Studying the Transition towards a Circular Bioeconomy—A Systematic Literature Review on Transition Studies and Existing Barriers

Abstract

The European Commission’s strategic long-term vision for 2050, “A Clean Planet for All”, identifies the bioeconomy and the circular economy as key strategic areas for achieving a climate-neutral economy. Focus is given to the sustainability of biomass and the circularity of materials. However, in order to facilitate the transition toward a sustainable bio-based circular economy and to unlock its potential, strong accompanying measures are required. These should be designed based on a systematic understanding of transition drivers and barriers. This paper, after providing a systematic review of transition research on the circular bioeconomy, focuses on the identification and classification of transition barriers, clustering them into relevant categories. Moreover, it provides a comparison of the barriers identified by various frameworks.

Stakeholder Perspectives in Transitioning to a Local Circular Economy: a Case Study in Spain

“…Fig. 1 Research design Then, in order to select literature in the final sample, the publications were assessed to meet three criteria of eligibility [57]: (i) the study addresses a phenomenon related to stakeholders working in a CE; (ii) the study adopts an empirical approach; and (iii) their research questions aim at understanding the relationship between CE and IS. After excluding literature that did not meet the criteria, a full selection of 23 studies was selected.…”

The circular economy and the Green Jobs creation

“…The transition from the linear economy to the circular economy (CE) is a process observed both in theory and practice (Ferasso et al 2020;Gottinger et al 2020;de Oliveira et al 2021). The CE can be summarized as a paradigm shift aimed at preventing the depletion of resources (Barreiro-Gen and Lozano 2020) by closing the loops related to energy and materials consumption (Lozano-Lunar et al 2020;Rincón-Moreno et al 2020;O'Connor 2021).…”

“…This idea of economic development is based on the principle of maintaining synergy and a balance between social, economic, and environmental dimensions (Friant et al 2021). The key role of the SD is crucial in the EU and is visible in multiple documents (Gottinger et al 2020). Many EU action plans already referred to the SD and emphasized the need to create more sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe (Bartniczak and Raszkowski 2019;Salvioni and Almici 2020).…”

The Circular Economy and The Green Jobs Creation

“…Transition from the linear economy to the Circular Economy (CE) is process observed both in theory and practice (Ferasso et al 2020;Gottinger et al 2020;de Oliveira et al 2021). The CE can be summarized as a paradigm shift aimed at preventing the depletion of resources (Barreiro-Gen and Lozano 2020) by closing the loops related to energy and materials consumption (Rincón-Moreno et al 2020).…”

“…This idea of economic development is based on the principle of maintaining the synergy and a balance between social, economic and environmental dimensions (Friant et al 2021). The key role of the SD is crucial in the EU and is visible in multiple documents (Gottinger et al 2020). Many EU's action plans already referred to SD and emphasized the need to create a more sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe (Raszkowski 2013;Salvioni and Almici 2020).…”