy initiatives in Latin America is lacking, particularly during the COVID era. This study analyzes strategic implications of circular economy initiatives, together with their role in the coevolution of the craft beer sociotechnical system in Brazil from a resource perspective during the COVID pandemic. Using a qualitative methodology based on analytic induction, 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with key actors from the craft beer sociotechnical system in Guarapuava. For the content analysis, we triangulated the interviews with an analysis of 74 related documents. We found evidence of circular economy practices and sociotechnical transitions with the simultaneous coevolution of the system actors. Increasing rejection of the linear take–make–waste economy was observed as subject organizations largely adopted a regenerative model reducing operational waste. Hence, entrepreneurial innovation was apparently crucial for resource allocation during the COVID era. This work contributes to further understanding resource configurations in the circular economy, with practical implications for integrating sustainability into strategy, business models, and production.

Guest editorial: Special issue: Multidimensional sustainability – transitions and convergences

“…Rosenbloom and Meadowcroft (2022) stated that the state, politics and intermediaries play a critical role in the creation of essential transformative methods to speed transition paths. Gruba et al (2022) brought the confluence of strategy, resource management and entrepreneurial innovation. Hutman et al .…”

Proposal of a roadmap for culture change towards a circular economy: application in a product-as-a-service business model

“…The transition towards CE is the result of the involvement of all actors in society and their ability to link and create adequate patterns of collaboration (Gruba et al, 2022) to deal with the disruptive BM innovations in a multistakeholder ecosystem (Ihrig & MacMillan, 2017), making the process of identifying successful innovations and driving long-term structured changes complex. Changes in BM towards CE may conflict with existing shared mental models, along with many factors that restrain the strategic decisions required to innovate in BM, such as operational routines, strategic complexity and organizational inertia .…”