The Circular Economy and SMEs

Circularity is a practice that not only increases efficient industry performance but its focus on resource management, waste reduction, innovation, stakeholder engagement, and operational excellence, also contributes to sustainable business and enhanced competitiveness.

This book focuses on the concept of the circular economy with particular emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises. It defines circularity and the circular economy and investigates the development of the circularity concept as an important tool for a sustainable future. It contends that circularity promotes sustainability when products are designed to last longer, reducing the need for frequent replacement. As a result, economic development becomes more sustainable, fostering new jobs and industries centred on the approaches of rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacture, repurpose, recycle, and recover. It illustrates how the circular economy functions via case studies from the jewellery, fashion, plastics and agro-food industries.

The book argues that the future of circularity holds immense promise, driven by a growing global awareness of sustainability and resource scarcity, but that there are several challenges and gaps, such as the lack of a generalizable standard and globally applicable metric to accurately measure circularity at different levels, (material, product, system), lack of attention to technological innovation for resource recovery, recycling, and remanufacturing, and a lack of attention to developing sustainable Circular Business Models that prioritize circularity and value retention.

The book illustrates that there is a need to encourage a deeper investigation into the connection between circularity and sustainability, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. It will appeal to academics, students and researchers in economics, business and management, environmental science and sustainable development.