Orchestrating cradle‐to‐cradle innovation across the value chain: Overcoming barriers through innovation communities, collaboration mechanisms, and intermediation

Abstract

The circular economy (CE) aims at cycling products and materials in closed technical and biological loops. Cradle to cradle (C2C) operationalizes the CE with a product design concept rooted in the circulation of “healthy” materials because contamination of materials with substances of concern hampers cycling and may pose risks to people in contact with them. Extant research shows that barriers often hinder organizations from successfully pursuing cradle‐to‐cradle product innovation (CPI). Innovation community theory helps to explain how to overcome barriers and further the innovation process by taking a microlevel perspective on intra‐ and interorganizational collaboration of individual promotors (or champions). We elaborate innovation community theory with a longitudinal embedded case study of a C2C frontrunner company with the goal to get a precise understanding of how promotors collaborate in the CPI process. Our contribution is threefold: We identify eight collaboration mechanisms used between promotors to sequentially overcome a hub firm's individual, organizational, value chain, and institutional level barriers to circularity. Second, we differentiate these mechanisms according to their cooperative and coordinative facets and put emphasis on the coordinative functions of those mechanisms linked to the C2C standard. Third, we highlight the importance of promotors at the linking level who facilitate the CPI process as intermediaries.

Circular business model experimentation capabilities—A case study approach

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How Government Size Expansion Can Affect Green Innovation—An Empirical Analysis of Data on Cross-Country Green Patent Filings

“…Consumer Price Index (CPI): The CPI reflects changes in the price of consumer goods and is usually used to observe a country’s inflation rate. As the CPI rises, the inflation rate will also increase, meaning that in the process of green innovation, the salaries of scientific researchers and the price of raw materials rise accordingly, squeezing green innovation expenditure [ 66 ]. We drew on the research of other scholars and selected a country’s CPI (in constant 2017 USD) to measure its inflation rate.…”

Recycling Thermal Insulation Materials: A Case Study on More Circular Management of Expanded Polystyrene and Stonewool in Switzerland and Research Agenda

“…This visualization offers the opportunity for interest parties to implement actions or establish collaborations that could affect how each step is performed, in order to improve IM recyclability. As collaboration is key to overcoming barriers related to the implementation of CE principles, and since many collaboration solutions can be put in place [44], knowing which actors might have agency within the same value chain step offers a valid tool to support partnerships. For example, this could support public actors-identified as key agents for change toward more sustainable actions [45]-in selecting parties to contact in order to establish strategic partnerships.…”