Jump‐starting, diffusing, and sustaining the circular economy

Abstract

Jump-starting, diffusing, and sustaining the circular economy 1 | INTRODUCTIONCircular economy, which we succinctly define as a zero-waste economic system, is often touted as a promising approach to decarbonize industrial processes and to limit global warming to 1.5 . Unsurprisingly, therefore, the circular economy has emerged as a central avenue in the corporate sustainability lexicon. Explicitly or implicitly, most major global companies adduce to the circular economy in their sustainability communications, and most of the world's prominent consulting organizations provide guidance for companies to devise circular economy strategies. Academic research on the circular economy too has flourished. Within the last 5 years, more than 10,000 academic papers on the circular economy have been added to the Web of Science database alone. Notably, these publications represent a staggeringly diverse range of disciplines including environmental science, economics, business and management, engineering, chemistry, and physics. Circular economy has also become a core tenet of

Developing dynamic capabilities for the circular economy in the textile and clothing industry in Italy: A natural‐resource‐based view

“…In addition, the paper substantiates the fact that NRBV involves internal and external levels, as suggested in Martín‐de Castro et al (2016), and intraorganizational and interorganizational practices, as suggested by Shi et al (2012). Our results confirm that dynamic capabilities are key to promoting the CE, as they stimulate firms' engagement with stakeholders (Panwar & Niesten, 2022). In line with Karagouni and Protogerou (2015), the development of dynamic capabilities facilitates value co‐creation processes, or rather, these processes are the result of dynamic capabilities.…”

“…The development or adoption of clean technologies, as well as circularity-oriented practices, should be encouraged by policy makers through adequate policies and funding. Lastly, in line with Panwar and Niesten's (2022) assertion, jump-starting the circular economy at the exemplar firms' level favors the adoption of CE practices and develops dynamic capabilities at the "group efforts" level, by cultivating an ecosystem approach, also by encouraging the coevolution between borncircular and growing-circular firms. Local and regional institutions should contribute identifying new trajectories in CE, mobilizing resources and consensus, and incentivizing them (Bressanelli et al, 2022).…”

“…In addition, it has been argued that dynamic capabilities are essential to achieving sustainability (Wu et al, 2013; Zahoor & Lew, 2022). Panwar and Niesten (2022) state that dynamic capabilities are necessary to the first step to diffusing and sustaining the CE of the firm, as they facilitate the firms' engagement with supply chain partners, customers, local communities, and regulators. Miemczyk et al (2016) underlined that there is scant research integrating dynamic capabilities and environmental strategy together, including pollution prevention, product stewardship, clean technology, and base of the pyramid (McDougall et al, 2022).…”

“…Both in the strategic management (Centobelli et al, 2020; Khan et al, 2020; Urbinati et al, 2017) and sustainable entrepreneurship literature (Santini, 2017), opportunities/challenges have been explored (Aakko & Koskennurmi‐Sivonen, 2013; Franco, 2017) by emphasizing the need for further analysis of the capabilities concerning the CE at a microlevel. The gap in developing these capabilities thus seems to be the greatest challenge to jumpstarting the CE (Panwar & Niesten, 2022) and to unleashing the full potential of reuse and recycling along the value chain in order to generate a competitive edge and development local creative industries (Baruque‐Ramos et al, 2017; EMF, 2017; Elf et al, 2022). This paper therefore aims to expand knowledge of CE implementation at the microlevel by addressing the following research question: “What capabilities can support a transition to the CE in the T&C industry in Italy?,” Italy being one of the most significant players in the global textile market.…”

Levers for a corporate transition to a plastics circular economy

“…There are many levers which may block, enable or even drive a transition towards circularity. These levers will be critical to institutionalizing circularity, by jumpstarting, diffusing and then sustaining circular economy (Panwar & Niesten, 2022). We have used the term ‘lever’ because these are neither fixed nor immutable; we have also termed them levers because our findings show that these elements make a difference to the actions of multinational companies when they define their ambitions based upon the intersection of their corporate culture and values with the wider economic, legislative and cultural context in which they operate.…”