Mapping the diffusion of circular economy good practices: Success factors and sustainable challenges

Abstract

Shifting from a linear to a circular economy (CE) is a path promoted from different national and supranational organizations from many years but how that circularity is put in place by businesses from an empirical perspective is still a research gap in the literature. There is the need to stress the study of empirical cases to better understand what are the success factors, the sustainable challenges and the way forward to achieve the goal of a CE. This paper aims to investigate how the circular economy is spreading at the empirical level and with what evolution and opportunities. The framework of the diffusion theory is used to analyse how the CE, as a business model innovation, is widespread. The Italian scenario is taken as background, and 62 good practices of CE are analysed. The results promote a discussion on the attributes of CE, policy implications and future studies to booster the circular changing in society.

Analyzing drivers of sustainable project‐driven supply chains: A fuzzy Delphi methodology–grey relational analysis approach

“…Practitioners should adhere to ethical practices that usher economic growth in the long run without compromising the social and environmental aspects of the triple bottom line. Moreover, the CCFs should create awareness about circular economy business models/practices and ensure their wide adoption in their PDSCs (Neligan et al, 2023; Newaz & Appolloni, 2023; Rocca et al, 2023).…”

Collaboration among circular start‐ups and incumbents in the circular economy context

“…Specifically, in relation to how incumbents can outsource their activities to CSUs, we identify six outsourcing mechanisms namely asset-sharing route, supplier route, supplier-plus-waste-collector route, joint-venture route, licensing route, and waste-tracking-product and/or service-contractor route. These mechanisms add value to the literature discussing how CE can be meaningfully advanced and become common practice among firms through market forms of governance (e.g., Panwar & Niesten, 2020Rocca et al, 2022) and highlighting the significance of collaboration in doing so (Köhler et al, 2022).…”

Risks in circular business models innovation: A cross‐industrial case study for composite materials

“…Interested readers can refer to Batista et al (2023), Geissdoerfer et al (2017), Ghisellini et al (2016) and Lieder and Rashid (2016) for an in-depth description of the CE. Multiple aspects of the transition towards the CE have been investigated in the literature, including barriers (Galvão Araujo et al, 2022;Geissdoerfer et al, 2023;Kirchherr et al, 2018), drivers (Geissdoerfer et al, 2023;Gusmerotti et al, 2019) and success factors (Rocca et al, 2022); however, the risk factors linked to the CE transition process have not been systematically evaluated. Yang and Li (2010) first identified CE risks, highlighting organisational risks due to conflicts and lack of alignment between organisations leading to increased costs, as well as control system risks, which are linked to the complexity of controlling and monitoring complex and circular processes along reverse supply chains.…”

“…Interested readers can refer to Batista et al (2023), Geissdoerfer et al (2017), Ghisellini et al (2016) and Lieder and Rashid (2016) for an in‐depth description of the CE. Multiple aspects of the transition towards the CE have been investigated in the literature, including barriers (Galvão Araujo et al, 2022; Geissdoerfer et al, 2023; Kirchherr et al, 2018), drivers (Geissdoerfer et al, 2023; Gusmerotti et al, 2019) and success factors (Rocca et al, 2022); however, the risk factors linked to the CE transition process have not been systematically evaluated.…”