Circular Economy : Challenges and Opportunities for Ethical and Sustainable Business

How can we design circular business models? How can we organize the transition from a linear to a circular economy? And how can we imagine circular futures that help us transform current realities? This book aims to provide answers to these questions while addressing the challenges and opportunities of the circular economy. The authors reflect on why conventional sustainability models – such as the ‘triple P’ (People, Profit and Planet) or eco-efficiency – have failed in addressing environmental challenges, including climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. They then move on to explore innovative circular business models, which propose to eliminate environmental damage by radically reforming the system of industrial production. Organizing the transition is a collaborative effort: entrepreneurs, consumers, policymakers, multinationals and intermediaries need to work together to foster the emergence of the circular economy as an institutional field. Together with younger generations of learners and equipped with beyond-human-centred values towards awareness of the material and natural world, novel circular futures can be imagined. Offering points of reference for continued critical discourse and examples of practically applicable sustainability solutions, this book will be of great interest to students, teachers, practitioners and scholars of circular economy. Cover 1 Half Title 4 Title 6 Copyright 7 Contents 8 List of figures 10 List of tables 12 Acknowledgements 14 List of abbreviations 15 List of biographies 18 Introduction: challenges and opportunities of the circular economy 26 Part I Designing circular business models 42 1 Changing the logic of value creation: the transformative and transitional potential of a framework for sustainable business modelling 44 2 Doing more with less: towards a conceptual framework for frugal business model innovation 65 3 Circular business models: mapping experimentation in multinational firms 88 Part II Organizing circular transitions 110 4 Sustainability frameworks: investigating consumer decision-making in circular economies 112 5 Understanding the role of institutional intermediaries in the emergence of the circular economy 133 6 The rise of the circular entrepreneur: an altruistic spirit and the pursuit of mass-market expansion 152 Part III Imagining circular futures 174 7 Learning towards a circular ecosystem: designing ecological education for circularity 176 8 Biomimicry education as a vehicle for circular design 199 9 Organizing the emergence of circular technologies: inter-firm collaboration, imbrication and routines in the textile industry 224 Index 245 "How can we design circular business models? How can we organize the transition from a linear to a circular economy? And how can we imagine circular futures that help us transform current realities? This book aims to provide answers to these questions while addressing the challenges and opportunities of the circular economy. The authors reflect on why conventional sustainability models - such as the 'triple P' (People, Profit, Planet) or eco-efficiency - have failed in addressing environmental challenges including climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. They then move on to explore innovative circular business models, which propose to eliminate environmental damage by radically reforming the system of industrial production. Organizing the transition is a collaborative effort: entrepreneurs, consumers, policymakers, multinationals and intermediaries need to work together to foster the emergence of the circular economy as an institutional field. Together with younger generations of learners and equipped with beyond-human centred values towards awareness of the material and natural world, novel circular futures can be imagined. Offering points of reference for continued critical discourse and examples of practically applicable sustainability solutions, this book will be of great interest to students, teachers, practitioners and scholars of circular economy"-- Provided by publisher