The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy 303125435X, 9783031254352

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Greening of Industry Networks Studies

Lucila Maria de Souza Campos Diego A. Vázquez-Brust   Editors

The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy

Greening of Industry Networks Studies Volume 10

Series Editors Diego A. Vázquez-Brust, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK Joseph Sarkis, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, School of Business, Worcester,  MA, USA

This series aims to improve our understanding of how shifts in industrial regimes, trade, and technology are not only creating significant environmental and social impacts and inequities around the world but also opportunities for sustainable economic growth. It focuses on issues of industrial development, environment and society, and sustainable economy, dealing with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The series publishes high quality peer reviewed monographs, edited volumes and graduate textbooks related to the theme of sustainable economic development. The topics covered include industry networks, sustainable economic growth, supply chains, supply chain management, sustainable economy, green logistics, green growth, sustainable firms, collaboration for sustainability, corporate sustainability, corporate social responsibility, green banking, operations management, engineering management, sustainable value chains, sustainable business, circular economy, sustainable production, sustainable consumption, waste, resource management, productivity strategies, sustainable management, resource conservation, sustainability strategies, innovation processes, sustainable innovation, renewable resources, among others. Contributors to the series are researchers, business strategists, civil society thought leaders, and government policy makers. The series is associated with The Greening of Industry Network, an international network of professionals from research, education, business, government and civil society organizations located in more than 50 countries, with the goal of aligning industrial development strategies with sustainable development principles. The network stimulates, coordinates and connects high quality research to policies, strategies and actions in ways that contribute to a more sustainable society. Through a variety of arenas, it provides an open forum for creative debate to engage researchers, business, workers, government, consumers and other actors in developing a shared understanding of the changes required for creating a more sustainable future. Now indexed by Scopus!

Lucila Maria de Souza Campos Diego A. Vázquez-Brust Editors

The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy

Editors Lucila Maria de Souza Campos Department of Production Engineering Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Diego A. Vázquez-Brust Faculty of Business and Law University of Portsmouth Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK

ISSN 2543-0246     ISSN 2543-0254 (electronic) Greening of Industry Networks Studies ISBN 978-3-031-25435-2    ISBN 978-3-031-25436-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

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Introduction – Social Dimension of Circular Economy: Step Forward or Step Back? ������������������������������������������������������������������    1 Diego Vazquez-Brust and Lucila M. de Souza Campos

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A Systems Perspective on Social Indicators for Circular Supply Chains��������������������������������������������������������������������   27 David Hidalgo-Carvajal, Vinícius Picanço-Rodrigues, Christopher Mejía-­Argueta, and David E. Salinas-Navarro

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The Relation Between Social Inclusion and Circular Economy Performance: An Analysis of Circular Economy Social Practices and Their Contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals ��������������������������������������������������   53 Lucila M. de Souza Campos, Alexandre Augusto Karl, and Diego A. Vazquez-Brust

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Business Models Supported by Circular Economy Principles and Practices for the Fruit and Vegetable Sector: An Analysis from the Perspective of Social Inclusion of Family Farmers ��������������������������������������������������   85 Simone Sehnem and Volmiro de Oliveira Marques Junior

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Fighting Hunger and Educating Farmers with Regenerative Agriculture in Maputo’s Green Horticultural Belt������������������������������  111 Roberta Souza-Piao, Rekha Rao-Nicholson, Natalia Yakovleva, and Diego A. Vazquez-Brust

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Partnerships for Transitions from Open-­Air Markets to Circular Smart Food Markets in Kenya��������������������������������������������  129 Gerald Masila, Elvira Nalyanya, and Carol Mungo

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Implementation of Urban Organic Waste Collection and Treatment System in a Brazilian Municipality: An Analysis Based on a Socio-technical Transition Theory ����������������  145 Mônica Maria Mendes Luna and Matheus Moraes Zambon

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The Significance of SDG16 “Strong Institutions” Toward the Adoption of Circular Economy Approaches for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa����������������������������������������������������  171 Inamutila Kahupi, Natalia Yakovleva, and Stephen Chen

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How Effective Are Circular Models at Delivering a Sustainable Trifactor: A Focus on Social Inclusion? ������������������������  201 Grant Blackbeard

10 Dirty  Work/Decent Work: (De)Stigmatization of Sachet Water Plastic Waste Picking in Ghana’s Circular Economy ��������������  223 Samuel Bonsu and Stanford Nartey 11 Improving  Gender Equality with Social Entrepreneurship and Circular Economy: A Mexican Case����������������������������������������������  241 Nadiezdha Crespo-Rosas and Laura Franco-García 12 Strategies  for Social Inclusion in Circular Economy����������������������������  265 Roberta Souza-Piao, Ticiana Braga de Vincenzi, and Marly Monteiro de Carvalho 13 Circular  Economy and Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 17: The Case of the PlastiCity Ecosystem������������������������  283 Virginie Litaudon, Yara M. C. Ciliacus, and Peter Brughmans 14 Wrap-Up:  Equitable Circular Economy, Nesting the Social Dimension in the Circular Economy����������������������  309 Diego Vazquez-Brust and Lucila M. de Souza Campos

Chapter 1

Introduction – Social Dimension of Circular Economy: Step Forward or Step Back? Diego Vazquez-Brust and Lucila M. de Souza Campos

Abstract  The circular economy (CE) is one of the most important themes related to sustainability nowadays. This book discusses the social dimension perspective of the CE from the conceptual and empirical perspectives with different researches. The chapters presented in this book include distinct researches, authors, and perspectives from different countries and locations, and they have been written in collaboration with numerous authors per chapter. Another important highlight is that the chapters and researches explore CE practices and also reflect the contribution toward UN SDGs. The contribution of the book is associated with the fact that social aspects are receiving closer attention in recent years, with several studies specifically focusing on the topic. So this can be considered as a hot topic. Therefore, we perform analyses from different perspectives, such as how to make the CE socially sustainable or how CE needs less environmental protection, or if CE needs to be nested, or even, what is the real contribution of the farming processes. By discussing all these perspectives in different chapters, we hope to contribute to this important issue. Keywords  Circular economy · Social dimension · Sustainability · UN SDGs · CE step forward · CE step back

D. Vazquez-Brust Faculty of Business and Law, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK e-mail: [email protected] L. M. de Souza Campos (*) Department of Production Engineering, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_1

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1.1 Introduction: The Age of Circular Economy The circular economy (CE) is “arguably the most vibrant sustainability research community these days” (Kirchherr 2022). Interest in the implementation of circular economy practices (e.g., reverse logistics, remanufacturing, recycling, investment recovery) has been gaining traction among management practitioners and policymakers for over a decade now (Kirchherr 2022; Genovese et al. 2017), while academic research on the topic has exponentially escalated in the last 5  years (Belmonte-Ureña et al. 2021). CE is proposed as a new development strategy that tries to reduce the contradiction between economic growth and the lack of raw materials and energy (Christis et  al. 2019). In a circular economy, products are designed to be used for a long time and can be repaired, shared, replaced by services, reused, taken apart for remanufacturing, or recycled, while processes are designed to balance flows of water, energy, and pollution (Vazquez-Brust et  al. 2020). An underlying CE concept is that waste does not need to exist because products and materials are nutrients to be cyclically reused indefinitely (Den Hollander et al. 2017; Stahel 2016). The aimed outcome of CE is eco-efficiency, that is, minimization of the volume, velocity, and toxicity of material flows while generating business value from this reduction (Linder and Williander 2017). The CE has become so ubiquitous in mainstream media and policy that it is easy to forget that despite the hype, the increase of actual circularity in the economy has not matched the increase in academic outputs and corporate and community projects. Paradoxically, while research in CE has increased by 300% from 2018 to 2022 (Belmonte-Ureña et al. 2021), the percentage of the economy that can be considered circular has decreased from 9.1% to 8.6% in the same period (CGR 2022). This soberingly low figure suggests that research may not be focusing on the more relevant topics to help progress in circularity. It also suggests that since the economy is only marginally circular, actual cases of successful circular practice are still scarce. The lack of empirical cases is clear in management literature on CE, which is mainly conceptual and based on modelling and literature reviews/critiques of such conceptual papers and models (Sehnem et al. 2019). The focus of this book was motivated by the paucity of empirical cases and potential misalignment between the focus of CE research and the knowledge needed to escalate circularity.

1.1.1 The Focus of the Book: The Social Dimension of the Circular Economy The main theme of this book is the social dimension of the circular economy1. As aforementioned, the circular economy is increasingly becoming the consensual conceptual and policy pathway for a transition toward sustainable production and

 The environmental and economic implications of the CE are discussed in two companion volumes of GINs book series. 1

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consumption that balances the economic and ecological pillars of sustainable development (Homrich et  al. 2018). However, researchers have warned that the social dimension of sustainable development is noticeable missing or, at best, weakly developed in CE ideas and frameworks (Corvellec et al. 2022; Mies and Gold 2021; Murray et al. 2017; Sehnem et al. 2019). Murray et al. (2017, p. 370) observed that “of the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic, and environmental) it is the former that is least expanded in most of the conceptualizations and applications of the circular economy.” The same year, Moreau et  al. (2017) urged to integrate social economy and solidarity economy principles in circular economy research. These two were among the first theoretical works integrating an analysis of social impacts of nonlinear production, but research pointing out the social shortcomings of CE models is flourishing (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017; Kirchherr et al. 2018; Padilla-Rivera et al. 2020; Schröder et al. 2020; Clube and Tennant 2020). This stream of research observes that social aspects were part of foundational work in CE and calls for a deeper and more meaningful integration of the social dimension in the circular economy. Schröder et al. (2020) conceptualize social equity as an integral part of the CE concept. Signs of a more socially aware CE can be seen in recent definitions of the concept. Mishra et al. (2018) define the circular economy as an industrial and socio-­ economic system that can restore and regenerate resources, replacing the linear model of input–process–waste with a model aimed at maximizing and extending the utility and value (economic and social) from products, components, and materials. Geissdoerfer et al. (2017) (re)define the focus of the circular economy as the application of nonlinear models and tools that companies along the value chain could use to address environmental and social challenges. Ghisellini et al. (2016) define CE as a new economic and environmental paradigm aimed at making the most efficient use of resources to achieve a balance between economy, environment, and society. Linder and Williander (2017) expanded the conceptual scope of CE to include eco-­ development in addition to eco-effectiveness as intended outcomes of CE.  Eco-­ development is a broader outcome than eco-efficiency. Eco-development seeks synergies between ecological, economic, and social systems to achieve an absolute reduction in the use of virgin materials and an absolute increase in the creation of social value (Figge et al. 2017). Accordingly, social aspects are receiving closer attention in recent years, with several studies specifically focusing on the topic. As it is standard in exploratory research, these studies focus on mapping the field, for instance, identifying what aspects are being considered by CE practitioners and academics. A systematic literature review by Padilla-Rivera et  al. (2020) identified employment, health and safety, food security, collaboration, and government support as the social aspects more relevant among surveyed academics and practitioners. Notably, topics such as nondiscrimination, human rights, social inclusion, work–life balance, corruption, and inequality were not among these. Mies and Gold (2021) arrived at a similar list of priority topics but added education, community well-being, and human rights as key social issues in the current CE practice. Moreau et al. (2017) emphasized labor conditions as a current concern but argued that wealth distribution should be the

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main focus of social CE. Among the social inputs needed by the CE, collaboration and partnerships are often mentioned (Padilla-Rivera et  al. 2020; Mies and Gold 2021; Kirchherr et al. 2018). The literature on eco-parks adds insights into other social inputs on which the CE is likely to depend such as social and network embeddedness, the insertion of firms within communities, and industrial networks that buffer firms from the negative consequences of environmental dynamics and offer platforms to exploit emerging opportunities (Baas 2011; Liu et  al. 2012; Taddeo et  al. 2017). Social embeddedness increases eco-development both directly and through enhanced positive effects of innovation and innovation–production synergies (Doménech and Davies 2011). The studies done by Sehnem et al. (2019) and Corvellec et al. (2022) can be seen as examples with a more skeptical view, as these studies not only question the suitability of the concept of CE to deal with the complexities and interdependencies of sustainable development but also worry about the potential negative impacts on social inclusion and equity. A point that should be discussed is the extent to which such omission matters and needs to be addressed. Ultimately, the existence of a gap does not automatically translate into a need to fill that gap. This is sometimes bluntly put as “So what?”. Yes, social aspects have not been researched in CE, but to what extent is a focus on social issues really important to advance CE research and practice or critically needed for sustainable development? Why do we need to extend or overstretch a concept that was not designed to achieve social ends when other concepts and strategies (e.g., solidarity economy and inclusive economy) have been specifically designed to address the social challenges of sustainability? Why not expand and include such avenues in the research or explore promising non-Western approaches to social well-being, such as Equator’s Buen Vivir (Calisto Friant and Langmore 2015) or South Korea’s socially inclusive Green Growth (Vazquez-Brust and Sarkis 2012). Moreover, the focus on social well-being might become a diversion from other aspects more relevant to advancing the CE, such as how to scale up circularity (Sehnem et al. 2019). Recall that by 2022, only 8.6% of the economy can be considered to be circular despite there being of policies promoting circularity for almost a decade. We will next discuss arguments that are for and against the social dimension.

1.1.2 Step Forward: Making the Circular Economy Socially Sustainable The main argument for the integration of social aspects into CE research is that sustainability has been long articulated as a three-pronged concept, involving an economic pillar, an environmental pillar, and a social one. Without the latter, CE is not sustainable (Sehnem et al. 2019). Departing from that common foundation, two contrasting perspectives can be identified among those supporting an explicit exploration of social aspects in CE research. Both perspectives embrace the notion put

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forward by Homrich et al. (2018) of sustainability as an “umbrella concept” for the operationalization of sustainability, a compelling and innovative framework to address the relations between the economy, nature, and society. The first perspective, an extension of Elkington’s (1998) triple bottom line, is gaining increasing traction with policymakers. We call it an incremental social circular economy. The triple bottom line requires the simultaneous balance of planet (environment), profit (economy), and people (society). Thus, as long as the CE does not embrace the missing social dimension, it cannot fully contribute to sustainable development and may inadvertently have severe social consequences such as hollowing out of jobs and displacement of labor previously occupied in a linear economy (Vanhuyse et al. 2021) or further marginalization of socially vulnerable groups depending on waste collection for their livelihood (Greer et al. 2021). Strategies to embrace the social dimension involve the mapping of social impacts of CE practices and the design of solutions for such impacts. These solutions can be implemented through corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices (Morea et al. 2021) or by embedding social concerns in the design of products and services, e.g., people- and planet-centered designs (Lofthouse and Prendeville 2018). The second perspective advocating for a social dimension in CE is rooted in the critics of capitalism and the paradigm of growth. We call it socially disruptive CE (e.g., Bauwens 2021; Hofmann 2022). The points made by these scholars replicate degrowth narratives. Here it is argued that a bolt-on approach to social issues in CE only serves to perpetuate a flagging socio-economic system fixated on growth, providing short-term fixes to structural problems (Friant et al. 2020). Instead, we should re-shape the CE for a post-growth era and evolve the concept into that of a circular society, that is, positioning humans more centrally and conceptualizing circular flows of wealth, knowledge, and power (Leipold et al. 2021). Less focused on practice than the incremental view, this argument outlines strategies based on concepts opposing the foundations of capitalism such as degrowth/postgrowth instead of growth, collaboration instead of competition, and communities instead of markets (Jaeger-Erben et al. 2021). In between these incremental and radical poles, there is a continuum of views variously re-combining arguments.

1.1.3 Step Back: A CE with Less Environmental Protection? The separation argument is the argument against the discussion of social issues within the core agenda of CE. The separation argument is underpinned by a nature-­ centered or eco-centric perspective, which endorses a nested vision of sustainability (Vazquez-Brust et al. 2010). Here, the notion of circular economy as an umbrella concept for sustainability is challenged. Instead, it is argued that circular economy refers specifically to the operationalization of environmental protection in

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production and consumption systems (Oyevaar et al. 2017). The separation of social aspects allows CE to increasingly evolve the theoretical depth of its ecological implications, many of which are still unclear (Corvellec et al. 2022). Forcing the integration of social aspects will make the scope of future research too broad and compromise the progress toward the solution of environmental aspects of CE that are still controversial (Oyevaar et al. 2017). From an ecological economics perspective, contested environmental impacts include rebounds and Jevons paradox, which are both issues leading to more consumption of resources and ecological side effects of CE practices (Corvellec et al. 2022; Sehnem et al. 2019). Empirical CE research has already identified trade-offs between eco-efficiency and eco-­effectiveness (e.g., Tognetti et al. 2015; Paquin et al. 2015). Several mathematical models showcase the trade-offs between social indicators, financial indicators, and environmental indicators (e.g., Pishvaee et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2015; Zhalechian et al. 2016). Further, rebound effects may make eco-efficiency and eco-­ effectiveness incompatible (Korhonen et al. 2018). Improved eco-efficiency lowers prices, thus increasing customer demand; when increased resource use can satisfy such demand, it offsets the environmental gains of improved efficiency (Corvellec et al. 2022). Accordingly, the focus of inquiry in CE should be on getting a deeper understanding of the relation between nature and economy, testing empirically the assumption that replacing a linear system of production with a circular system of consumption will effectively decouple growth from environmental impacts and critically assessing the extent to which a more circular economy might be in practice detrimental to environmental protection. These questions should be the litmus test for the circular economy, the answers to which would determine whether the society would proceed with the structural change needed to make the economy circular. Introducing social aspects into the discussion before such a litmus test has been conducted would be premature. Such a position was visible, for instance, in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which only recently has started to explicitly discuss social aspects in CE, for instance, with projects cross-pollinating CE and fair trade.2 A strong point in this argument is that the separation of social issues enables an eco-centric perspective to emerge without the constraints of competing for social interests. (Oyevaar et al. 2017). Keeping social issues outside the boundaries of the CE agenda addresses a key agency problem in environmentalism. Nature does not have agency on its own nor does it have a voice to put forward a “case for nature” (Dryzek 2021), and this lack of voice biases the policy choice toward the social well-being when trade-offs arise (Liu et al. 2012; Zapata et al. 2010). An incrementally social CE may still be compatible with an eco-centric agenda (since the social will be a bolt-­ on). A disruptive integration of social concerns may have the paradoxical effect of crowding out nature from a paradigm created to give nature a voice.

 https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/fashion/overview

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1.1.4 A Way Forward: Nested Circular Economy The omission of social aspects is common in many frameworks for environmental sustainability (e.g., green supply chains) and has been driven by the aim to keep the focus narrowly on improving environmental protection (Vazquez-Brust et al. 2013), which in the past had been jeopardized by the priority given to social issues when trade-offs inevitably arose (McAllister 2008; Oyevaar et  al. 2017). This position was understandable at a time when ecological concerns were important and the priority was to create awareness about the environmental threats (Vazquez-Brust et al. 2010). However, in the past two decades, environmental concerns have become mainstream and have embedded themselves in the minds and behavior of new generations (Dryzek 2021). Nowadays, ecologically driven economic models urgently need to integrate social concerns to be able to scale up and drive policy. The advent of the UN Sustainable Development Goals gave momentum to research exploring the social dimension of sustainability; such a body of literature could provide a template to bring the social dimension into circularity (Belmonte-Ureña et al. 2021). Examples of streams of literature using theoretical perspectives that can be transposed to explore the social dimensions of CE include empowering the poor to become business partners through the co-creation of projects (Khalid and Seuring 2019; Hall and Matos 2010), engagement actions to support legitimization and formalization of informal economy actors (Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2018; Ghisolfi et al. 2017; Darby et al. 2018), and actions to increase economic diversification of poor and marginalized supply chain actors (Candelo et al. 2018). Further discussion is needed on how central these perspectives should be informing specific aspects (fully embedded) and at what level it should be applied (strategic, operational). This discussion would converge with a renewed debate on the relations between social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability (Dryzek 2021). In the triple bottom line, these dimensions are interrelated, so an equal weight of each is assumed and a balance is pursued. The triple bottom line, however, is increasingly criticized by environmental advocates for its failure in providing solutions to ecological problems. The author of the concept, Elkington, has recently acknowledged that his ideas have not been applied in the way he envisaged and led to a “business case for sustainability” (we put sustainability in lower case intentionally) where business always comes before sustainability (Elkington 2018). Another way to understand the relations between the dimensions of sustainability is to see them as nested. In this perspective, the economic dimension is embedded in the social dimension, and the social dimension is nested in the environmental dimension (Sehnem et al. 2019). The central point we take from the previous paragraph is that the nature of relations between the social, the economic, and the natural world will continue to have a prominent place in the agenda for sustainability. Accordingly, it should have a prominent place in the CE agenda. The second and main argument for inclusion is that social and environmental aspects are intertwined in practice (Sarkis et al. 2010; Vazquez-Brust et al. 2010, 2013); thus the scalability and social acceptance of CE

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could be affected if social issues are not integrated with CE. This does not mean that social aspects should replace environmental protection as the focus of circular economy theory and practice. It does not either mean that CE should be the main arena for social transformation. We believe the circular economy should remain centrally focused on the environment. Yet, the CE agenda should evolve toward obtaining a systemic understanding of the extent to which transformation of the relation between the economy and the environment from linear to circular depends upon and has an impact on societal transformation. Therefore, the main argument of this book is that CE research and practice urgently need to start embracing its social implications. On the one side, CE research needs to understand the extent to which success in implementing and scaling up the circular economy is likely to be affected by the supply of social inputs such as solidarity, social cohesion, and collective action. On the other hand, CE research needs a better understanding of the negative social impacts of CE and how to avoid them as well as exploring the potential that CE models have to address social challenges (Clube and Tennant 2020). We also argue, however, that the scope of literature on social issues in CE needs to be widened with perspectives from the Global South. The bulk of literature of CE comes from Western developed countries and as such fails to address issues such as informality, social exclusion, and structural poverties and inequalities that are central to understanding the social impacts of the CE in developing countries (Vazquez-­ Brust et al. 2013). Notwithstanding, a deep understanding of the social dimension of CE in developing countries should go beyond poverty and inclusion. Perhaps one of the barriers to developing such an understanding is the lack of consensus on what the social dimension entails. For instance, the scope of “social” in developing countries is broad and heterogeneous including topics such as poverty, food security, access to water, and sanitation but also corruption, restriction of freedom, inequality, and social exclusion. Murray et al. (2017) theorized that a full-on circular economy should create value-enabling investment in social equity (including intra-generational and inter-generational contexts).

1.1.5 Framing the Contributions of the Book: The UN SDGs and the Social Pillar of Sustainable Development The social pillar of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) is part of a global agenda for value-enabling investment in social equity and as such is a good starting point to analyze the social dimensions of CE. Although the UN does not formally indicate what UN SDGs belong to the social pillar, the UN SDGs that are more often linked to social aspects are SDG 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero hunger), 3 (Good Health and Well-being), 4 (Quality Education), 5 (Gender Equality), 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) and also several of the targets in SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), and SDG

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11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). Costanza et al. (2016) classified the UN SDGs into three groups according to their contribution to economic capital, natural capital, and social capital. In the social capital dimension, they also included SDG 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 16, and 17. Mello-Oliveira and Navega (2017) allocated the UN SDGs into 5Ps, i.e., People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnerships. People include SDG 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10. Recent papers have focused on the contribution of CE to SDGs. Schröder et al. (2020) explained these connections concluding that CE has the strongest relationships with SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 15 (Life on Land). CE also offers the potential to develop synergies between several SDGs, such as those promoting economic growth and jobs (SDG 8), eliminating poverty (SDG 1), ending hunger and sustainable food production (SDG 2), and those SDGs aiming for biodiversity protection in the oceans (SDG 14) and on land (SDG 15). Belmonte-Ureña et al. (2021) used bibliometric analysis to identify the “Intensity” and “Scope” of CE research in each SDG. Intensity refers to the number of publications per SDG. Scope indicates how many of the targets in each SDG are covered by the research. Their analysis shows that CE research has a higher intensity of contributions for SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and infrastructure) and the lowest intensity for three social SDGs, SDG 1, SDG 5, and SDG 16. In terms of scope, the higher scope is for SDG 12 (over 65%), followed by SDG 11 (50%). The lowest scope is for two social UNDGs, UN SDG 5 (Gender Equality) with 11% and SDG 1 (No Poverty). The social SDGs with the highest scope are SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) with 36% and SDG 4 (Quality Education), which is also 36%. Overall, the work indicates that CE economy research is particularly scarce and narrow in scope for topics related to SDG 1, SDG 5, and SDG 16. Despite their conceptual linkages with CE, SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) and SDG 17 (Partnerships) are only marginally more explored. Overall, the analysis of literature in social dimensions in circularity indicates some gaps in theory, but there is, in particular, a gap in terms of case-based, exploratory empirical research that captures on the ground the impacts of the CE in social aspects and the social inputs needed by CE projects. This book’s objective is, accordingly, to provide a case-based foundation for the discussion of social aspects of CE that also allows the integration of CE with the UN SDGs. To achieve this objective, we have invited contributions in themes that can be linked to each of the social SDGs, as described above. Because the perspective of developing countries has not been represented centrally in social CE literature, we aimed to have a particular focus on cases in the Global South. Carenzo et al. (2022) emphasized, “How a circular economy (CE) can promote social equity is largely unknown” (p.  1). Responding to this pointed gap, several chapters in the book address the relationship between CE and SDG 10. However, Clube and Tennant (2020) criticized the emerging attempts to conceptualize social benefits of the CE as too conservative to deliver radical social changes and urge more reflection, addressing how CE models interact with Max Neef’s

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human needs framework that include subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, recreation, creation, identity, and freedom. Accordingly, since the UN SDG agenda is increasingly seen by some as not radical enough (Belmonte-­ Ureña et al. 2021), we invited critical views to explore these aspects. This perspective is more notable in a chapter drawing on circular justice literature to analyze inclusion in re-manufacturing in Brazil (Chap. 12) and another chapter looking at dirty work and gender performativity to reflect upon the lives of plastic waste hustlers in Ghana (Chap. 10). The ethnographic approach of the latter touches upon all human needs and relations between activities related to a circular economy in the informal economy and its impacts on precarity and social stigma. We hope it will trigger discussion on these new avenues.

1.1.6 Introduction to the Contents of the Book The papers compiled in this edited book are original works of their authors. Fifteen authors were invited to submit an abstract by the editors. After a process of double-­ blind peer review, 12 chapters constitute the core of the book in addition to this introductory chapter and a wrap-up. Since this is a multidisciplinary theme, in an exploratory stage and with a variety of levels and dimensions to be examined, the book contents and structure could have been presented in a variety of ways. Following the lead of Ellen McArthur foundation, we differentiate between chapters with a focus on flows of organic materials (e.g., food) and chapters with a focus on technical materials (e.g., plastic and electronics). All the chapters discuss SDG 12 (Responsible and Sustainable Consumption and Production) and also often mention SDG 6 (Clean Water). In addition, all chapters make specific linkages to one or more of the UN SDGs that we classify as part of the social dimension (SDGs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 16, and 17). Table 1.1 provides the many SDGs and topics examined by the chapters that helped guide our categorization and organization of content. Another noteworthy characteristic is the variety of research methods, countries, theoretical perspectives, and definitions of circular economy used. We note that only three chapters (Chaps. 2, 5, and 10) use a definition that refers to social aspects. Chapters 2 and 3 provide a general foundation since they discuss aspects that are central to understanding the relations between social and environmental domains in the circular economy and pertain to both organic and technical flows. These chapters are conceptual but include vignettes to illustrate the concepts with specific country or industry examples. In Chap. 2, “A Systems Perspective on Social Indicators for Circular Supply Chains” by Vinícius Picanço Rodrigues, Christopher M.  Argueta, and David Hidalgo-Carvajal, the authors address one of the gaps consistently pointed out by the literature in social aspects of CE, the need to develop CE-specific social indicators to measure progress in circular supply chains. The authors use system theory to conceptualize social issues in circular supply chains as complex systems, as they display very high levels of interconnectedness among intricate social aspects. In this

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Table 1.1  Information about Chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 2

3

Chapter title A Systems Perspective on Social Indicators for Circular Supply Chains

SDGs Country All

Method Literature review

The Relation Between Social Inclusion and Circular Economy Performance

All

Literature No particular Review theory Case Vignette

Brazil

Theory Systems theory leverage points

CE definition CE allows organizations to eliminate (or reduce) waste with virtually no leakages from the system by replacing traditional business models where consumers own things, destroy value, and reduce the environmental and social impact (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017) CE projects the replacement of open and linear production cycles – which are inefficient – in closed cycles, or closed loops, in which total waste is transformed into inputs to be reincorporated into production processes or minimized in their manufacture, creating value in all processes of the chain (Homrich et al. 2018; Sehnem et al. 2019) (continued)

D. Vazquez-Brust and L. M. de Souza Campos

12 Table 1.1 (continued) 4

5

Chapter title Business Models Supported by Circular Economy Principles and Practices for the Fruit and Vegetable Sector: An Analysis from the Perspective of Social Inclusion of Family Farmers Fighting Hunger and Educating Farmers with Regenerative Agriculture in Maputo’s Green Horticultural Belt

SDGs Country 2, 10 Brazil

1, 2, 4, 17

Method Semi-­ structured Interviews

Mozambique Semi-­ structured Interviews Observation

Theory Circular Principles (10 R)

CE definition No general definition of CE

Resource Constraints theory, Leader-ship theory

A new economic, social, and environmental paradigm aimed at regenerating natural systems and making the most efficient uses of resources to create value for the economy and society without trespassing on the ecological boundaries of the planet (continued)

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Table 1.1 (continued) 6

7

Chapter title Partnerships for Transitions from Open-Air Markets to Circular Smart Food Markets in Kenya

SDGs Country 2, 17 Kenya

Implementation 2, 10 of Urban Organic Waste Collection and Treatment System in a Brazilian Municipality: An Analysis Based on a Socio-­ technical Transition Theory

Brazil

Method Multi-case study Survey

Theory Smart business models Political economy

CE definition Circular economy (CE), as an approach to sustainability, offers efficient and realistic solutions from the current “take-make-­ waste” linear model to a circular one, which aims to gradually decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources Mixed Socio-technical The main idea Methods transition theory of CE is to turn waste into Desk valuable Research resources using Interviews new solutions, Observation equipment, or techniques, while enabling manufacturing companies, municipalities, and others to recover the value of the technical and biological materials flow (continued)

D. Vazquez-Brust and L. M. de Souza Campos

14 Table 1.1 (continued) Chapter title Addressing the Legitimacy Challenges of Informal and Artisanal and Small Scale Mining with CE Concepts in Namibia

SDGs Country 16 Namibia

Method Literature Review

Theory Institutional theory

How Effective Are Circular Business Models at Delivering a Sustainable Trifactor: A Focus on Social Inclusion?

1, 10

Kenya

Literature review Action research

Business model canvas

10 Dirty Work/ Decent Work: (De) stigmatization of Sachet Water Plastic Waste Picking in Ghana’s Circular Economy

1, 5, 10

Ghana

Interviews Dirty Work Focus group Ethnography

8

9

CE definition Circular economy is an emerging concept that focuses on resource efficiency, industrial waste prevention strategies, and regional job creation (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017) Circular economy as a redesign of the production process with a focus on the reuse, recycle, and repurpose of a product, spearheading the concept as environmental and ecological circularity The circular economy (CE) seeks to replace the “end-of-life” concept (linear economy) with an ecosystem that is resilient and free of waste by adopting the principles of reduce, reuse, and recycle for sustainable development (Esposito et al. 2018) (continued)

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Table 1.1 (continued) Chapter title 11 Improving Gender Equality with Social Entrepreneurship and Circular Economy: Mexican Case

SDGs Country 5 Mexico

Method Theory Literature Social review entrepreneurship Retrospective case study Action research

12 Strategies for Social Inclusion in Circular Economy

1, 5, Brazil 10, 17

Case studies Upgrading. global value Interviews chain approach

13 Circular Economy and Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 17: The Case of the PlastiCity Ecosystem

3, 17

Action research Interviews

Belgium France The Netherlands The UK

Complexity theory Business ecosystems

CE definition CE refers to the economic model that focuses on recovering and reusing products, components, and materials for as long as possible within a system Circular economy incorporates different activities that can be classified as creating loops, slowing loops, and narrowing flows Economic system where value is created by reusing products and their components in multiple cycles based on closing and slowing resource loops while achieving sustainability throughout the product life cycle from resource extraction to the end of life (Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019)

direction, the chapter compiles extant social indicators prescribed by specialized literature to propose a classification scheme for the social performance measurement of circular supply chains. Its contribution to the main thread of discussion of this book is to articulate the integration of the social domain in the circular economy and supply chain management concepts, in what they summarize as social-driven circular supply chains. To do so, the authors propose a systems theory model of

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indicators for operationalizing social circular supply chains to explore the circumstances and context around the supply chains. The model discusses social attributes that may be considered in different situations and help diagnose and assess the status of social circular supply chains. Another important contribution is a practical, illustrative example of the attribute of accessibility to goods and services in underserved communities to show the applicability of their approach. Chapter 3, “The relation between social inclusion and circular economy performance” by Alexandre Karl, Lucila de Souza Campos, and Diego Vazquez-Brust, highlights the absence in the literature of an in-depth analysis of the social practices of the circular economy in order to strengthen the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda with research focused solely on the social dimension of the circular economy. In order to fulfil this gap, the authors proposed a framework with the main social practices of the circular economy, linking them to the SDGs and also discussing each of the relationships. A vignette applying the framework to the construction industry in Brazil and Portugal is included. As a contribution to our main argument for inclusion, the chapter is closely connected with the social dimension, offering possibilities for the improvement of global social welfare. Furthermore, the social practices of the CE are related to the SDGs, which can be implemented and advanced through social circular initiatives, impacting the social inclusion of individuals who previously did not have opportunities for economic advancement in the social environment. The following four chapters in the book analyze social challenges and impacts in case studies of the circularity of organic or biological material flows. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the social impacts of circularity solutions used in sustainable agriculture. Chapter 5 reports on circular solutions for the challenges of open-air food markets. Chapter 6 looks at the circular management of urban organic waste. All the chapters draw on empirical research in developing countries. Chapter 4 by Simone Sehnem and Volmiro de Oliveira Marques Junior is named “Business models supported by circular economy principles and practices for the fruit and vegetable sector: an analysis from the perspective of social inclusion of family farmers.” The chapter analyses business models supported by circular economy principles and practices for the fruit and vegetable sector in Brazil from the perspective of social inclusion of family farmers. The social challenge addressed in the chapter is the increasing marginalization and impoverishment of small farmers, in turn leading to dynamics or rural–urban migrations and the growth of urban slums. Small farmers in the case study are at risk of being pushed out of their farms because they are not able to compete with large-scale agribusiness. The chapter documents how the integration of CE in the production process enhances the competitiveness of small farmers, not only reducing costs but also adding value through the differentiation of their products. The results of the case highlight the potential of CE models to address social exclusion challenges in rural areas. The main contribution of the chapter is to support the potential, hitherto under-researched empirically, of CE as a pathway for progress in the targets of UN SDG 2. It provides evidence that important circular business models in agriculture can generate inclusion and income opportunities for families that do not have working capital for multimillion

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investments demanded by the agribusiness led by major global players and makes a powerful case for the social impact of CE business models. Chapter 5 “Fighting Hunger and Educating Farmers with Regenerative Agriculture in Maputo’s Green Horticultural Belt” is written by Roberta SouzaPião, Rekha Nicholson, and Diego A. Vazquez-Brust. It is also a practical experience as it uses observation and interviews to analyze the implementation of the Green Horticultural belt project in Maputo. The project is an example of south– south collaboration to advance sustainability. Mozambican researchers, from the Institute for Agricultural Research of Mozambique (IIAM) and Brazilian researchers and from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), worked together to mitigate food insecurity through sustainable small farming practices underpinned by circularity principles. Empirical research observing on-the-ground interactions in south–south cooperation is scarce. The authors also have access to the leaders of the project in both countries. Drawing on a unique set of rich qualitative data, the chapter analyzes the impacts of the project and the factors contributing to its success. It uses resource-constrained innovation theory and literature on sustainable upgrading in global value chains as a theoretical framework. The results indicated that some social sustainable development goals are positively impacted, namely, SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 4 (quality education), and SDG 10 (reduced inequality), while at the same time, economic and environmental upgrading is achieved. They also show that the main outcomes indicate the importance of moral leadership, leading by example, and soft skills for promoting sustainable development in a local context and finding synergies between environmental and social targets. This practical example also highlights that the knowledge transferred from and between the two counties evolved and adapted to improve the results achieved. An important finding is that the success of international contributions was facilitated because the principal researchers in Mozambique and Brazil shared a similar vision regarding the importance of integrating social and environmental concerns in the design of technical agricultural solutions. The importance of partnership and collaboration for sustainable development comes across very strongly. Chapter 6, “Partnerships for transitions from open-air markets to circular smart food markets in Kenya” is authored by Gerald Masila, Elvira Nalyanya, and Carol Mungo, and like the previous chapter, studies how the CE contributes to UN SDG 2. While Chaps. 4 and 5 focused on production. Chapter 5 moves along the supply chain and focuses on the use of CE practices to address challenges in open-air food markets in Kenya, which are essential for food security, a major source of employment, and a direct channel for small farmers to sell their products without their profit margins being squeezed by intermediaries. Open-air markets, however, have severe problems in terms of the availability of clean water and disposal of their waste, leading to health threats. In turn, soil poverty is an issue for small farmers, since chemical fertilizers are expensive and polluting. The chapter discusses a new integrated solution regarding the outdoor open-air markets in Kenya. This project includes the management of waste through recycling and reusing for farming black soldier flies for insect-based feeds and organic manure

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for farming foods to be sold back in the markets, thus completing the cycle. The chapter supports the positive impact of these practices on SDG 1 and SDG 2. Considering that markets are live structures with multiple dynamic social interactions that need multi-stakeholder engagement to propose, implement, and sustain reforms, this chapter makes interesting contributions as it highlights the role that partnerships could play to enable the implementation of circular solutions at the market level. Therefore, it also makes a contribution to a better understanding of the relation between CE and SDG 17, partnerships for the goals. It shows how partnerships allow channeling the potential of CE to contribute to SDG 2. The chapter supports the book’s main argument for the inclusion of the social dimension in CE, that is, social and environmental aspects are intertwined in practice. Mônica Maria Mendes Luna and Matheus Moraes Zambon are the authors of Chap. 7, “Implementation of urban organic waste collection and treatment system in a Brazilian municipality: an analysis based on a socio-technical transition theory.” The chapter discusses circularity practices from the perspective of socio-­ technical transitions theory. The chapter explains Brazilian law 12.305/2010, which established the country’s Solid Waste National Policy (SWNP). The law stipulates that the federal states and municipalities must draw up waste management plans to encourage the recyclable and compostable fraction of urban waste to be valued. The law also stipulates that the recyclable waste collected by municipalities should be given to recycling cooperatives, the majority of them constituted by former informal waste pickers. This legislation is one of the most advanced examples of social inclusion in the circular economy, but success has varied from municipality to municipality. In particular, in terms of diversion of organic waste which, contrary to plastic, is a worthless recyclable material that adds no value to cooperatives. The chapter highlights the importance of several innovations brought about by incumbents and actors to the process of transition toward a more sustainable urban management system in Florianopolis, a city in southern Brazil, that was the first to introduce door-to-door organic waste collection in the country. Partnerships with other actors lead to outstanding initiatives, such as composting projects involving the poorest communities (with impacts on SDG 1 and SDG 10), which were recognized as a practice in agroecology at the occasion of the International Green Week and the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture. In another unique project, work in a large-scale composting facility serves as therapy for addictions (linking SDG 10 and SDG 3). According to the authors, the success of the implementation of this system in Florianopolis has been strongly related to the effective participation of the citizens and the adaptability of municipal policy that has shifted focus to incentivizing participation. Indeed, the chapter argues that the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive collection and treatment waste system is a complex and multilevel problem that goes beyond the choice of which system technology to adopt. As in the previous chapters in this book, the authors highlight not only the implications of CE solutions for addressing social challenges but also the importance of the social dimension as an input for the circular economy.

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The next five chapters shift the focus of empirical inquiry from organic flows to technical material flows. As in the previous group of chapters, we start at the source of material flows, in this looking at CE practices in the mining industry, then move to the analysis of interactions between the social and the environmental spheres in CE practices applied to narrow and close loops in the flows of plastics (Chaps. 9, 10 and 13), textiles (Chaps. 11 and 12) and electronics (Chap. 12). Chapter 8 “The significance of SDG16 ‘Strong Institutions’ towards the adoption of circular economy approaches for artisanal and small-scale mining sector in sub-­ Saharan Africa” is authored by Inamutila Kahupi, Natalia Yakovleva, and Stephen Chen. The chapter deals with the need for formalizing the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector toward efficiency and the decarbonization of the global economy at all levels of production, starting with the sourcing of raw materials. The chapter discusses the SDG 16 “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions” affirming that it can drive positive environmental, social, and economic changes in sub-­ Saharan Africa while transforming informal sectors into formalized and more sustainable business. The chapter offers insights into an extractive industry that is not readily associated with the circular economy. By identifying the significance of circular economy adoption within the realm of ASM in sub-Saharan Africa, which is rightly rich in quarried natural resources, the chapter showcases another potential contribution of the circular economy to SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). The main contribution of the chapter is in laying the groundwork for the significance of strong institutions as sources for the social inputs needed for the adoption of a circular approach and environmental management, therefore bringing to the fore the importance of institutional work in triggering the integration of the CE in social issues. Chapter 9 has a specific focus on finding avenues to solve the daunting social challenges of poverty (SDG 1) and inequality (SDG 10) with business models for the circular economy. “How effective are Circular Models at delivering a sustainable trifactor; a focus on social inclusion?” by Grant Blackbeard first presents a brief literature review of social sustainability in circular model adoption and furthermore addresses the factors contributing to social exclusion and solutions to achieve social inclusion offered by management literature. The main contribution of this chapter is offering an alternative framework jointly addressing the social sustainability and economic sustainability aspects of the circular economy. The chapter concluded with an action research case study example where the framework is applied to an existing small waste recycling business that operates in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, to help identify the social elements of the circular model. The disenfranchised women involved in the informal circular economy of plastic waste are the focus of Chap. 10 by Samuel Bonsu and Stanford Nartey. The chapter has implications for SDG 5, SDG 1, and SDG 10. “Dirty Work/Decent Work:(De) stigmatization of Sachet Water Plastic Waste Picking in Ghana’s Circular Economy” is a mixed methods study combining workshops, participation, and interviews to study and explore everyday living experiences of sachet water waste pickers (SWWP) in Accra, Ghana, with particular attention to underserved areas. Due to the lack of running water or perceived inadequacy of its quality, sachet and bottled

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water are rapidly becoming the sole source of drinking water for Ghanaian households. It is also a major source of pollution since street drinking habits and inadequacies in household waste collection result in sachets and bottles discarded on the streets after consumption, eventually finding their way into water bodies and clogging drainage infrastructure in their way. The silver lining is that plastic sachets are fully recyclable and sought after in the recycling market where they are processed and sold back to water packaging manufacturers. It is a thriving circular economy model, which is highly reliant upon an army of informal waste pickers, mainly women making their livelihood out of collecting and selling discarded sachets at meagre prices. Using one such worker as a focal point, the chapter conceptualizes sachet water waste picking (SWWP) as “dirty work” and explores how the dynamics of dirty work are deployed to act upon the work of vulnerable women toward creating decent work opportunities. The chapter focuses on women mainly because the vast majority of SWWP in Ghana are women. Ultimately, the chapter contributes to understanding how the activities of SWWP demonstrate good livelihood practices and economic empowerment reducing gendered marginalization. Examining the everyday practices of the SWWP, as the authors do, provides an analytical lens for building a situated account of the socio-economic lives of these workers, who find joy in their harsh jobs and see themselves as providing a public service. The authors conclude that made decent, SWWP work may be connected to the circular economy in a manner that makes a significant contribution toward achieving not only SDGs 5 and 10 but also 6 and 8. The chapter suggests policy actions toward this end. Implications of the CE for SDG 5 are again explored by Nadiezdha Crespo-­ Rosas and Maria-Laura Franco-Garcia in Chap. 11, “Improving Gender Equality with Social Entrepreneurship and Circular Economy: Mexican Case.” The chapter aims at understanding how social entrepreneurship (SE) can contribute to achieving gender equality (GE) while applying circular economy (CE) principles. To do so, the authors focused on the enabling conditions for SE activities that apply CE principles during the product conceptualization phase with effects on gender equality (GE). It is again a mixed methods study where a literature review of academic and grey documentation are combined with retrospective participatory action reflection. The authors revisit a case study of action research that was developed by an author first in Mexico. The main contribution, aligned with our book’s objective, is the identification of activities that contribute to closing the gender gap whilst developing new circular social business models which include socially and environmentally responsible leadership, integration of social and environmental concerns in value capture and proposition, and building relationships outside the internal business. Chapter 12, “Strategies for social inclusion in Circular Economy” by Roberta Souza Pião, Ticiana Braga de Vincenzi, and Marly Monteiro de Carvalho is an empirically grounded qualitative study in Brazil that aims to explore how the application of higher value-added CE practices (reuse, repair, remanufacturing) could embrace social inclusion and help achieve reduced inequalities (SDG 10). The chapter proposes a framework with three dimensions: the identification of priority stakeholders included in higher value-added circular economy practices, the

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engagement of disenfranchised groups based on strategies from circular justice literature, and the evaluation of the impact of the practices in terms of the social, environmental, and economic upgrading reached by them. The chapter empirically validates and refines the framework using two case studies. The first case is a waste management company specializing in electronic and electrical equipment, which has a business stream where youth from disadvantaged areas are involved in the repair and remanufacturing of electronic equipment, while the second case, a non-­ governmental organization from the textiles sector, creates linkages between cooperatives of seamstresses in disadvantaged areas and fashion brands with the purpose of reusing and remanufacturing textiles. The outcomes were aligned with our main objective and demonstrated that workers are the main stakeholders affected by circular practices with social inclusion. Also, in terms of circular justice, the main result is the engagement of organizations in the recognition of rights. Next, Chap. 13 by Virginie Litaudon, Yara Ciliacus, and Peter Brughman is called “Circular Economy and Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 17: the case of the PlastiCity ecosystem.” This is the only European case in the book and uses an action research methodology to reflect on one of the outputs of a circular economy project aiming to increase recycling of commercial plastic waste in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the UK. The chapter aims to present the authors’ work at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when efforts were directed to the development of recycled face shields and implementation of a project ecosystem to enhance collaboration and partnerships. This study argues that developing an ecosystem can facilitate the collaboration between the stakeholders of the plastic value chain and therefore contribute to implementing circular activities. The chapter also shows how the CE can provide a quick response to social issues related to health, such as the lack of PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors retrospectively reflect on the experience of developing the business models and candidly acknowledge that their limited awareness of the social dimension of the CE limited the inclusion of social domains in the business model. This is in clear contrast to the contributors from developing countries and supports the importance of developing and disseminating an agenda for social circular economy. Finally, Chap. 14, “Wrap-Up: Equitable Circular Economy, nesting the social dimension in the Circular Economy” by Diego Vazquez-Brust and Lucila M. de Souza Campos, provides the closing remarks for the book with a discussion of its contributions, insights, and linkages between chapters. It offers a framework where the implementation of circular economy practices mediates the relation between the implementation of UN SDG goals related to sustainable governance – UN SDG 16 (Institutions), UN SDG 17 (Partnerships) – and progress toward the “social” UN SDGs (2, 3, 4, 5 and 10). Implications are discussed in more detail for the SDGs featured more prominently in the book, i.e., SDG 2 (No hunger) and SDG 10 (No Inequality). The chapter also assesses the limitations of using the UN SDGs to systematize the exploration of social aspects of CE and the potential of CE for more radical and disruptive ways of social circularity, emphasizing that identity, equity, justice, and social inclusion are themes strongly affecting the implementation of circular economy. The chapter concludes with recommendations for a future

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research agenda around the concept of equitable circular economy, a CE that maintains environmental protection as its core mission but it is purposefully socially inclusive, just, and fair and brings to the fore the interdependencies between human and ecological dimensions of sustainable development.

1.2 Conclusion This chapter introduced the topic of the book, briefly exploring prior literature discussing the social implications of CE and the relation between the UN SDGs and CE. It also presents the contents of the subsequent chapters. The chapter analyzed arguments for and against the explicit consideration of social aspects in circular economy research and policy. The main argument against the consideration of social concerns in CE is that the separation of social aspects allows CE research to pursue the theoretical depth of its ecological implications. The main argument for the consideration of social aspects is that social and environmental aspects are intertwined in practice; thus the scalability and social acceptance of CE could be affected if social issues are not integrated within CE research. The chapter concludes that ecological concerns should remain central to CE, but more integration of the social domain with the environmental domain is inevitable to advance the field. Gaps and aspects in need of further research are identified. So, welcome to the book and the important ideas that are within it. They provide substantial insights for managers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. We hope you will find reading the chapter as enjoyable and useful as we found curating them. We will meet you again in the concluding chapter 14 where we will, again, argue that now is the time for a social turn in circular economy research.

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Kirchherr J, Piscicelli L, Bour R, Kostense-Smit E, Muller J, Huibrechtse-Truijens A, Hekkert M (2018) Barriers to the circular economy: evidence from the European Union (EU). Ecol Econ 150:264–272 Korhonen J, Honkasalo A, Seppälä J (2018) Circular economy: the concept and its limitations. Ecol Econ 143:37–46 Leipold S, Weldner K, Hohl M (2021) Do we need a ‘circular society’? Competing narratives of the circular economy in the French food sector. Ecol Econ 187:107086 Linder M, Williander M (2017) Circular business model innovation: inherent uncertainties. Bus Strateg Environ 26(2):182–196 Liu D, Li H, Wang W, Dong Y (2012) Constructivism scenario evolutionary analysis of zero emission regional planning: a case of Qaidam Circular Economy Pilot Area in China. Int J Prod Econ 140(1):341–356 Lofthouse V, Prendeville S (2018) Human-centred design of products and services for the circular economy – a review. Des J 21(4):451–476 Lüdeke-Freund F, Gold S, Bocken NM (2019) A review and typology of circular economy business model patterns. J Ind Ecol 23(1):36–61 McAllister L (2008) Making law matter: environmental protection and legal institutions in Brazil. Stanford University Press Mello-Oliveira V, Navega F (2017) National report on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, on the occasion of the Voluntary National Review at the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Portuguese Republic), Portugal Mies A, Gold S (2021) Mapping the social dimension of the circular economy. J Clean Prod 321:128960 Mishra JL, Hopkinson PG, Tidridge G (2018) Value creation from circular economy-led closed loop supply chains: a case study of fast-moving consumer goods. Prod Plan Control 29(6):509–521 Morea D, Fortunati S, Martiniello L (2021) Circular economy and corporate social responsibility: towards an integrated strategic approach in the multinational cosmetics industry. J Clean Prod 315:128232 Moreau V, Sahakian M, Van Griethuysen P, Vuille F (2017) Coming full circle: why social and institutional dimensions matter for the circular economy. J Ind Ecol 21(3):497–506 Murray A, Skene K, Haynes K (2017) The circular economy: an interdisciplinary exploration of the concept and application in a global context. J Bus Ethics 140(3):369–380 Oyevaar M, Vazquez-Brust D, Van Bommel HW (2017) Globalization and sustainable development: a changing perspective for business. Bloomsbury Publishing Padilla-Rivera A, Russo-Garrido S, Merveille N (2020) Addressing the social aspects of a circular economy: a systematic literature review. Sustainability 12(19):7912 Paquin RL, Busch T, Tilleman SG (2015) Creating economic and environmental value through industrial symbiosis. Long Range Plan 48(2):95–107 Pishvaee MS, Razmi J, Torabi SA (2014) An accelerated Benders decomposition algorithm for sustainable supply chain network design under uncertainty: a case study of medical needle and syringe supply chain. Transp Res Part E Logist Transp Rev 67:14–38 Sarkis J, Cordeiro JJ, Vazquez Brust DA (2010) Facilitating sustainable innovation through collaboration. In Facilitating sustainable innovation through collaboration. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 1–16 Schröder P, Lemille A, Desmond P (2020) Making the circular economy work for human development. Resour Conserv Recycl 156:104686 Sehnem S, Vazquez-Brust D, Pereira SCF, Campos LM (2019) Circular economy: benefits, impacts and overlapping. Suppl Chain Manag Int J Stahel WR (2016) Circular economy: a new relationship with our goods and materials would save resources and energy and create local jobs. Nature 531:435–438 Taddeo R, Simboli A, Morgante A, Erkman S (2017) The development of industrial symbiosis. Experiences from three Italian clusters. Ecol Econ 139:55–67

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Tognetti A, Grosse-Ruyken PT, Wagner SM (2015) Green supply chain network optimization and the trade-off between environmental and economic objectives. Int J Prod Econ 170:385–392 Vanhuyse F, Fejzić E, Ddiba D, Henrysson M (2021) The lack of social impact considerations in transitioning towards urban circular economies: a scoping review. Sustain Cities Soc 75:103394 Vazquez-Brust DA, Sarkis J (2012) Green growth: managing the transition to sustainable economies. In: Green growth: managing the transition to a sustainable economy. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 1–25 Vazquez-Brust D, Plaza-Ubeda J, Natenzon C (2010) The challenges of businesses’ intervention in areas with high poverty and environmental deterioration: promoting an integrated stakeholders’ approach in management education, pp 175–206 Vazquez-Brust DA, Sarkis J, Cordeiro JJ (eds) (2013) Collaboration for sustainability and innovation: a role for sustainability driven by the Global South?: A cross-border, multi-stakeholder perspective. vol 3. Springer Vazquez-Brust D, Kromidha E, Souza Piao R, Monteiro de Carvalho M (2020) Social inclusion in the circular economy and the role of entrepreneurship. Acad Manag Glob Proc 2020:140 Wang W, Zhang Y, Zhang K, Bai T, Shang J (2015) Reward–penalty mechanism for closed-loop supply chains under responsibility-sharing and different power structures. Int J Prod Econ 170:178–190 Yakovleva N, Vazquez-Brust DA (2018) Multinational mining enterprises and artisanal small-scale miners: from confrontation to cooperation. J World Bus 53(1):52–62 Zapata C, Vazquez-Brust D, Plaza-Úbeda J (2010) Productive inclusion of smallholder farmers in Brazil’s biodiesel value chain: Programme design, institutional incentives and stakeholder constraints, Working paper, no. 73 Zhalechian M, Zahiri B, Tavakkoli-Moghaddam R, Mohammadi M (2016) Sustainable design of a closed-loop location-routing-inventory supply chain network under mixed uncertainty. Transp Res Part E Logist Transp Rev 89:182–214

Chapter 2

A Systems Perspective on Social Indicators for Circular Supply Chains David Hidalgo-Carvajal, Vinícius Picanço-Rodrigues, Christopher Mejía-­Argueta, and David E. Salinas-Navarro

Abstract  The overarching paradigm of circular economy has fundamentally challenged the established, linear supply chains across several industries and geographies. While this new paradigm has been increasingly driving transitions toward circular supply chains, its social potential and implications have not earned as much attention. Within this context, we conceptualize social issues in circular supply chains as complex systems due to their  high levels of interconnectedness among intricate variables. We compile extant social indicators prescribed by specialized literature to propose a classification scheme for the social performance measurement of circular supply chains. The classification uses the concept of a system’s leverage points and their effect on the many actors and stakeholders across supply chains, from companies and non-governmental organizations to communities and public agencies. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers may apply the classification scheme to advance the measurement techniques and arguments around social exterD. Hidalgo-Carvajal Department of Organization Engineering, Business Administration and Statistics, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales (ETSII), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] V. Picanço-Rodrigues (*) Insper Institute of Education and Research, São Paulo, Brazil Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom e-mail: [email protected] C. Mejía-Argueta Food and Retail Operations Lab, MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] D. E. Salinas-Navarro Department of Operations and Information Management, College of Business and Social Sciences, Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_2

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nalities, both negative and positive, generated by the widespread diffusion of circular supply chain systems. We highlight  these key managerial insights in a practical example. Keywords  Systems thinking · Social sustainability · Social impact · Supply chain management

2.1 Introduction In the last decade, individuals have developed greater social and environmental awareness by observing the impact of the goods and services they consume and use on a daily basis. Moreover, sustainability plays a crucial role in many different areas, ranging from education to industries, including logistics and supply chain management, and is widely accepted as a guiding principle for public policymaking, generating corporate strategies, and designing humankind’s future (Finkbeiner et al. 2010). Typically, the term “sustainability” has been linked to three pillars: the environment, economy, and society (Brown et al. 1987; Basiago 1998; Pope et al. 2004; Vos 2007; Waas et  al. 2011; Schoolman et  al. 2012; Mori and Christodoulou 2012). However, it seems that the origin of this concept “cannot be traced back to one single author, but it emerges as a convergence of several definitions from different fields” (Purvis et al. 2019). Sustainability has gained traction in the last two decades. Experts in systemic thinking have proposed diverse ways to define and understand how sustainability shapes systems. For instance, Meadows (1974) argued about the need for a sustainable “world system.” On the other hand, Bruntland (1987) defined it as a “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Nevertheless, the biggest challenge remains to be how the concept might be put into practice for practitioners and policymakers. To properly understand how sustainability can be operationalized concerning supply chains, it is crucial to quantify, evaluate, and improve its performance, especially with regard to processes and the delivery of products and services. Currently, the most advanced analyses in the business and academic circles are focused on sustainability’s environmental and economic dimensions. The study and standardization of both dimensions have numerous supply chain processes and have developed multiple indicators to measure impact, likelihood, and duration. Despite this, social aspects of performance have been widely explored from a systems perspective for many years; the focus was centered on concepts such as viability, autonomy, citizenship, authenticity, and legitimacy. Therefore, organizations have barely considered them as intentional outcomes or side effects in supply chains, but they have “peripherally and sporadically integrated into the circular economy concept” (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017). Although they have been included as part of goals and policies (Bubicz et al. 2021), they have created

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unintentional consequences among parties along the supply chain, derived from “the many unethical practices and violations of social norms” (Govindan et  al. 2021) originated upstream of the supply chain. Therefore, considering social aspects in supply chains, particularly in circular schemes, becomes crucial to creating an impact on the communities, increasing public engagement, and building long-term benefits for society, especially for those who need it the most. An example is Siebert et al. (2018), who started understanding the relevance of connecting social indicators to circular economy models’ emerging concept. The circular economy concept has gained growing attention among supply chain practitioners in close connection and evolution of closed-loop supply chains. Many sustainability strategies and initiatives around supply chains have been framed exclusively around reverse logistics, closed-loop, or circular frameworks. Circular supply chains have constantly been mistaken for sustainability itself or the implementation of sustainability strategies in supply chains. The latter hinders private, public, and non-governmental organizations from developing a complete picture of the three pillars of sustainability. Given the importance and traction of circularity, further exploration is required to advance how supply chains relate to circular economy terms, going beyond their economic and environmental aspects as purposeful social expected impacts. Although the literature on circular supply chain management (CSCM) has increased over the past years, the social impacts are unintentionally omitted in the implementation process (Lahane et al. 2020). They are analyzed only at the macro-­ level rather than the micro-level (Vimal et al. 2019) or meso-level (Herczeg et al. 2018). As supply chains include different sections for the aforementioned concepts and levels, it is necessary to answer the following question: What are the characteristics of a model aiming to cover all levels and provide the essential indicators to support the development of the largely forgotten social impacts? We classify the proposed social metrics in circular supply chains based on the 12 leverage points (Meadows 1999) into coherent groups to guide a better understanding and manipulation of metrics. Then, we followed the framework of Abson et al. (2017) to define the level of intervention based on parameters, feedback, design, and intent. Finally, we showed the application of the proposed framework based on the application of a case study.

2.2 Social Aspects of Circular Supply Chains 2.2.1 Transitions Toward Circular Supply Chains Organizations have traditionally taken a transactional approach, mainly in forward supply chains, focusing on customers’ changing needs and preferences. Therefore, they have (un)intentionally omitted their operating models’ social and environmental aspects. This has created a need for a paradigm shift from traditional linear

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models to new schemes. These new models embrace environmental protection and noneconomic aspects as critical insights. Therefore, they include social dimensions toward achieving the true impact of supply chain and logistic operations in sustainability (Rangel-Espinosa et al. 2020) on organizations. Operating models evolve from connecting suppliers to end consumers to integrating backward operations from end consumers to a few supply chain stakeholders through reverse logistics (Carter and Ellram 1998; Rogers and Tibben-Lembke 1999) and industrial ecology (Frosch and Gallopoulos 1989; Jelinski et al. 1992). Afterward, the idea improved to expand its impact to several upstream stakeholders via the closed-loop supply chains (Guide and Van Wassenhove 2009), cradle-to-­ cradle (C2C) design approach (McDonough and Braungart 2002), and “zero waste” movement (Murray 2002; Elkington 2012). Lastly, those approaches have evolved toward existing trends such as the function-­based economy (Stahel 2005) and industrial product service systems (Roy 2000; Tukker 2004, 2015). These processes are also known as servitization (Baines et al. 2009) if they are described from the product service provider’s perspective. Finally, emerging digital platforms and other technologies allow for sharing of underutilized assets in the collaborative or access economy (Ranjbari et al. 2018). These two trends showed that closing materials loops through reuse, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, or recycling requires a redesign of products and services and a redesign of business models through a circularity approach (Reike et al. 2018). Then, the circular economy (CE) emerges as an umbrella concept comprising circularity, servitization, and closed-loop supply chains. From this standpoint, CE allows organizations to eliminate (or reduce) waste with virtually no leakages from the system by replacing traditional business models where consumers own things, destroy value, and reduce the environmental and social impact (Geissdoerfer et al. 2018). Thus, CE is an integrative framework of various perspectives and disciplines developed in the last thirty years to create a production–distribution–consumption model that is regenerative and restorative by design (Hidalgo-Carvajal et al. 2021). One of the critical dimensions of circular economy is the design, which targets shifting from the traditional product-centric to a customer-centric mindset by providing the function or the service that the product brings. This implies a change in the business model from owning the product to using it, which is where economic value resides, enabling a different perspective for manufacturers when designing their products and their supply chains (Hidalgo-Carvajal et al. 2021). Digitalization and other technologies are core components in this dematerialization process (Kohtamäki et al. 2019). Finally, the design transition toward a circular, regenerative, and restorative economy is extensively based on the servitized business models, as these are less resource-intensive (Han et al. 2020; Hidalgo-Carvajal et al. 2021). Based on these definitions, the concept of circular supply chains comes out given the growing challenges in supply chain management and circular economy as well as the need to take the best of both approaches. A circular supply chain might be defined as the integration of circular thinking into the management of the supply chain and its surrounding industrial and natural ecosystems. It systematically

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restores technical materials and regenerates biological materials toward a zero-­ waste vision through system-wide innovation in business models and supply chain functions from product/service design to end-of-life and waste management, involving all stakeholders in a product/service lifecycle, including parts/product manufacturers, service providers, consumers, and users (Farooque et  al. 2019). A new definition is required from a systemic perspective to include a holistic perspective of performance and a balance among social, environmental, and economic aspects in the short- and long-term as well as foreseen and unforeseen side effects. The discussions around the topic are still progressing, as CE is a widely recognized topic. Different connotations are assigned depending on the discipline, but all are true to their perspective (Korhonen et  al. 2018). Yet, a holistic CE approach across the supply chain has not been addressed, and the evolution of CE has predominately focused on environmental and economic dimensions. In contrast, the literature has neglected social aspects due to its complex and dynamic behavior (Mies and Gold 2021). The latest calls for a reflection on the roles that the social dimension plays in the organizations and their supply chains, particularly considering that the nucleus of all productive ecosystems relies on people (e.g., workers, professionals, consumers) and their inclusion and well-being.

2.2.2 Social Impacts on Supply Chains Every organization (e.g., governments, firms, and NGOs) has to work with different stakeholders to deliver a final product or service. To make this possible and accurately manage multiple interlinkages and dependencies of stakeholders across the supply chain, the concept of supply chain management (SCM) was born (Svensson 2007). Naturally, given the diversity of stakeholders in value networks, some impacts can be expected. However, most of the research on effects and issues has been focused on key performance indicators (KPIs) related to the environment and the financial and economic performance, and less attention has been paid to the social implications (Yawar and Seuring 2018). Nevertheless, it is essential to highlight that KPIs could be controversial due to their limited representation power or interpretation. This section will detail the social impacts across the supply chain, as they have been mostly overlooked due to their heterogeneity and geographical narrowness. These challenges represent new challenges to businesses, which, if effectively managed, could result in a competitive advantage for both buyer and supplier firms or the supply chain as a whole (Yawar and Seuring 2017, 2018). We first consider the definition of social impacts (SI) as consequences of social relations (interactions) weaved in the context of an activity (e.g., production, consumption, transportation or disposal), engendered by it and/or by preventive/reinforcing actions taken by stakeholders (e.g., enforcing safety measures in a facility) (UNEP/SETAC 2013). Social impacts are highly dependent on the culture and the situation; therefore, if they are measured, they have to be interpreted in terms of

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their social context, stakeholders, and other externalities, and not merely on the number given by a metric. As identified by UNEP/SETAC (2013), Rafiaani et al. (2018), and Siebert et al. (2018), these impacts are frequently characterized within the following three dimensions: • Behaviors: Social impacts are caused by a specific behavior like decision-­making processes or actions taken by individuals (e.g., forbidding employees to form unions, allowing illegal child labor, or seizing employees’ identity papers). • Socio-economic processes: Social impacts are the downstream effect of socio-­ economic decisions at a community level. This dimension addresses the question, What is chosen, both at the macro- and micro-level? (e.g., an investment decision in a sector to build infrastructure in a community). • Capitals (human, social, and cultural): Social impacts are those that relate to the original context without altering individuals’ or community’s attributes (e.g., features possessed by an individual, a group, or a society, such as education level). As documented by the literature, impacts can either be positive or negative. Additionally, these three dimensions are not exclusive to a particular topic and can be assumed that they have transversal and dynamic relationships. As an example of this transversal relationship, socio-economic processes impact both areas. They affect behavior that may also be rooted in the attributes possessed by an individual or a group (Petit 2019). Therefore, SI are often perceived as extraordinarily complex due to interactions and always carries different angles, such as politics, economy, ethics, psychology, legal issues, and culture. Also, SI have a truly intricate relationship with the production system and the stakeholders involved, impacting other social and environmental metrics/dimensions. Due to the topic’s heterogeneity, subjectivity, and circumstances, it is impossible to assign specific attributes or unilateral relationships to one particular impact (Wulf et al. 2018) without including stakeholders in the equation and understanding the interconnections among various processes.

2.2.3 A Life Cycle Perspective on Measuring Social Impacts A life cycle assessment should be considered to measure the SI across the entire supply chain, as it is a well-established, disseminated, and systematic approach. It should be included in the method to measure impacts throughout the life cycle of a good or service. The life cycle sustainability analysis (LCSA) is a method developed to understand and identify these impacts, detecting risks and relating a series of effects to each product/service (Guinée 2016). It is based on analyzing the environmental, economic, and social impacts. This methodology makes it possible to obtain a complete picture of the (positive and negative) impacts at all levels. Likewise, it is possible to observe the interaction among the three dimensions of sustainability for the analysis (Purvis et al. 2019).

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These analyses allow companies to achieve a high level of transparency and credibility and approach business objectives such as corporate social responsibility, efficiency, and long-term financial sustainability. Kloepffer (2008) conceptualized the three analyses that create the LCSA as LCSA  LCA  LCC  SLCA

where • • • •

LCSA: life cycle sustainability assessment LCA: life cycle assessment or E-LCA: environmental life cycle assessment LCC: life cycle costing S-LCA: social life cycle assessment

The social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) is an assessment technique that aims to evaluate the social and economic aspects of products/services and their potential positive and negative impacts along their life cycle, encompassing extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, use, re-use, maintenance, recycling, and final disposal (UNEP 2020). S-LCA complements E-LCA with social and socio-economic aspects. It can either be applied on its own or in combination with E-LCA. As mentioned by UNEP/SETAC (2013), social and socio-economic aspects assessed in S-LCA may directly affect stakeholders positively or negatively during the life cycle of a product. S-LCA helps inform incremental improvements but does not provide a breakthrough solution for sustainable consumption and living. Social analysis is currently the least developed within the LCSA. This method considers the impacts of all life cycle stages from the cradle to the grave, looking at the complete life cycle of a product/service. Each stage can be associated with geographic locations where one or more of these processes are carried out (e.g., extraction locations, processing plants, roads, rails, harbors, shops, offices, recycling firms, disposal sites). At each of these geographic locations, social and socio-economic impacts may be observed in the following five main stakeholder categories: • • • •

Workers/employees Local community Society (national, regional, and global) Consumers (covering end-consumers as well as the customers who are part of each step of the supply chain) • Value chain actors/parties (UNEP 2020) A cluster of stakeholders that share the same interests is assigned to these categories, allowing for articulating subcategories and their metrics. The proposed stakeholder categories are deemed to be the main group categories potentially impacted by the life cycle of a product. Additional categories of stakeholders (e.g., NGOs, public authorities) or further differentiation (e.g., management, shareholders,

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suppliers, business partners) can be added later. More detailed and precise subcategories of a specific stakeholder may be identified by improving the granularity of the categories. Nevertheless, as mentioned by Berry and Junkus (2013), it is important for organizations to accurately manage product categories and often provide lists of product categories being excluded for ethical reasons, particularly when discussing about circular economy models where the processes, stakeholders, and interactions are more diverse and more complex to be measured. This complexity calls for a systemic approach for adequately capturing and understanding the social impacts across supply chains. The main idea behind social indicators is to analyze their progress over time at different geographical, decision-making, and time levels. The essential part implies analyzing results based on contextual evidence (i.e., observations, facts, and testimonials) to interpret the results accordingly.

2.3 Systems Thinking and Leverage Points Circular supply chains (CSC), and their social aspects, can be regarded as dynamic, complex systems with high levels of interconnectedness to encompass different aspects of their integrated operation (Sterman 2015; Rodrigues et al. 2016; Cosenz et  al. 2020; Guzzo et  al. 2021; Mies and Gold 2021). These systems of evolving nature comprise a wide array of intrinsic characteristics, as they are constantly changing and past-dependent (Sterman 2012). They display a tightly coupled structure governed by strong relations among variables and circumstances, making up intricate feedback loops (Kampmann 2012). They are self-organizing, which means that the system’s design drives its behavior over time. They are also adaptive because they refer to the capacity of a system to change, in a self-organizing way, to external perturbations to maintain viability, achieve its goals, or attend to its survival. In some cases, adaptability can result in policy resistance to maintaining the status quo. Finally, these systems display nonlinear behavior, wherein effects are not typically proportional to the cause (Sterman 2000, 2001; Repenning and Sterman 2001). Therefore, we take an approach based on systems thinking (ST), more broadly, and system dynamics (SD), more specifically, to analyze and categorize the extant proposition of social indicators for CSC. System dynamics was initially proposed as an application of control theory to socio-technical complex systems, supported by computational modeling and simulation, and targeted at analyzing complex and dynamic behavior (Forrester 1971, 1995; Sterman 2001; Lee et al. 2012; Liao et al. 2015). Moreover, SD provides the language to describe the complex relations, structures, and behaviors driving CSC and their impact on stakeholders and sustainability, specifically those social aspects of their operations. To secure the sustainability of a transition toward a CSC, organizations must implement effective interventions. These interventions involve a series of potential actions that seek to enhance the sustainability impact profile of a given system (i.e., supply chains) (Dorninger et al. 2020). We may perceive the integration of social indicators into CSC to guide interventions to streamline a new, emergent paradigm.

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As Meadows (1999) famously pointed out, interventions come in different shapes and formats, with levels of effectiveness, which can be initially grouped into two large sets, shallow interventions and deep interventions (Meadows 1999). On the one hand, shallow interventions typically reach a minimal capacity to unlock systemic, enduring change. These interventions often emphasize efficiency gains and the optimization of specific parameters within the system (Abson et al. 2017; Dorninger et al. 2020; Leventon et al. 2021). On the other hand, deep interventions potentially lead to effective change; albeit they are more challenging to implement. Deep interventions ultimately drive transitions like those required under the CE paradigm. These interventions involve rearranging socio-technical structures and institutions and their values, goals, beliefs, and paradigms across the supply chain. Furthermore, it directly touches on the world views held by actors within the system. We may see these more profound interventions as mechanisms for shaping and deploying other shallower levels (Meadows 1999; Dorninger et al. 2020; Leventon et al. 2021). Within this context, Donella Meadows introduced the concept of leverage points, which are “places” to intervene in a system where shifts (interventions) have great transformational power (Meadows 1999; Kieft et al. 2020). Leverage points look to identify interventions that are more likely to produce desirable outcomes for sustainability transformations (Leventon et al. 2021). The concept put forth by Meadows in the late 1990s has been recently extended and applied by different scholars in fields dealing with sustainability and technological transitions (de Gooyert et al. 2016; Dorninger et al. 2020; Kieft et al. 2020; Rosengren et al. 2020; West et  al. 2020; Davelaar 2021; Leventon et  al. 2021; Linnér and Wibeck 2021). To further classify Meadow’s 12 leverage points into coherent groups to guide a better understanding and manipulation of their contents and dimensions, Abson et  al. (2017) suggested four categories under which the leverage points could be assigned: parameters, feedback, design, and intent. The leverage points in the parameters group are geared toward mechanistic aspects of systems, such as the physical entities and the standards, constants, taxes, and overall system features (Abson et al. 2017). The interactions among the various elements in a production and consumption system, such as positive and negative feedback loops and specific outcomes, are classified under the feedback group. The design group includes the information flows, the fundamental rules of the system, and the system’s capability to change, evolve or self-organize. Finally, the intent group encompasses all leverage points related to an emergent direction to which the system is oriented, materialized by the goals, mindset, beliefs, and world views underpinning the system’s intrinsic structure and functioning. Table 2.1 shows the 12 leverage points, proposed by Meadows and classified according to the groups presented by Abson et al. (2017), in increasing order of effectiveness from shallow to deep interventions (Abson et al. 2017; Dorninger et al. 2020). In this case, it is essential to highlight that effectiveness means “producing desirable behaviors and impact on sustainability and social aspects” (White et al. 2019).

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Table 2.1  Leverage points in increasing order of effectiveness, according to Meadows (1999) System characteristics Rank (Abson et al. 2017) 12 Parameters

11

10

9

Feedbacks

8

7

6

Leverage point in the systems (“Place to Intervene”) (Meadows 1999) Constants, parameters, and numbers Size of buffers and stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows Structure of material stocks and flows Length of delays relative to the rate of system change Strength of negative feedback loops

Gain of positive feedback loops

Design

Structure of information flows

5

Rules of the system

4

Ability to add, change, evolve or self-organize the system structure Goals of the system

3

2

1

Intent

Mindset or paradigm upon which the system arises Power to transcend the paradigm

Generic examples The subsidies, taxes, and social standards applied to the supply chain and the circular economy models The stock (accumulation) of physical/ human/financial capital and the rate of investments The network of technologies and the underlying social structures in the supply chain Social technology life cycle, development delays, and time-to-market Corrective actions to reduce manufacturing carbon emissions, increase community well-being and create long-term, financially sustainable models Reinvestment of profits generated by products/services in the development of new products/services (reinforcing loop) from a sustainable accountability perspective The availability, traceability, and transparency of information to key decision-making processes in long-lasting social perspectives The set of incentives/punishments and constraints/conditions operating in the systems, be it physical or intangible Rearrangement of assets, human/financial capital, and set of technologies in a supply chain and a circular economy model Goals for employee/consumer well-being, community development, labor relations, stakeholder benefits, social inclusion, increased accessibility, etc. Challenge the linear industrial logic or the growth-seeking mindset to be more inclusive and social-oriented A profound reconsideration of extant paradigms and the ability to lay out alternative paths, such as social-driven CSC

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2.4 Classification of Social Indicators for Circular Supply Chains Social aspects within circular supply chains have been largely overlooked, despite the expansion of research around the topic and the increasing academic discussion on circularity indicators in supply chain management. Additionally, some indicators have not been appropriately positioned or are not explicit enough in their intent (Padilla-Rivera et al. 2020), creating room for impractical measurements and misinterpretation of their results to address social issues in real CSC. Actually, the discussion on social indicators related to CSC is still under development (Padilla-Rivera et al. 2020), as it considers the evolution of social indicators from other disciplines, such as the principles of S-LCA (UNEP 2020), social sustainability aspects (Hutchins et al. 2019), sustainable development (Dempsey et al. 2011), circular economy (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2015), and more recently, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations 2015). It is worth mentioning that, although the SDGs aim to cover a broad range of topics and have defined and delimited targets, the specific definition of their indicators and the proposed classification still need further refinement for application. Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and the principles of S-LCA (UNEP/SETAC 2013) proposed a compilation of potential social indicators for this approach. They elaborated on a more profound investigation and adaptation from a social angle. To cope with the latest and to complement the research performed around the topic, we propose a classification of social indicators through the application of Meadow’s classification framework to CSC by analyzing the indicators presented by Padilla-­ Rivera et al. (2020) and UNEP/SETAC (2013) and allocating them with the corresponding SDG (United Nations 2015). These proposed indicators are consistent with some of the targets of the SDG concerning #3 Good Health and Wellbeing, #5 Gender Equality and Empowerment to Women, #6 Clean Water and Sanitation, #8 Decent Work and Economic Growth, #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, and #12 Responsible Consumption and Production (United Nations 2015), which opens possibilities for further contributions to the legitimate global efforts on the topic. This shortlist of 6 out of 17 considers only the social-related metrics. However, the SDGs propose many targets (i.e., 169) that need to be addressed. Our contribution comes from focusing on determining a reduced number of targets or KPIs (62). This reduction is based on the previous investigations performed by several authors. We highlight that the social aspects are contextual and hard to transfer from one situation to another without tailoring them to the specific environment’s needs in which the social elements play out. Despite this limitation, the framework, the set of indicators, and the methodology should be extended to diverse contexts. The results may be based on various socio-economic, behavioral, and cultural aspects. Therefore, results need to be explained with a testimonial, an example, or an interpretation based on the local context. Table 2.2 connects the system characteristics put forth by Abson et al. (2017) based on Meadow’s leverage points, the indicators proposed by Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and UNEP/SETAC (2013), the SDGs at the goal level, and the corresponding source (either one of the studies, two, or all of them).

Feedback

System characteristics (Abson et al. 2017) Parameters

Indicator Sanitation Investment Assessment of impact on society Product and service labeling Odors and non-core product features Child labor Forced labor Equal opportunity Nondiscrimination Fair salary Working hours Employment Inclusiveness Quality and well-being Work–life balance Labor relations Human rights mechanisms Compliance supplier Compliance Technology development Safe and healthy living conditions Secure living conditions Promoting social responsibility Feedback mechanism

Source Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015)

SGD goals 3 and 6 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, and 17 9, 11, and 17 15 12 8 and 16 8 and 16 2, 4, 5, 10, and 16 5, 10, 16, and 17 8 8 8 and 9 4, 10, 11, 16, and 17 14 8 16 5 and 16 17 8 and 16 5, 7, 9, 12, and 17 3, 11, and 13 1, 3, 11, 13, and 16 10 17

Table 2.2  Relationship between extant social indicators for CSC and the system characteristics defined by Abson et al. (2017) based on the leverage points for systems intervention

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System characteristics (Abson et al. 2017) Design

Indicator Anti-competitive behavior Fair trading relationships Fair distribution of income Training and education Effectiveness and comfort Security practices Social inclusion Social networks Marketing communications Governance Freedom of association and collective bargaining Health and safety Access to material resources Community engagement Consumer health and safety Consumer privacy Fair competition Supplier relationships Local employment Social benefits/social security End-of-life responsibility Public commitments to sustainability issues Respect for intellectual property rights

S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015)

3, 5, 11, 13, 14, and 16 2, 5, 12, 14, and 15 11 12 16 2, 12, 14, and 17 17 14 5 11, 12, and 14 6, 8, 12, 15, and 17 3

(continued)

Source S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015)

SGD goals 17 8, 10, 14, and 17 14 and 17 4, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 14 10 8 1 11 1 and 17 5, 10, 11, 13, 15, and 17 8

2  A Systems Perspective on Social Indicators for Circular Supply Chains 39

System characteristics (Abson et al. 2017) Intent

Table 2.2 (continued)

Indicator Sense of community and belonging Poverty Sharing economy (but not in my backyard, NIMBY) Land rights Participation and local democracy Tourism and recreation Food security Cultural heritage Corruption Contribution to economic development Respect for indigenous rights Prevention and mitigation of armed conflicts Access to immaterial resources Delocalization and migration Transparency

Source Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA, Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015) S-LCA and United Nations (2015)

SGD goals 11 1, 10, 15, and 17 15 5, 11, and 15 10 and 16 8 and 12 2 and 12 11 14, 15, and 16 1, 8, 9, and 17 2 and 4 16 4 and 7 10 and 17 13 and 16

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The proposed classification scheme highlights the gaps and opportunities for measuring social aspects across CSC. Out of the 62 indicators proposed by Padilla-­ Rivera et al. (2020), UNEP/SETAC (2013), and/or United Nations (2015), 11 indicators can be linked to parameters, 13 indicators refer to feedback, 23 indicators belong to the design category, and, finally, the remaining 15 indicators are classified as intent. Therefore, 38 indicators target deep interventions (design and intent), while 24 focus on shallower interventions (parameters and feedback). It can also be seen that SDG goals, due to their innate interconnected design, cannot be directly linked to only one part of the system characteristic proposed by the authors, rather these influence several parts of it through their targets and indicators. These indicators may differ depending on the analysis. Therefore, we encourage readers to take a deep dive into the understanding of the numerical value or scale out of each indicator based on the situation, geography, industry, and context under study, given that similar geographies may face entirely different results based on the socio-economic features, culture, and behaviors (e.g., level of maturity). This result reflects the intrinsic nature of social indicators and complex social systems for CSC. To achieve long-term sustainable circularity, supply chains must incorporate deep interventions that tackle critical social issues, such as poverty, access to immaterial resources, transparency, or prevention and mitigation of conflicts. These are all but shallow, easy-to-implement indicators. However, these deep interventions must be continuously built upon shallower interventions, which might demonstrate quick wins and easy-to-implement strategies, such as product labeling, non-discrimination, equal opportunity policies, fair salaries, and fair working hours. As Wieland (2021) pointed out, supply chains have traditionally adopted a reductionist, static view that favors a global pursuit for cheap labor and higher resources/asset utilization. Therefore, supply chains are commonly managed without much regard for their broader environmental and social contexts. Consequently, it is easy to overlook that supply chains have become both vulnerable and harmful (Wieland 2021). This classification scheme sheds light on the importance of thinking in terms of transformative supply chains at all levels of interventions, from shallow, parameter-­ oriented to deeper, intent-driven ones. This scheme contributes to operationalizing these interventions through a set of meaningful indicators for the context in a modular way, i.e., context-based specific KPIs will be used and interpreted considering cultural, socio-economic, and behavioral aspects. Also, the ranking helps understand how deep supply chains are embedding the social dimensions into their decision-­making and daily practices and how these dimensions are mediating or moderating the relationship between the supply chains, among their stakeholders, and their contextual environment. However, it is essential to highlight that these indicators must be tailored to the characteristics of the specific supply chains, and many of them must be managed across the traditional functional divide in organizations, touching upon many areas. Therefore, the systemic aspect of management must be highlighted when dealing with social issues across supply chains for CSC.

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2.5 Illustrative Examples and Managerial Insights Academicians and practitioners might use this classification scheme to analyze challenging socio-economic issues across supply chains. To illustrate how the integration of the leverage points with the reviewed indicators from the previous section may be used, we present an example. This case looks to ensure accessibility to fresh produce, water, and healthcare services to underserved communities from the perspective of social circular economy models in Table 2.3, using the information in the research presented by Taylor and Barreto (2020). As shown in Table 2.3, when matching the SDG indicators to the corresponding example, it is evident that many indicators need to be allocated to portray them more precisely within the SCM framework. The latter is due to the specificity of SDG indicators. For example, in the case of “Targeted subsidies for low-income consumers to increase affordability, reduced taxes for meeting points that can allow for recovering goods or facilitating the offer of healthcare services,” currently allocated at rank 12 (i.e., Parameter characteristics), the SDG indicators include the following: • “1.a.1 Total official development assistance grants from all donors that focus on poverty reduction as a share of the recipient country’s gross national income” • “3.b.3 Proportion of health facilities that have a core set of relevant essential medicines available and affordable on a sustainable basis” • “17.1.2 Proportion of domestic budget funded by domestic taxes”. This example shows that the current SDG indicators are too specific, present significant limitations, and cannot be directly used as indicators within the SCM scope. We emphasize that the interpretation of these three indicators will determine the difference in how to drive them into practice. The proposed focus of this chapter shows that there are essential (theoretical and practical) gaps to be addressed in the interface among circular economy models, supply chain management, and social impacts. However, organizations show the most significant opportunity in finding ways to deploy long-term operating models that base their competitive advantage on social perspectives. A social-based competitive advantage is a masterpiece many organizations aim to have. Still, just a few are committed to engaging in this journey that will be rewarded with long-lasting customer loyalty and brand recognition. It is worth highlighting that this approach goes beyond corporate social responsibility and implies an agreement to support society and other community stakeholders. Thus, it will improve the local economy, boost employment generation, and create effective operations (including CE-enabled ones), zero-waste ecosystems, and collaborative schemes for progress. There is also an excellent opportunity to work collaboratively across industries to recover more goods or better use intermediate products to reduce the growing need for more manufacturing and/or consumption resources. Most supply chains are currently working as silos, as departments from companies used to work (and a significant majority still are) 20–30 years ago. A holistic approach connects them strategically to plan new synergies, which may generate new products and

Size of buffers and stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows

Structure of material stocks and flows

10

Leverage point in the systems (“Place to Intervene”) (Meadows 1999) Constants, parameters, and numbers

11

System characteristics (Abson et al. Rank 2017) 12 Parameters Examples Targeted subsidies for low-income consumers to increase affordability, reduced taxes for meeting points that can allow for recovering goods, or facilitating the offer of healthcare services Increased investments in emerging infrastructure to increase accessibility and availability of goods and services (i.e., ridesharing systems, affordable grocery delivery models or mobile stations, local-based supply chains based on neighborhood markets and meeting points) to grow visibility over physical information cash flows Create a well-grounded network of stakeholders and, if the technological maturity allows it, among information systems. The objective is to share information and align goals to put them together with the help of an orchestrator in food, water, or healthcare ecosystems. This requires a granular understanding of interactions of local actors to facilitate collaboration and articulation to perform logistics, reutilization, redistribution, and recovery activities in a structured way

(continued)

3.9.2; 4.4.1; 6.2.1; 6.5.1; 6.5.2; 6.6.1; 7.1.2; 9.c.1; 17.16.1

2.5.2; 9.a.1; 11.5.2; 17.17.1

SDG indicators (examples) (United Nations 2015) 1.a.1; 3.b.3; 17.1.2

Table 2.3  Example of the accessibility of goods and services to underserved communities, according to Meadows (1999) and using information from Taylor and Barreto (2020)

2  A Systems Perspective on Social Indicators for Circular Supply Chains 43

Strength of negative feedback loops

Gain of positive feedback loops

7

Leverage point in the systems (“Place to Intervene”) (Meadows 1999) Length of delays relative to the rate of system change

8

System characteristics (Abson et al. Rank 2017) 9 Feedbacks

Table 2.3 (continued)

Examples Analyzing the level of competencies and skill set of shopkeepers, authorities, healthcare providers, logisticians, and others at a local level and creating training programs to develop those skills and attitudes Map the level of maturity of infrastructure and technology development in the underserved community to create tailor-made investment programs to increase supply chain and circular economy capabilities Determination of key performance indicators with a social focus like reducing inaccessibility to goods and services, increasing demand satisfaction and affordability for people to get essential goods/services, rising fairness/equity, and social inclusion for all population segments, and design logistics, commercial, and social strategies to correct issues from the systems under consideration Expanding good practices to recover goods and reinsert them into supply chains as processed goods or recycled drinkable water. Also, monitoring the effects of inserting new services/goods into underserved communities concerning pricing, availability, and cannibalization of others to look for increasing accessibility, availability, and affordability globally

3.b.3; 4.7.1; 6.1.1; 6.2.1; 6.3.1; 11.5.2

1.4.1; 1.b.1; 5.6.2; 7.1.1; 11.2.1; 14.b.1; 16.3.3; 16.10.2;

4.4.1; 9.c.1; 17.3.1; 17.5.1;

SDG indicators (examples) (United Nations 2015) 4.1.1; 4.1.2; 4.2.1; 4.2.2; 4.3.1; 4.3.2; 4.7.1; 4.c.1; 9.5.2; 12.8.1; 13.3.1

44 D. Hidalgo-Carvajal et al.

4

5

System characteristics (Abson et al. Rank 2017) 6 Design

Examples Visibility, availability, traceability, and information transparency across producers, suppliers, processors, retailers, or service-givers may be crucial. Especially to map coverage, monitor perishability of goods (i.e., vaccines, food), ensure quality, and gain real-time information to make decisions and take actions to be more proactive, flexible, and adaptable Rules of the system Realize and embrace constraints and conditions related to infrastructure development, technology adoption/diffusion, financial service penetration, training level, customer needs, and articulation among diverse stakeholders, explicitly understanding the limitations that behaviors and interactions may bring to interventions Plan, design, and deploy a plan of (dis-) incentives to create effective strategies to run intervention schemes in underserved communities Ability to add, change, evolve, or Divert physical flows of water, food, and medical supplies self-organize the system structure through circular economy systems through high-­ performance supply chains Design innovative food, water, and medical supply access models through social fabric, commercial supply chains, and the coordination and usage of deployed technologies and assets by public authorities, the private sector, and other NGOs to recover goods or use them

Leverage point in the systems (“Place to Intervene”) (Meadows 1999) Structure of information flows

(continued)

1.b.1; 5.c.1; 7.1.2; 8.4.1; 8.4.2; 9.c.1; 11.4.1; 12.b.1

3.b.1; 3.b.3; 6.1.1; 6.2.1; 6.3.1; 6.3.2; 6.4.1; 6.4.2;

15.b.1; 17.3.1

4.1.1; 4.1.2; 4.2.1; 4.2.2; 4.3.1; 4.3.2; 5.b.1; 9.a.1; 9.c.1; 12.a.1; 11.5.2; 17.7.1

SDG indicators (examples) (United Nations 2015) 2.1.2; 2.5.1; 4.4.1; 12.3.1; 12.4.1; 13.a.1; 16.4.2; 16.6.1; 16.10.2

2  A Systems Perspective on Social Indicators for Circular Supply Chains 45

1

2

System characteristics (Abson et al. Rank 2017) 3 Intent

Table 2.3 (continued)

Examples Goals for vulnerable consumer’s coverage, the disparity in the accessibility (to fresh food, water, medical supplies, and healthcare services), social inclusion, demand satisfaction, and affordability Mindset or paradigm upon which Create recovery models to rescue food from farmers, the system arises retailers, and wholesalers before disposal (same applies for water to find ways to recycle, redistribute, or reuse it) at a community level For increasing accessibility to goods, emerging distribution channels may appear to boost the availability of essential products at the community level. There are new ways to serve communities via medical campaigns through religious groups in distant areas and other models for medical attention. Challenge the linear industrial logic or the growth-seeking mindset to be more inclusive and social-oriented Power to transcend the paradigm Create social-oriented supply chains and circular economy models that support the development of vulnerable population segments and help close the micro-economic and social gap

Leverage point in the systems (“Place to Intervene”) (Meadows 1999) Goals of the system

1.3.1; 1.4.2; 1.5.2; 1.5.4; 2.1.1; 2.1.2; 4.5.1; 6.2.1; 11.2.1; 11.5.2

2.c.1; 3.8.1; 3.8.2; 4.5.1; 6.2.1; 9.3.1; 14.2.1; 14.4.1; 14.b.1; 15.1.2; 15.6.1; 16.10.2

2.2.2; 2.3.1; 6.3.1; 6.a.1; 11.6.1; 12.3.1; 12.4.1; 12.4.2;

SDG indicators (examples) (United Nations 2015) 1.3.1; 1.a.2; 3.8.1; 3.b.3; 6.1.1; 9.1.1; 10.2.1; 11.1.1; 11.b.2;

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value-­added services from residues and waste to use circular economy concepts and migrate society into service-based, circular economy models. We expect these models to endure a long time and support crucial social metrics for humankind’s future, such as social inclusion, equal accessibility to water, food, healthcare services, and opportunities to get proper work, even if individuals live in challenging circumstances. Here, the role and articulation of the private sector, NGOs, public sector, and academia will make a huge difference by pushing coordinated efforts to improve society and productive as well as (macro- and micro-)economic systems as a whole.

2.6 Concluding Remarks Despite there being a lot of literature on practical and theoretical approaches that address social attributes in circular economy and supply chain management, we are the first to articulate circular economy concepts and supply chain management with social lenses, in what we can summarize as social-driven circular supply chains. This book chapter introduces core concepts about supply chains, circularity principles, and their evolution to incorporate social factors. We present social indicators from the traditional perspective of life cycle assessment and the emerging approach of the circular economy. Previous literature was focused on documenting various key performance indicators. However, to provide a strategic analysis, we position a systemic-thinking approach around circular supply chains through the framework of leverage points (Meadows 1999) to take a deep dive into the understanding of CSC and their interconnectedness by analyzing the social impact coming from parameters, feedback, design, and intent. We propose a model of indicators for operationalizing social circular supply chains to explore the circumstances and context around the supply chains. We discuss social attributes that may be considered in different situations and help diagnose and assess the status of social circular supply chains. We present a practical, illustrative example of accessibility to goods and services in underserved communities to show the applicability of our approach. Finally, we would like to highlight that the specificity of the SDG indicators presents limitations as their formal definition is out of SCM’s scope, even though the SDGs at goal and target levels could be matched within the scope. The indicators will need to be analyzed meticulously and interpreted based on the culture, geography, context, and current situation. Moreover, there seems to be a more direct connection to SCM for a couple of SDG goals, depending on the different levels, such as decision-making and maturity levels. However, these are only partially or indirectly influenced by alliances and partnerships for most of them. We don’t consider that the indicators can provide a unique interpretation of the reality; instead, we think that they can help provide a deeper understanding of the situations and build good practices and archetypes and develop programs to overcome challenging social issues. Therefore, there is a growing need to further the research around SDG indicators, adapting them to SC scope, creating “new” sets of indicators suitable for SC operations and their social impact in line with the SDGs.

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Chapter 3

The Relation Between Social Inclusion and Circular Economy Performance: An Analysis of Circular Economy Social Practices and Their Contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals Lucila M. de Souza Campos, Alexandre Augusto Karl, and Diego A. Vazquez-Brust Abstract  The circular economy (CE) model, a rising topic in academia, industry, and government, can lead to the provision of social well-being for the people who are participating in its transition. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the CE aims to combine economic growth with environmental and social concerns, with the purpose of generating zero waste and providing high levels of social benefits. However, it is observed there is a gap in the literature of an in-depth analysis of the social practices of the CE in order to strengthen the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda with research focused solely on the social dimension of the CE, its aspects, and numerous possible benefits. Seeking to fulfill this gap, this study aimed at elaborating a frame with the main social practices of the CE, linking them to the SDGs. As a contribution, the research found out that certain practices of the CE are closely connected with the social dimension, offering contributions for the improvement of global social welfare. Furthermore, the social practices of the CE are related

L. M. de Souza Campos (*) Department of Production Engineering, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] A. A. Karl Graduate Program in Production Engineering, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] D. A. Vazquez-Brust Graduate Program in Production Engineering, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil Faculty of Business and Law, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_3

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to the SDGs, which can be implemented and advanced through social circular initiatives, impacting the social inclusion of individuals who previously did not have opportunities for economic advancement in the social environment. Keywords  Social aspects · Socially inclusive · Circularity

3.1 Introduction The circular economy (CE), in its concept, receives more and more attention from countries around the world as an alternative to the current “take, make, and dispose” system (Stahel 2016; Haupt and Hellweg 2019). In its proposal, CE projects the replacement of open and linear production cycles—which are inefficient—in closed cycles, or closed loops, in which total waste is transformed into input to be reincorporated into production processes or minimized in their manufacture, creating value in all processes of the chain (Blomsma and Brennan 2017; Homrich et al. 2018; Sehnem et al. 2019). This linearity arises from the premise that natural resources are abundant and always available for use in production processes, besides being cheap and easily found and discarded, which is untrue and a complete negligence on the part of the organizations and their stakeholders, bringing about harm to the planet and all living beings by challenging the planetary limits (Steffen et al. 2015). However, in relation to society in general, consumers, and other stakeholders, the CE was discovered when it emerged as a paradigm break, mainly by highlighting the multiple possible paths to sustainable development, in addition to proposing goals and ways to create value for stakeholders (Padilla-Rivera et al. 2020). Thus, it is noted that the transformation from a linear model to a model with focus, full understanding and based on the cycles of nature, is the goal of CE, which imposes the non-generation of waste disposal and closed cycles, both technological and biological (EMF 2015). According to Nava (2020), the linear model approach is the process of obtaining raw materials from natural sources that are discarded and not recycled at the end of the production process. Moreover, the author notes that the adoption of a circular business model represents the ideal concept developed so far, without the depletion of raw materials due to the circular processes implemented, and the implementation models adopted, such as upcycling (a model that proposes the reuse of final products, with respect for the environment and a lot of creativity), emphasize the ability of organizations to propose innovative solutions, combining economic growth and preservation of natural resources. According to Geissdoerfer et  al. (2017) and Murray et  al. (2017), the CE has promising potential for the society and its stakeholders. It is worth noting, according to Ingallina (2017), that the CE brings in its social dimension advantages to society, such as the distribution of social benefits and its policies, in addition to practices that generate the creation and quality of jobs.

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It is also observed that these factors are often not associated but prove the need to be incorporated and studied together to ensure progress in the socioeconomic dimension, just as the European Union (EU) is performing circular actions in its production processes, which infer directly on people (Ingallina 2017). Sustainable practices have been receiving increasing attention as well in the recent decades from policymakers, businesses, and academia (Stahel 2017; Sadhukhan et al. 2020). This movement lacks legislative and organizational input due to the global commitments made by countries and organizations to reduce pollutant gas emissions, resource scarcity, and restructure waste management (EMF 2015; Zhang et al. 2019). According to Rashed and Shah (2021), it can be noted that companies are critical stakeholders, or interested parties, in the implementation of circular and sustainable practices in production processes, being able to accelerate the achievement and fulfillment of the SDGs of the United Nations Agenda 2030 (UN 2015). Moreover, research indicates that several win-win situations for corporate business, society, and the environment are generated with the engagement of private sector corporations (Scheyvens et al. 2016; Dantas et al. 2020). The ability to implement circular practices and the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda are related to addressing global social challenges (El Wali et al. 2021). The authors list poverty and social inequality as the issues that can be overcome by advancing the SDGs, since the UN SDGs include 17 goals that aim to steer the implementation of practices to achieve specific targets addressing such social challenges. With the rate of poverty reduction slowing from 2015 to the present day (UNDP 2020), other problems are also noted such as the alarming levels of child labor, with over 150 million children working in 2016 and that number growing by 4% in the last decade (ILO 2020). In addition, El Wali et  al. (2021) cite global water scarcity, a vital resource that, according to UNDP (2020), affects up to 40% of the world’s population. Finally, population growth with the consequent demand for healthy food makes the issue of food insecurity, declining soil fertility, and impeded adequate food supply issues that must be addressed (FAO 2021). According to El Wali et  al. (2021), these abovementioned problems could be resolved by introducing the practice of CE. Furthermore, the authors also mention that joining efforts for the implementation of the SDGs together with circular practices can bring about benefits for the global population, combating the problems exposed in the 2030 Agenda. It is worth highlighting that social aspects are neglected in most of their definitions regarding SDGs, while most documents expose, clarify, and substantiate the linkage of economic and environmental issues (Homrich et al. 2018). Meanwhile, according to Diener and Tillman (2016) and Homrich et al. (2018), it is verified that environmental and economic issues are more frequent in terms of discussion and global concern. However, because of the need to understand the social dimension for the perennial implementation of the CE, integrated policies and regulations are needed to directly impact the well-being of communities and employees of industries.

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Authors such as Borrello et al. (2020) criticize the CE for not targeting the SDGs, especially with regard to the social dimension and its practices. For Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020), the inclusion of the SDGs in the CE in social practices is necessary and should not be neglected. The authors further note that studies focused on the social dimension of CE for the 2030 Agenda can assist in greater global sustainability. In this regard, this chapter aims to analyze the main practices and initiatives of the CE that focus and contribute to the social dimension, to characterize the current social practices of the CE identified in relation to the SDGs (UN Agenda 2030). The chapter is divided into six parts. The first presents the literature review on SDGs and social practices in CE. Then, the second part discusses the conceptual framework, identifying what are CE practices and what are social SDGs. The third part presents the methodology. The fourth part shows the results, with a practice-by-­ practice analysis. The sixth part presents the discussion, and, finally, the last part propounds the final considerations of the chapter.

3.2 Literature Review on SDGs and Social Practices in CE According to Bleischwitz et al. (2018), the urgency for universal access to water, food, and environmental protection is an interrelated demand. The author further notes that these needs stem from population growth, increased demand for natural resources, climate change, and progressive urbanization with new global challenges. According to Calabrese et al. (2021), to combat such problems, the UN introduced a new sustainable paradigm with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for SDGs. The author describes that companies must respond and achieve good results with the 17 primary goals (Table  3.1), 169 targets, and 244 indicators created, facing complex changes for their implementation. For the United Nations (2017), the 2030 Agenda (A/RES/70/1) provides goals and targets to end poverty, ensure prosperity, and protect the planet. In addition, it sought to establish 244 indicators (A/RES/71/313), with a view to ensuring transparency of measurement mechanisms, comparability of the SDGs, and data compliance with consistency (UN 2017). The 2030 Agenda considers the planet, individuals, the issue of peace, prosperity, and partnerships as the basis for global sustainable development (UN 2015). Regarding the SDGs, according to Belmonte-Ureña et al. (2021), it can be noted that the SDGs are interdependent, that is, they should not be treated independently. The optimization of social, environmental, and economic aspects in a sustainable development context still generates adversities, since it is necessary to ensure the current economic growth without harming future generations. With a view to obtaining the abovementioned needs, several concepts have been incorporated, such as inclusive growth, associating economic growth with social goals, and inclusive development, focusing on the social dimension (Pattberg and Zelli 2015). With the purpose of boosting global efforts to encourage sustainable development, which is grounded in current European policies and treaties, the Agenda for

3  The Relation Between Social Inclusion and Circular Economy Performance… Table 3.1 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

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SDG type No poverty Zero hunger Good health and well-being Quality education Gender equality Clean water and sanitation Affordable and clean energy Decent work and economic growth Industry innovation and infrastructure Reduced inequalities Sustainable cities and communities Responsible consumption and production Climate action Life below water Life on land Peace, justice, and strong institutions Partnership for the goals

Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations in 2015 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals emerges (Eurostat 2020). The 17 goals report the fundamental issues faced by society, representing the path to the promotion of sustainable practices focused on socio-environmental aspects. Still, it is noted that the two currents, CE and SDGs, are gaining worldwide recognition with the potential to cause substantial changes to society (Dantas et al. 2020). Thus, it is also important to say that the SDGs were inspired by the MDGs, or Millennium Development Goals, which were created in 2000 with a view to fighting poverty (UN 2015). The SDGs contain guidelines for actions for social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and economic development with the purpose of combating inequalities, injustices, containing climate change, and eradicating extreme poverty (UNDP 2017). In short, regarding the social aspects described by the SDGs, one should recognize the possible social benefits and facilitate the global implementation of the SDGs (Terama et al. 2016). The CE can directly affect the social dimension, with numerous benefits such as job creation, job quality, and greater distribution of benefits among the most vulnerable sectors of the population. Furthermore, it is noted that the increase in the quality of jobs represents a relevant advance in the population’s well-being; however, there are social benefits that have not yet been explored (EEA 2016). According to Wijkman and Skanberg (2015), one can highlight the importance of integrating circular strategies in public and organizational policies. In this way, the transition to the CE can generate high benefits such as social welfare, employment, and competitiveness (Wijkman and Skånberg 2015; Green Alliance 2015).

58 Table 3.2  Social SDGs

L. M. de Souza Campos et al. SDG number 1 2 3 5 10 16 17

Social SDG No poverty Zero hunger Good health and well-being Gender equality Reduced inequalities Peace, justice, and strong institutions Partnership for the goals

For the coming years, positive trends are expected regarding the CE, environmental aspects, and the implementation of the SDGs (Green Alliance 2015). According to Ingallina (2017), the strategies adopted by Europe regarding the circularity of its processes associating the social SDGs represent a nexus of social benefits, values, and achievements linked to the idea of a welfare state. This will report on the seven social SDGs (Table 3.2), which interact with and are benefited by the social practices of the CE. Although other SDGs may present social benefits, only the seven shown in Table 3.2 were addressed by the literature review process (Sect. 3.4). Furthermore, it is observed that a full understanding of these SDGs in a thorough way makes it possible to discuss their social aspects involved in the CE, making the concepts and future actions agree upon circular practices. To examine the social content of the CE, several studies had different approaches that presented the theme in a direct or indirect way, such as the research of the assessment of consumers’ contributions to CE strategies aiming at reducing food waste (Borello et al., 2017), the comparison of social aspects of tourism sectors with linear versus circular practices (Girard and Nocca 2017), and the analysis of the role of organizations in creating new organizational forms in all dimensions of sustainability for the transition to the CE (Fischer and Pascucci 2017). In addition to these, other studies were carried out such as the identification of social metrics to optimize the value of recovered resources and products from CE (Iacovidou et al. 2017), social indicator research by experts for the reordering and consensus of key indicators using fuzzy (quantitative)–Delphi (qualitative) (Padilla-­ Rivera et al. 2021), and an extended study for the analysis of the circular economy concept, needed for the social pillar as part of it, including human well-being, healthy aging, health, and social justice (Nikanorova and Stankeviciene 2020). Also, other features in research have been addressed, such as conducting a systematic literature review to analyze and discuss how social aspects have been considered and integrated in CE so far (Padilla-Rivera et al. 2020), presenting a holistic view of pressing social and environmental concerns related to buildings, which can be used to identify sustainable strategies for realizing a circular built environment in Japan (Wuyts et al. 2019) and the discussion of some examples of how the social impact of the circular economy concept can be addressed in courses and curricula in engineering education (Cappuyns and Stough 2016).

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Finally, concepts were studied such as looking at some of the conceptual assumptions underlying the consumer involved in the CE, finding that there is an understudied view on cultural relationships, which in turn is creating barriers to transformation and transition to CE (Hobson 2020). It was also found that consideration of the possibilities and challenges is inherent in applying digital technologies to leverage the development of inclusive and diverse circular economic spaces around a city’s reuse, repair and recycling infrastructure, driving the socio-ecological transformations of urban spaces (Lekan and Rogers 2020). According to Hobson (2020), the CE must interact with the cultural aspects, norms, habits, and meanings that make up the daily lives of individuals in their social formation. The author argues that the study of cultural aspects and its complexity establishes it as a barrier to the implementation of the CE, emphasizing the challenge of making the consumer, once accustomed to hyper-consumption, aware of the need to change his consumption modus operandi. The existing global changes are often difficult to understand by a massive part of the population, making the actions necessary to combat disruptions a cultural challenge (Norgaard 2011). Also, the author points out that individuals who have the knowledge of harmful changes to the environment and social aspects usually do not perform the necessary actions to combat them. According to Sachdeva et  al. (2015), a common sense among communities is needed to decrease environmental impacts, called constructive optimism. While political attention and corporate effort are key elements for the implementation of CE, Hobson (2020) pointed out that collective civic deepening is also necessary, generating a sense of belonging to the environment with practical social changes coming from structured transformations. In sum, of all the studies analyzed that are immediately related to the social theme of the CE, one notices that none addresses the objectives indicated by this research, i.e., to identify practices, linking them to the SDGs and to rank them, validating their use, ultimately, with competent organizations. There are several CE practices that are discussed in previous works; however, it is necessary to address them to the social context, as the frequency of studies on environmental impacts is increasing in both quantitative and qualitative studies. However, it is also inferred that it is necessary to interpret and analyze the social aspects (Dreyer et al. 2006; Cappuyns and Stough 2016). According to Dantas et al. (2020), several authors have described CE practices (Chen et al. 2020; Jabbour et al. 2020; Tolstykh et al. 2020); however, it is important to state that CE plays a key role in increasing the well-being of individuals and communities. Nevertheless, in light of the extensive social contributions of CE, it should be mentioned that most current researches are focused on the economic value aspects of products, obscuring the numerous social benefits and changes in social impacts arising from circular strategies (Moreau et al. 2017; Korhonen et al. 2018; Merli et al. 2018; Schroeder et al. 2019; Padilla-Rivera et al. 2021), attesting to the need for characterization of the social practices of the CE. By analyzing the documents obtained, one could verify the social practices of the CE mentioned by the articles. Thus, based on this detailing, Table 3.3 was created,

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which shows the 11  CE practices that contribute to the social dimension, which were taken from the 40 documents shown in the methodology. In the next section of the work, the social CE practices were discussed with the contribution of several authors who support the theme. With a view to better grounding on the theme, new authors were also added, which make up the following section with the purpose of making the study more comprehensive and establishing the key elements of the research in relation to the social dimension, not only limiting themselves to the authors analyzed. All authors cited are commented on in the following section, with the author’s position on the theme.

3.3 Methodology Initially, a literature review protocol was used to ensure reproducibility, reliability, and research transparency, thus following the adopted guidelines and ensuring a methodical and rigorous review process (Thomé et al. 2016). Table 3.4 exposes the review protocol used with five main steps, following the guidelines of Tranfield et al. (2004). Based on the proposed objective of analyzing which social practices of the CE contribute to the SDGs, two review questions were elaborated to identify literature information that will provide support to better understand the phenomenon under study. QR1. What social practices of the CE are found in the literature? QR2. What is the contribution of social CE practices to the social SDGs? QR1 seeks to find and list the social practices of CE available in the literature. In this way, all practices of CE were observed in order to segregate those that have a social contribution character supported by research, that is, no practice will be neglected until it is investigated and weighted under a social perspective. Finally, QR2 aims at identifying the contribution of the social practices of the CE in relation to the social SDGs, analyzing and relating the social SDGs to the practices obtained in QR1, with the assumption of advancing in the state of the art of the theme, based on the theme of social CE. To answer the research questions, keywords, constructs, and strings were identified that followed the parameters established in Table 3.5. The databases consulted to search for articles that answered the proposed literature questions were ISI Web of Science and Scopus databases. Each string plays a relevant role in consolidating solid theoretical knowledge to facilitate the association of the contents and answer the proposed questions. From the group of papers identified in the first search in the two databases, 517 articles had their titles, abstracts, and keywords read and were then selected after checking whether they were related to the CE theme and whether they might contribute to the social dimension, in addition to eliminating duplicates (first selection), resulting in 311 articles. It is worth mentioning that, for the elimination of the

Upcycling

Waste-to-Energy

Recycling

Remanufacture

Reuse

Repair

Product as a Service

Circular Business Models

Sharing Economy

✓

✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓

Circular Design

Composting

Circular Economy Social Practices

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓

✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✓

✓

✓ ✓ ✓

✓

Table 3.3  Social CE practices

Fadeeva and Berkel (2021) Padilla-Rivera et al. (2021) Abbasi and Kamal (2020) Arora et al. (2020) Chen et al. (2020) Dantas et al. (2020) Dev et al. (2020) Jabbour et al. (2020) Pohlmann et al. (2020)

✓

Priyadarshini and Abhilash (2020)

✓

✓ ✓

✓

Ramakrishna et al. (2020)

✓

Šebestová and Sroka (2020) Udugama et al. (2020)

✓

✓

✓

Yadav et al. (2020)

✓

✓

Fassio and Tecco (2019)

✓

✓

✓

✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓

Gravagnuolo et al. (2019) Pla-Julián and Guevara (2019) Rodriguez-Anton et al. (2019) Schroeder et al. (2019) Türkeli et al. (2019) Mohan et al. (2019)

✓

Beier et al. (2018)

✓

✓

✓

Esmaeilian et al. (2018)

✓ ✓

✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓

✓

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓

Garcia-Muiña et al. (2018) Goyal et al. (2018) Kalmykova et al. (2018) Korhonen et al. (2018) Homrich et al. (2018) Stock et al. (2018) Blomsma and Brennan (2017) Geissdoerfer et al. (2017) Mestre and Cooper (2017) Pomponi and Moncaster (2017) ✓

Velenturf and Purnell (2017)

✓

✓

Bocken et al. (2016)

✓

✓

Ghisellini et al. (2016)

✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓

✓

Lewandowski (2016) Lieder and Rashid (2016) Geng et al. (2012) Zhu et al. (2010)

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Table 3.4  Literature review protocol Steps Activities Development of the Development of the review questions to achieve the study objective questions Study location Elaboration of search strings Search in databases, ISI Web of Science and Scopus Analysis of articles published without a defined time horizon Study selection and First selection: Title, abstract, and choice of keywords evaluation Second selection: Introduction, conclusion, and search for article content Third selection: Reading and evaluation of the full articles assessing four main points, quality of the journal, accessibility, theoretical–empirical content, and unit of analysis Analysis and Thorough reading of all the selected articles synthesis Content analysis of the selected articles, observing the practices of CE in the social dimension and SDGs Presentation of Development of answers to the review questions based on the literature results Critical analysis from a social perspective of CE practices and their relationship with the social SDGs

duplicate articles, the Mendeley Software was used, given the friendly and intuitive interface of the program, thus facilitating the result. Next, the introduction and conclusion were analyzed to select only the most relevant articles for research, choosing only studies that would help answer the proposed QRs, resulting in a number of 156 articles (second selection). After reading the complete articles, they were evaluated on the following general criteria (third selection): verification of the quality of the articles through their contribution; robustness of arguments; theoretical basis; methodological rigor; and, besides the analysis of the quality of the chosen journals (academic and peer-reviewed journals), accessibility (articles in English and Portuguese), theoretical content (CE practices in the broad context of the social dimension), empirical content (qualitative and quantitative), and unit of analysis (social practices of the CE related to countries, organizations, institutions, and people). Finally, the selection for the literature review was 62 articles, serving as a foundation to answer the QRs and to establish progress to the state of the art of the theme. To complement the 62 articles in the selection, the backward snowballing method was used, which aims to use the reference list to identify new papers to be included. To do so, following the guidelines of Wohlin (2014), the first step was to go through the reference list and exclude papers that did not meet the basic criteria, such as research in languages other than English or Portuguese (criteria of the initial search); it is worth noting that, as no time horizon was assigned, the same criteria stretched for the method in screen as well as the type of publication. Next, articles that had already been examined based on having been found previously were removed. It is worth noting that the first two steps in the analysis process of the backward snowballing method involve extracting as much information as possible from the portfolio of observed studies (Wohlin 2014). Thus, metadata such as title (to see

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Table 3.5  Search queries Constructs Circular economy

Social aspects

Circular economy and social development goals

Social circular economy

Keywords Circular economy Circularity Social aspects Social indicator Social issue Social implication Social impact Social value Social capital Socially inclusive Inclusive Circular economy Circularity Social development goals 2030 agenda 2030 agenda for sustainable development Circular economy Circularity Social aspects Social indicator Social issue Social implication Social impact Social value Social capital Socially inclusive Inclusive

Search queries (“Circular economy” or “circularity”)

(“social aspect*” or “social indicator*” or “social issue*” or “social implication*” OR “social impact*” or “social value*” or “social capital” or “social* inclusive” or “inclusive”)

(“Circular economy” or “circularity”) and (“Social Development Goal*” or “2030 Agenda”)

(“Circular economy” or “circularity”) and (“social aspect*” or “social indicator*” or “social issue*” or “social implication*” or “social impact*” or “social value*” or “social capital” or “social* inclusive” or “inclusive”)

relevance and adherence), place of publication (investigating whether the journal has relevant articles published), and authors (whether the authors have published relevant articles in the area studied before, as an article may be more likely to be included if the author regularly publishes in the area) were examined in the reference list. After carefully examining and evaluating the information found in the reference list, all the information available in the paper to be examined was refined to find the potentially new study to be included, called the initial backward snowballing search. Finally, the reading of the articles selected for validation as entering the literature portfolio is done again following the guidelines of Tranfield et al. (2004) starting by

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reading the title (first selection), navigating through the most relevant parts of the article to be able to decide on inclusion or exclusion in an efficient way. In summary, the resulting portfolio of studies after analyzing the documents in databases, as well as making use of the backward snowballing method, was 119 articles. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this research, a bibliographic search was also conducted in international reports of organizations and foundations such as the World Health Organization, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, The Frank Jackson Foundation, the Green Alliance, the Center for Life Cycle Assessment, and worldwide databases, e.g., Eurostat, conferences such as the Circular Economy Stakeholder Conference and a search in the United Nations (UN) database for treaties, declarations, conventions, and resolutions related to topics social and/or socially inclusive CE, sustainability, and SDGs to understand a possible imposing nature of social circular practices, totaling in 15 documents added to the 119 articles, that is, 134 documents.

3.4 Results: Cause-and-Effect Nexus Between Practices and Social Benefits in the Circular Economy This section discusses the cause-and-effect nexus between social practices and benefits in the CE, presenting the social practices of the CE and their contributions to the social dimension.

3.4.1 Circular Design In its definition, the circular design (CD) exposes a set of specific descriptions of other design models, such as ecological, sustainable, and environmental design, which encompass new business models and product development that aim to mitigate environmental impacts (De los Rios and Charnley 2017). In the meantime, it is notorious that there is a lack of synergy between product designers and stakeholders throughout the CE value chain, due to the lack of synchrony between the end-of-life cycle treatment of a product and its initial design, in addition to the limited communication between production sectors (Martínez Leal et al. 2020). The concept of CD was introduced to overcome this problem, being a compilation of different design models, such as ecological design, sustainable design, and design for the environment, which has as its premise the adherence of new business models in product development in order to mitigate environmental impacts, focusing on increasing the utilitarian sustainable value of inputs and reducing waste in the output of the post-consumption phase (Vihma and Moora 2020). It is verified, therefore, that current products, even in a business context of high competition and products of increasing complexity, must meet circular characteristics through

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integrated digital solutions, thus changing the organizational business model (Sassanelli et al. 2020). To this end, CD, by emphasizing the extension of the life cycle of products (Bakker et al. 2014), projects in the early stages of product and/or service development of the possible waste (Murray et al. 2017), anticipating all possible consumer changes toward the product/service/construction and its functioning over time (Dokter et al. 2021). On the other hand, due to the CE fundamentals incorporated in CD, according to Cappuyns and Stough (2016), the social dimension and the social inclusion benefits of CE should not be neglected, requiring entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation as facilitators of this process. In short, CD, by integrating and stemming from CE, links the social aspects and benefits of a socially inclusive business model. CD starts from the premise that end consumers have high responsibility in the treatment of the product, interfering directly with sustainable entrepreneurship, since recycling cooperatives have as “input” the material recycled by the end user (Fadeeva and Van Berkel 2021; Padilla-Rivera et  al. 2021; Chen et  al. 2020). Likewise, the authors mention that the designer’s role in making the product recyclable and dismountable is substantial to ensuring both the preservation of natural capital and the social aspect of CE, generating benefits such as income to the individuals who perform the recycling.

3.4.2 Composting Composting can strengthen environmental awareness and social responsibility of the population regarding organic waste, being a relevant tool for environmental education (Vich et al. 2017). According to Platt et al. (2014), the practice of composting varies in the size of the system, from small households to complex ones on an industrial scale. Therefore, the author also notes the existence of community composting, which aims to treat waste on an intermediate scale locally, bringing about income generation, social empowerment, inclusion, and incentives for environmental and cultural education with nearby residents, fostering urban agriculture and combating food insecurity. It is worth mentioning, regarding the social dimension, according to Mello and Figueiredo (2020), the case study of the Organic Cycle Project. This initiative lasted a year and a half, impacting the social and environmental dimensions of the communities by collecting organic waste from homes, material of plant or animal origin, giving the correct destination with composting. At the end of the project, more than 50 tons of residues were composted, which equals 38.5 CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) in avoided emissions, more than 30 tons of organic compost generated, a thousand people who attended the lectures and activities arising from its realization, hundreds of families who were assisted, and several formal jobs generated (Mello and Figueiredo 2020). It is also verified that there are different types of small-scale

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composting bins for domestic use, in educational institutions and companies, that can generate a relevant social and environmental impact and are available on the market. For the practice of composting, it can be noted that several situations and success cases are present in the advancement of the social dimension from composting, such as the subscription system that each individual separates the solid waste produced to return it at the end of a period and gains benefits, such as a small seedling or organic fertilizer, which is produced from the composting of the previously separated waste (Priyadarshini and Abhilash 2020; Fassio and Tecco 2019). Also, according to the authors, one can see the impact of community gardens for local communities, acting in a simple way by fostering social entrepreneurship, performing the composting of organics, contributing to reducing the impacts and negative externalities of higher volumes in landfills, and strengthening urban agriculture and food quality of the population.

3.4.3 Sharing Economy According to Jabbour et  al. (2020), the sharing economy arises from the macro concept of circular economy, which brings new and emerging opportunities and business models to organizations. For this to be feasible, there must be a high level of cooperation among social entrepreneurs, who will be responsible for implementing the sharing economy through sustainable innovations (Fridhi 2021). Thus, it is worth noting that the sharing economy can improve the aspects of social equality and mitigate environmental impacts, having as a premise in the back of sustainable development to meet the present needs without compromising future generations and their own capabilities and needs (Jabbour et al. 2020; Rong et al. 2018). Therefore, the sharing economy enables a cultural change in people, no longer having ownership as a necessary post-consumption element, but rather the sharing of products in a facilitated way, often being made possible by online platforms and recent technologies, which connect consumers (Martin 2016) and create meaningful contacts and increase socialization (Frenken and Schor 2019). In the sense of the sharing economy practice, it is highlighted that it affects the social, economic, and environmental systems, focusing on the sharing of intellectual, human, or physical resources (Jabbour et al. 2020). Still, it mitigates environmental impacts, with a reduction of greenhouse gases and a smaller amount of extracted raw materials, reducing negative externalities and contributing to an ecologically balanced and healthy environment for the communities, with social power and financial inclusion. Finally, for Jabbour et al. (2020), it is identified that some consumers, who once did not have the financial resources to own certain products, have started to enjoy them, generating the social democratization of services. Thus, there is a need for zeal and care with shared goods, in addition to a focus on the social aspects of several individuals reusing and sharing the same products.

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3.4.4 Circular Business Models It is worth noting that the challenges related to climate change, discrimination, destruction of biodiversity, pollution, and scarcity of natural resources represent relevant threats to the society (Montabon et al. 2016), and the need for high levels of sustainability and social quality of communities encourages the development of circular business models with innovative strategies and holistic vision of organizational impacts for people (Bocken et al. 2014). In addition to the above, it is observed that circular business models can create jobs and social progress with economic growth, through initiatives such as recycling in its scope (Bocken et al. 2016), being seen as important devices to improve the welfare of humanity (Fehrer and Wieland 2021). Furthermore, circular business models can enable economically viable ways to continuously reuse materials and products, making use of renewable resources whenever possible (Bocken et  al. 2016). It is perceived that in circular business models, socio-environmental actions practiced by organizations that stem from a circular transition are enabled with the choice and definition of a global business model (Padilla-Rivera et al. 2021; Garcia-Muiña et al. 2018; Goyal et al. 2018). For these authors, these actions define and structure business processes in a top-down manner so that they can achieve defined metrics regarding circularity across all pillars, including social, as well as maintain information processing and knowledge management strategies. Still, social transformation cannot occur if there is no transformation in the circular business models of companies, with a social framework of the organization regarding the responsibility of companies to comply with the social dimension equally, i.e., treating all the seas of sustainability equally when measuring their operational results with well-established incentives and values (Padilla-­ Rivera et  al. 2021; Garcia-Muiña et  al. 2018; Goyal et  al. 2018). In view of the aforementioned considerations, according to Lewandowski (2016), it is noted that a comprehensive knowledge about the design of circular business models is necessary to stimulate and foster the implementation of the circular economy, the reasons for this being the expressive benefits in the financial, social, and environmental dimensions.

3.4.5 Product as a Service Product–service systems reproduce a business strategy with the potential to enhance social, economic, and environmental benefits. This requires planning business management models and stakeholder management in order to encourage the social performance of this model. In short, the product-as-a-service system potentiates the social dimension, being able to create jobs and involving other actors to engage in the social impact itself, potentiating economic development (Sousa and Miguel 2015).

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Regarding the examples of the social benefits of the practice of product as a service, one can observe the case of a company that produces washing machines and decides to no longer offer the good, but the machinery in a “pay-to-wash” system, which is able to save operating costs by installing eco-efficient machines, facilitating the access of a greater number of people to the latest generation equipment that would be difficult to access for economic reasons (EMF 2019). For the practice of product-as-a-service, Jabbour et  al. (2020), Lewandowski (2016), and Lieder and Rashid (2016) highlight some points about the maturity needed by consumers so that the product-as-a-service system can be implemented. These highlights are premised on making people benefit and become an integral part of the change, i.e., a paradigm shift in their entire logic of designing new products and services. This is due to the consumers’ impulse to often own the material good and not think about the benefits of the product, countering the energy efficiency model of rational production (Jabbour et al. 2020; Lewandowski 2016; Lieder and Rashid 2016). Finally, according to the aforementioned authors, it can be emphasized that the changes in the social and political profile are decisive factors in the success of the implementation of the system and the generation of jobs, with the help of cultural change and laws to debureaucratize the consumer–business relationship, making it lasting and more sustainable. In short, it can be recognized that this model has the ability to generate jobs and income for people by including, for example, repair and remanufacturing services for used goods, combining a commercial model with better technologies for performance monitoring. These technological systems enable the possible interventions of the company in relation to the products offered as a service by having a digital impulse, maintaining the best performance with low cost benefiting people (EMF 2019).

3.4.6 Repair The practice of repair is concerned with the fact, according to Abbasi and Kamal (2019), Dantas et al. (2020), and Šebestová and Sroka (2020), that the culture of discarding products with the purpose of buying a new item to replace it is still preponderant in the world scenario. However, especially in developed countries, repair shops are growing for a wide variety of products, noting that this does not occur due to purely environmental or economic factors, but because of the population’s culture. The authors also describe that with the goal of stimulating the repair culture, it can be observed that the government plays a relevant role in its implementation, offering tax incentives to make the cost of repair services more affordable compared to the purchase of a new product. In short, thus, it can be seen that greater job creation can come from the practice of repair to the extent that individuals change their consumption culture, directly impacting on socio-environmental issues of communities, regions, and countries (Abbasi and Kamal 2019; Dantas et al. 2020; Šebestová and Sroka 2020).

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3.4.7 Reuse The reuse of a material is the act of reusing the product in its original function or in the most diverse possibilities of use, dispensing with reprocessing. In turn, global changes such as scarcity of fossil fuels and natural resources, world population growth, poor water quality, declining biodiversity, climate change, and social concerns require changes in modern consumption and production society. To address the mentioned challenges, including and exploring the concept of CE reuse is a promising path to global solutions, enhancing the socio-environmental aspects with outcomes such as job creation (Slaveykova et al. 2019). The practice of reuse, according to Arora et al. (2020), Chen et al. (2020), and Pohlmann et al. (2020), presents several cases that drive the social dimension, for example, the reuse of plastic packaging in commerce, reducing plastic waste and the final price of the product to the consumer, and making it more accessible to people who previously could not afford it. The authors mention that this dynamic provides a better experience to the customer, who is the focus of the operation, devising initiatives and innovations by reusing materials that would be discarded with a view to the positive growth of the socio-environmental impact. All these measures expose contributions to social welfare; however, it should be noted that cultural change is a key element in the transition to a CE and the adoption of its practices aiming at boosting the social dimension (Arora et al. 2020; Chen et al. 2020; Pohlmann et al. 2020).

3.4.8 Remanufacturing The remanufacturing practice can be considered as a productive strategy, which aims, through reuse, renewal, and/or replacement of components, to recover the residual value of products so that the remanufactured item is in a similar condition to a new one (Wang et al. 2018). However, in relation to consumers, it is noted that the cultural aspect makes it difficult to equate the remanufactured product with the new one (Abbey et al. 2015). To the other extent, according to Wang et  al. (2019), at the design stage, the remanufacturing practice should be addressed, since 80% of the social and environmental influences of products are stipulated at this stage. Also, the authors highlight that the remanufactured product can be a viable alternative in mitigating pollutant gases, reducing negative externalities to the population. In this vein, Yenipazarli (2016) found that the promotion of the remanufacturing process in companies is influenced by taxation policies on the pollutants generated and may obtain social benefits with success. Given the above, in the case of the practice of remanufacturing, it can be assessed that the achievement of an ideal welfare state is founded on an ideal tax policy coupled with the government determining tax prices (Wang and Li 2018). Moreover, remanufacturing produces items generating less waste, using a smaller amount of

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resources and contributing to social progress and welfare, given that the remanufactured product costs on average 40–80% of the value of a new product, characterizing it as a win-win practice (Gunasekara et al. 2018). In the reality of remanufacturing practice, according to Abbasi and Kamal (2019); Dev et al. (2020)); Ramakrishna et al. (2020); and Yadav et al. (2020), it is highlighted that such an initiative can increase social welfare, generating employment throughout the chain, from researchers aiming to improve processes to technicians in workshops to perform such an activity, and income in a CE. On the other hand, greater efforts are perceived in relation to the constant training of people involved in the most different technologies and methods of the process, generating a quality product with the same guarantee and lower cost, and involving a social layer that previously did not enjoy such goods for financial reasons, promoting the social dimension (Abbasi and Kamal 2019; Dev et  al. 2020; Ramakrishna et  al. 2020; Yadav et al. 2020).

3.4.9 Recycling The practice of recycling has in its definition the process of collecting and processing materials, which would otherwise be discarded as waste, and turning them into new products (US Environmental Protection Agency 2018). With the increased global concern about sustainable issues, it can be observed that several researches on recycling have emerged that make positive contributions to the three dimensions of sustainability, namely, economic, social, and environmental (Trudel and Argo 2013; Trudel et al. 2016). In this step, it can be observed that the recycling behavior refers to the process of converting materials that have added market value into new products, extending the useful life of the material circulation (Trudel and Argo 2013). To the other extent, the benefits of recycling are numerous, based on several researches that exemplify the practice of recycling with the social dimension, e.g., positive feelings and self-­ fulfillment when performing the act as well as environmental benefits with the saving of resources (Markle 2014). The process of recycling is beneficial to both the environment and the collective well-being of society and is connoted as an action that results in an altruistic way in its process (White et al. 2011). As a result, Ganga et al. (2011) argue that the act of recycling directly impacts individuals, since this practice can generate a sense of belonging to the community and bring benefits to other local people. In recycling, according to Fadeeva and Berkel (2021), Padilla-Rivera et  al. (2021), Chen et al. (2020), and Udugama et al. (2020), it can be noted that investments are needed at various levels to transform the problem, that is, the discarded materials into creative solutions, which will also promote the social dimension. The authors also pointed out that recyclable materials should be analyzed as an asset with added economic value, with social potential to generate work and income for communities and marginalized people, removing possible collaborators from

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informality through cooperatives. Moreover, cleaner cities reduce the proliferation of diseases and negative externalities, because there is less transportation of materials to landfills, encouraging the search for innovative solutions and the exercise of citizenship (Fadeeva and Van Berkel 2021; Padilla-Rivera et al. 2021; Chen et al. 2020; Udugama et al. 2020).

3.4.10 Waste to Energy According to Mutz et al. (2017), it can be noted that in the next 20 years, the amount of waste will double in cities, requiring a robust plan to manage this material, considering social and demographic issues. For this issue, the authors pointed out that the transformation of waste into energy can be a viable alternative, but only if social and environmental aspects are carefully considered, such as the health and operational safety of individuals. According to Fadeeva and Berkel (2021); Gravagnuolo et  al. (2019); and Korhonen et al. (2018), the practice of transforming waste into energy can generate social and psychological impacts on the population that is inserted in the vicinity of the facilities that will perform this conversion. Such initiatives generate opportunities for the population, such as the generation of jobs and indirect jobs, given by the installation of new companies, which have chosen to have in their imminence an organization that performs the service of transforming waste into energy. In addition, the authors mentioned that the generation of electricity can lead to the heating of the population in urban areas, increasing social welfare. However, it should be noted that local property values near the facility that will perform the service might be reduced, but the quality of jobs generated may be opportune for the community, depending on the size of the facility (Fadeeva and Berkel 2021; Gravagnuolo et al. 2019; Korhonen et al. 2018).

3.4.11 Upcycling Upcycling consists of reusing discarded materials, increasing their market value and establishing a creative manufacturing culture in communities, reconnecting people to materials, and benefiting the environment. This practice primarily aids the negative externalities arising from low life cycle products and the premature disposal of significant resources, with the potential for numerous social benefits (Bridgens et al. 2018). It is also noted that a paradigm shift is needed, i.e., a radical change in the way society imagines, perceives, and uses everyday products, aided by the work of designers, manufacturers, and engineers in understanding the global situation and acting on the necessary changes in products to make them more sustainable (Moran et  al. 2015). According to Bridgens et  al. (2018), social, political, and economic

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contexts influence upcycling and can, for example, foster the use of construction waste in shelters in informal settlements, such as for refugees and people in vulnerable situations, meeting basic human needs. For this reason, according to Sung et al. (2019), it can be observed that this practice promotes the improvement of social welfare, with job generation, fostering of cultural activities, and application of the collected material in contexts of vulnerable localities, reducing waste and improving the health of the population with the least amount of waste. While for Busch (2008), the use of upcycling as a form of reverse engineering and sharing of the latest fashion products to the less favored is a form of social activism. In this step, Ham and Sunuwar (2020) considered the possibility of social transformation with the promotion of creativity from initiatives related to upcycling, considering the increased innovative potential of individuals. Considering the aspects mentioned, according to Calvo et al. (2020), it is noteworthy that social and creative enterprises, which work with upcycling, can make social changes to communities. Furthermore, the authors observed the role of companies that work with this initiative in the context of social responsibility and can be drivers of organizational changes to the most vulnerable, with a creative change focused on cultural transformation. In upcycling, according to Fassio and Tecco (2019) and Kalmykova et al. (2018), one can notice that in addition to reducing the overall impact in terms of waste generation, such a practice can support local communities, efficiently with participation in all markets, making products affordable. Furthermore, the authors described that cultural change is dominant, causing the individual to buy a smaller quantity of products, thinking about the quality of the material, renouncing the disposable culture, and supporting local small businesses. Finally, one can point to the installation of small organizations in places of high social vulnerability, which, through upcycling, create products that are sold to the global market, fostering social entrepreneurship and providing opportunities for family members to provide for themselves (Fassio and Tecco 2019; Kalmykova et al. 2018).

3.5 Discussion: Highlights of the Interrelationship of Social Practices in the Circular Economy and the SDGs The global COVID-19 crisis has prompted nations to focus on driving forward the UN’s SDGs or Agenda 2030, highlighting the intimate connection between the environmental, economic, and social areas. In recent years, progress has been made in almost all of the 17 SDGs, with each one evolving in its own particular way, with distinct advances (Eurostat 2021). The UN’s 2030 Agenda aims to support sustainable development, current development that does not harm future generations, through the SDGs, with the premise of reducing inequality, developing prosperity, and ensuring peace. As a deadline, 15 years were stipulated for its realization (2015–2030), with a total of 17 objectives, 169 goals, and 263 indicators (González-Domínguez et al. 2020).

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It is worth noting that the achievement of the implementation of the SDGs and the monitored fulfillment of their proposals is only possible through innovations (Silvestre and Ţîrcă 2019). In short, classical production methods have been abandoned by organizations with innovative and technological solutions to promote sustainability, meet the SDGs, and satisfy market demand (Nerini et al. 2019). CE practices benefit from technological advances, reducing waste generation, environmental impacts, and making production processes cleaner (Jabbour et  al. 2020; Yadav et al. 2020). Therefore, Bashtannyk et al. (2020) stated the dependency relationship of sustainable development with such practices, that is, there is a virtuous relationship of relationship between the implementation of CE practices with technological advances and SDGs. In terms of energy, its generation is a key element for the achievement of the SDGs, needing to increase renewable energy and double the rate of global energy efficiency, with the purpose of serving the population with reliable and easily accessible energy (UN DESA 2017). To this end, the practice of CE of waste to energy can assist in the implementation of the SDGs, making it possible to achieve the provision of safe energy, maintaining air quality and avoiding climate change through technological resources and public policies (Riahi et al. 2012). According to Gielen et al. (2019), this transition to meeting the SDGs, along with meeting fundamental social policies such as access to health and energy, coordinated with global concerns, e.g., climate change and pollution, requires collective efforts and rapid legislative introduction. Moreover, the integration of public policy designs to identify win-win solutions for multi-goal actors is a necessary task if the goals are to be met in all dimensions (Gielen et al. 2019). In fulfilling the goals, it can be noted that technological advances and innovations, which aid the transition to circularity, run through all organizational spheres, from communities to supply chains (Silvestre and Tîrcã 2019; Sarkis et al. 2010). Thus, it can be noted that circular design and its innovative and technological context, often acting with product designs, plays a facilitating role in the achievement of the SDGs, including the advancement of social aspects with the eradication of poverty and reduction of inequalities, empowering people to undertake business and help the environment in a win-win system (Chen et  al. 2020; Fadeeva and Berkel 2021). Next, the analysis of the construction industry in Brazil and Portugal serves as the next vignette to contextualize our discussion. The construction sector represents 7% of Brazil’s GDP; however, it is responsible for the use of finite resources, greenhouse gas emissions, and impact on energy consumption and water resources, directly affecting the society. According to data from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2019), building materials and the construction sector account for more than one-third of global resource consumption. In Brazil, according to the data from the Brazilian Association for the Recycling of Construction and Demolition Waste (Abrecon 2011), the sector is responsible for generating about 60% of the solid waste produced by Brazilian cities. According to Abrecon (2011), this same sector wastes about R$ 8 billion a year by not recycling construction materials. Social challenges for the construction industry in

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developing countries such as Brazil include precarious labor, human rights abuse, modern slavery, child labor, and community resistance to major projects (Gaur and Vazquez-­Brust 2019). In turn, Cellucci (2021) emphasized that the concepts of CE can be easily adapted to the challenges of the construction industry, such as the adaptive reuse of abandoned or underutilized buildings, which can revitalize neighborhoods, bringing social benefits to communities. Improved efficiency will help the industry in monitoring subcontractors that violate human rights (Gaur and Vazquez-Brust 2019). Indeed, the industry has recently started to invest in the circularity of its operations and enterprises. This paradigm shift occurred due to several factors, and among them are the international perspective brought about by the SDGs and the structuring process of the credit line granted by the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) for companies in the construction industry that prove good management of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance). Under the prism of circular innovation and design, it is sought, from the conception phase of a construction project, to think about circular initiatives, such as the reuse of materials from other constructions or demolitions, introducing them in a new production cycle (Blomsma and Brennan 2017; Bocken et al. 2016). To change this scenario, several actions characterized as “circular” can be adopted, namely, (i) reducing the consumption of raw materials, which can be obtained by reducing and recycling waste; (ii) improving designs; (iii) replacing traditional materials with more efficient ones and increasing product durability; and (iv) reducing energy consumption (Brasileiro and Matos 2015). Still in Brazil, a good initiative in favor of circularity is Construcode, an integrated platform to digitalize and simplify the works, from the office to the construction site. This initiative was a pioneer and made it possible to eliminate the need for printing blueprints and projects through their virtualization (Construcode 2021). In Portugal, the Circular Construction Project (Prevention of Construction and Demolition Waste) aims to organize the value chain in a more sustainable way, in line with the principles of circular economy (Construção Circular 2021). According to the author, this project is focused on the minimization of construction and demolition waste, and, if it occurs, its reintroduction into the industry and construction is made possible, in order to reduce the carbon footprint and reduce the extraction of natural resources and the detour of waste to landfills. It is important to emphasize, finally, that although this is one of the segments that generate the most waste, it is the one that has the most opportunities to reintroduce it in its activities and is already attentive to the adoption of technological innovations to put an end to waste and, thus, reduce waste generation. In terms of social challenges, the construction industry in Portugal has also faced accusations of human trafficking and forced labor (Tijhuis 2019). In view of this, it should be noted that CE practices could play a significant role in the SDGs (Fig.  3.1). For example, the practice of composting, which with its benefits can be interrelated with the eradication of poverty and zero hunger, increases agricultural production generating good health and welfare with healthy and nutritious food (Brazil 2015).

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Fig. 3.1  Interrelationship of CE social practices and SDGs

In the case of the sharing economy, given the possible reduction of operating and acquisition costs, it can assist in the reduction of inequalities by promoting more affordable goods to the low-income population (Brasil 2015). Reducing inequality and poverty will help fight human trafficking and slavery. But for this, it is necessary to intensify the partnership for the goals, with legislation that favors such a practice (Eurostat 2020). Thus, for such initiatives to be possible, the circular business model is necessary, contributing to the SDGs with partnerships for goals, since in the case of organizations, it is a good practice to implement circular production processes and share knowledge (Eurostat 2020). Moreover, the author also highlights that these partnerships can generate strong institutions, which will be pioneers and models of innovation, entrepreneurship, and social and environmental responsibility.

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Regarding the practice of product as a service, it can be noted that there are alignments with the findings adduced about the sharing economy. These practices can offer more accessible services to the population directly (with the acquisition) or indirectly (with the service offered to the state and distributed through taxes), leading to the reduction of inequalities (Brasil 2015; Pérez-Pérez et al. 2021). It is also verified that repair, reuse, and remanufacturing are practices that can result in the eradication of poverty and zero hunger, by generating jobs that will carry out such initiatives, causing good health and social welfare with reduction of inequalities (Brasil 2015). Moreover, it should be mentioned that they offer economic benefits to individuals by exercising such practices (Riisgaard et al. 2016). It is worth highlighting the role of recycling in the promotion of the SDGs, noting that such a practice can generate jobs with a greater volume generated (An et al. 2015). In addition, it can assist in the eradication of poverty of individuals often marginalized and without academic studies, reducing inequalities and offering conditions for these people to benefit from this initiative and be able to meet zero hunger (Eurostat 2020). Thus, it is important to say that the practice of waste-to-energy can generate jobs in the facility that will promote the service (Fahim et al. 2021), eradicating poverty through the jobs created. This makes it possible to access the purchase of quality food, i.e., boosting zero hunger and ensuring good health and well-being (AlQattan et al. 2018). It is also worth mentioning the practice of upcycling, which enables the use of materials for solidarity purposes, such as in refugee settlements, reducing inequality (Bridgens et  al. 2018). Moreover, it can generate quality jobs, promoting greater economic capacity to people, leading to poverty eradication and zero hunger (Sung et al. 2019). In view of what was mentioned, it can be seen that CE practices, which had their characteristics of the social dimension pointed out, are aligned with the social SDGs, helping countries and organizations to comply with the established goals and targets. Thus, the proposal to make nations more egalitarian, fair, and environmentally friendly is benefited by such practices, whose measures, if well-monitored, can favor a state of social welfare.

3.6 Final Remarks CE practices present significant contributions to the social dimension; however, a part of the social results is at the expense of job generation and quality, while others require different engagement factors between organization, society, and policymakers. During this research, we found that certain practices of the CE are closely connected with the social dimension, offering contributions for the improvement of global social welfare. Furthermore, the social practices of the CE are related to the Sustainable Development Goals, which can be implemented and advanced through social circular initiatives, impacting the social inclusion of individuals who

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previously did not have opportunities for economic advancement in the social environment. Of all the social practices of CE, recycling and reuse had the highest number of citations in the studies we analyzed, showing that such practices can generate jobs and ensure the social inclusion of disadvantaged, marginalized, and minority individuals. In fact, the social practices of CE present several advantages to society, helping to achieve the 2030 Agenda. As presented, innovation and new technologies can help this transitional process of CE and balance environmental impacts, also improving results under the social perspective (Vazquez-Brust et al. 2013). Moreover, the legal system of countries can boost the social advances arising from socially inclusive practices of the CE, with appropriate taxation models and clear statutes and legal norms with assiduous monitoring. We observed that many practices are facilitated at the beginning of product design, such as recycling. In the planning of the product, the project design can make the good easily recyclable and/or dismountable, enabling its practice. Consequently, such a practice can generate jobs, reduce damage to the environment, and positively impact the economy, bringing social inclusion with dignity to the people who need it most. The need for an understandable and well-established legal system of CE, with a tax regulation that benefits the entrepreneur who is committed to socio-­environmental issues, understanding the practices and the social dimension and the socially inclusive impact, is still a challenge. For future works, the lack of studies on the tax models of the countries that implement such practices, aiming at the recognition of the modus operandi that such governments perform before their population, is indicated (Oyevaar et  al. 2017). The analysis of tax regulations and taxation models under the perspective of a CE is still incipient on contemporary research, which requires an in-depth analysis. This investigation can be a key element to understanding whether coercive, punitive, or guiding measures are the way to implementing and achieving a socially inclusive CE. Acknowledgments  The authors would like to thank the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for the financial support that helped to conduct this research.

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Chapter 4

Business Models Supported by Circular Economy Principles and Practices for the Fruit and Vegetable Sector: An Analysis from the Perspective of Social Inclusion of Family Farmers Simone Sehnem and Volmiro de Oliveira Marques Junior

Abstract  Food production is an activity that generates a lot of waste, especially in the vegetable segment, where weather conditions, handling, transport conditions, late harvesting, and even non-commercialization within proper deadlines mean that the consumption of these foods is unfeasible. Based on this premise, this study aims to analyze business models supported by circular economy principles and practices for the fruit and vegetable sector, an analysis from the perspective of social inclusion of family farmers. The study was carried out in southern Brazil and encompasses 12 local stakeholders. The research results show that: (a) food production is an activity that includes all family members in production processes; (b) generation of waste is intrinsic to the activity; (c) waste and waste management alternatives are already internalized in the sector; (d) female empowerment is noticeable in the fruit and vegetable sector; and (e) traditional business models, that is, prompt delivery, use of few formal distributors, and door-to-door sales by family farmers, are the usual mechanisms that are adopted in this segment in southern Brazil. Therefore, the contribution of this study is centered on the evidence that the vegetable and fruit segment is an alternative production chain in southern Brazil, a region where the production of commodities in the agribusiness segment predominates. Besides that, the fruit and vegetable segment plays an important social role, generating inclusion and income opportunities for families that do not have working capital for multimillion investments demanded by agribusiness led by major global players. A research agenda was created to generate promising alternatives for the productive capillarity of the horticultural sector in southern Brazil. So, the chapter relates to circular econS. Sehnem (*) UNOESC and UNISUL, Tubarão, Santa Catarina, Brazil V. de Oliveira Marques Junior UNOESC, Joaçaba, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_4

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omy when looking at the potential for circularity of waste and its re-signification, for the creation of new products and new uses for these materials, with the potential to increase social inclusion. Keywords  Sustainability · Sustainable development · Circular business models · Family farming · Social inclusion

4.1 Introduction The rationale for this study is to deepen the understanding of the role of the circular economy in the management of food waste and the importance of fruit and vegetable production as an alternative for social inclusion of families that are undercapitalized and do not have working capital and their own resources nor can they finance the resources to engage in activities that demand greater investments in infrastructure and initial production costs. Studies on circular economy in food production are currently burgeoning. Andler et al. (2021) investigated fruit residues as a sustainable feedstock for the production of bacterial polyhydroxyalkanoates. Boccia et  al. (2021) mapped food waste and environmental-sustainable innovation for the Italian citrus market. Manríquez-­ Altamirano et  al. (2021) identified potential applications for residual biomass of urban agriculture waste through eco-­ideation in tomato stems from rooftop greenhouses. Song et al. (2021) examined the upcycling of food waste using black soldier fly larvae, exploring the effects of further composting on frass quality, fertilizing effect, and its global warming potential. Vasconcelos et al. (2021) carried out a study about circular economy and sustainability in the fresh fruit supply chain. Despite the increasing literature looking at circularity in agriculture, social inclusion and family farming are still unexplored themes. Furthermore, the transport of fruits and vegetables generates a large volume of losses through kneading, excessive weight on fruits and vegetables, transport time, room temperature, storage conditions, and damage to the way in which the products are handled, among others (Grant and Rossi 2022). All these problems affect the competitiveness of small family firms, which risk losing their farms to agribusiness. Considering this set of elements, we proposed this study to analyze business models supported by circular economy principles and practices for the fruit and vegetable sector, an analysis from the perspective of social inclusion of family farmers, looking to improve their competitiveness, Our case study is in the south of Brazil, a region essentially recognized as being the breadbasket of agribusiness, recognized as the world leader in the production of animal protein, with representative indices in milk production and revenue from municipalities predominantly linked to agriculture and livestock activities and all businesses that feed directly or indirectly. The main agricultural and livestock chains have the potential to develop alternative production chains, such as the production of fruits and vegetables for local consumption. Especially through alternative production chains, which explore the production of fruits and vegetables, it is possible to supply the local market, create short production cycles, and provide fresh, healthy

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food produced in the region (Granato et al. 2022). This local production allows the inclusion of family farmers in the agribusiness productive dynamics, in chains that do not require an initial investment as high as the production of grains, swine, milk, and poultry, which are the predominant agribusiness chains in the region. Furthermore, they generate the opportunity for inclusion (Sehnem et al. 2019c) of family members in productive activities, including opportunities to generate income and decent conditions of survival in the context of agribusiness (Cudjoe et al. 2022; Liu et al. 2022). Circular waste management is understood as the internalization of premises for the resignification of waste, maintenance of the value of the resource with a second or third purpose, and introduction of waste as a raw material to feed a new production chain. As per Srivastava et al. (2020), the shift from linear to circular economy (CE) is obligatory, which works on the principle of utilizing waste as resource. One way for looking for the circular economy system should be based on the 5R principles: reduce, reuse, recycle, recovery, and reclamation, which would lead to socio-­ economic development and environmental sustainability (Pan et al. 2015). Another way that circular economy can be analyzed is looking for the framework Regenerate, Share, Optimise, Loop, Virtualize and Exchange (ReSOLVE) (EMF 2015). Also, the circular system would turn goods that are at the end of their service life into resource for others (Stahel 2016). For designing operational circular economy systems, all kinds of waste materials should be treated as nutrients, which enter into either the biosphere or a technical system (Christensen and Bach 2015). The biomass waste can be considered as good feed material for a perfect CE system as all biomass waste products can easily be re-entered in the biosphere (Ferronato et al. 2019). Furthermore, the circular economy has the potential to increase social inclusion (Clube and Tennant 2022), which in itself makes it valuable to society. It is a sustainable and economically attractive alternative (Della Spina and Giorno 2022). At the same time, the study has the potential to contribute to the objectives of sustainable development, in particular two – zero hunger and sustainable agriculture, as mentioned by Cudjoe et  al. (2022), when investigating the benefits of hydrogen from biogas using food waste in China. The work is structured in four more sections, with a theoretical background that addresses circular business models and social inclusion in the context of family farming. This includes the methodological procedures that clarify the step-by-step of the research path, the presentation, analysis, and discussion of results, followed by final considerations and references.

4.2 Circular Business Models, Social Inclusion, and Family Farming The circular economy is the key to building a viable economic system in the long term (Andreola et al. 2020) that can integrate family farmers and generate alternatives for social inclusion. It substantially contributes to the generation of value, its maintenance rather than extracting and wasting (Krishnan et al. 2020). It demands

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a change of mindset (Sehnem et al. 2019a), with a redesign of products and services, including new business models made available to society (Sehnem et al. 2019b). This set of practices that foster circularity has the potential to reduce emissions, protect ecosystems, and create jobs (McCarthy et al. 2019; EMF 2020). They generate economic opportunities, alternatives for social inclusion, and integrated systems of local production. They contribute to reducing the ecological footprint, minimizing environmental impacts, generating social solutions, increasing energy efficiency, and reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. This occurs by reducing the production of new materials and increasing the circulation of products and materials, which contributes to reducing energy demand and maintaining the energy used to produce them in production cycles (Cuadros Blázquez et al. 2018). In the agricultural context, the adoption of circular economy principles is an effective way of sequestering soil carbon. Furthermore, the circular economy is a fundamental alternative for generating feasible solutions for managing the waste generated by society, especially plastic. In this way, it will bring contributions to the restoration of ecosystem health. It is also relevant for reducing the risks of the linear industrial model currently in force. Adhering to circular systems, with current circular economy purposes and practices, has the potential to decisively impact the creation of future wealth without harming human well-being. Understanding how to make this transition generates many opportunities for investment, social inclusion, and income generation. In this context, governments play an important role in defining public policies, dimensioning strategic plans for the circular economy and alternatives for fostering, and encouraging and engaging different stakeholders. They are the ones who set the direction and provide incentives, finance and innovation infrastructure, and blended financing mechanisms to reduce risk and attract private capital. A survey carried out by the EMF (2020) shows that if a circular approach was adopted in just five sectors, namely, steel, aluminum, cement, plastic, and food, annual greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 9.3 billion tons of CO2e by 2050, the equivalent of the reduction that could be achieved by eliminating all transport global emissions. These indicators show that the circular economy can play an important role in managing climate-related risks. For example, a circular economy increases biodiversity by reducing the need for resource extraction and regenerating agricultural land. In addition, it is estimated that a circular economy could create more than half a million jobs by 2030 in Britain alone, in activities such as resale, remanufacturing, and recycling. Imagine a continental country like Brazil, where development policy emphasizes a strategy that encourages consumption rather than savings. It will certainly generate far greater impacts on a population of approximately 20 million inhabitants. The way in which it is possible to retain the value of resources and enable the circularity of resources necessarily involves alternatives such as 10Rs by Reike et al. (2018), which encompass the practices of refusing, rethinking, reducing, reusing, repairing, recycling, reintegrating, remanufacturing, re-extracting from resources, and recovering energy. Or, from the perspective of Van Renswoude et al. (2015), emphasis should be on designing without waste, designing for reuse, building resilience through biodiversity, and relying on energy from renewable sources, while thinking about systems,

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thinking that waste is food, thinking cascade, and thinking about the value of shares (symbiosis). Or, according to Webster (2015) and Kalmykova et al. (2018), a circular economy business model has the following premises: (a) Circular supply: Renewable energy, fuel, and bio-based products. (b) Waste as a resource: Recovers useful resources and energy from waste and adopts industrial symbiosis. (c) Second life: Extends the life of products via repair, modernization, resale, and durable, modular design. (d) Sharing platforms: Contribute to the dematerialization of products. They provide access to the product and retain ownership of the producer. They are premised on adopting a circular design. (e) Product as a service: Dematerialization of products, offering access to the product and retaining ownership by the producer. Finally, from the perspective of EMF (2015), a circular business model (ReSOLVE classification) should have the following characteristics: (a) Regenerate: Switch to renewable energy and materials, recover, retain and restore ecosystem health, and return recovered biological resources to the biosphere. (b) Share: Share assets (e.g., cars, rooms, appliances, etc.), reuse/use second-hand products, extend the life of products through maintenance, design for durability, upgradeability, etc. (c) Optimize: Increase product performance/efficiency, remove waste in production and supply chain, leverage big data, automation, and remote sensing and steering. (d) Cycling: Remanufacture products or components, recycle materials, use anaerobic digestion, and extract biochemical substances from organic waste. (e) Virtualize: Dematerialize directly (e.g., books, CDs, DVDs, travel, etc.), indirectly dematerialize (e.g., online shopping, etc.). (f) Exchange: Replace old nonrenewable materials with more advanced ones, apply new technologies (e.g., 3D printing), and opt for new products and services (e.g., multimodal transport. Therefore, circular economy and circularity can become a reality in the produce segment, with the easy introduction of practices in supply chains. They demand articulation, engagement, leadership, cooperation, and partnerships to generate integrated solutions capable of providing circularity of resources.

4.3 Methodological Procedures This research consists of a study whose approach is qualitative. It was developed from an applied perspective. It consists of a case study aimed at identifying the main stakeholders, understanding an organizational phenomenon, and deepening the

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issues identified in the literature regarding the project’s objectives. Interviews were carried out, directed to the owners and/or managers of the companies that make up the production, wholesale and retail links of the produce chain in the municipalities of Western Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. Respondents were tabulated by nicknames, as follows: –– Producers: produ –– Wholesale: attack –– Retail: retail This interview script consisted of a set of 14 questions that addressed information related to production dynamics, operating time, cultivated crops, difficulties encountered, losses, waste, waste management, role of family farming, adopted circular business models, opportunities, and profile of respondents. All 12 interviews were fully recorded and totaled approximately 11 h of recording. They were transcribed and their content gave rise to this work. Finally, a multiple case study was carried out, where we will investigate the context of the produce chain, having different organizations as sub-units of analysis (Yin 2009, pp.  46–47). Initially, an individual analysis was carried out, considering the different perceptions of each organization/respondent, followed by cross-analysis. The first analysis was carried out within the groups (links in the chain) and the second comparing the different contexts. The individual analyses, followed by cross-analysis, allow us to guarantee the transferability principle, transferring findings from one case to other samples (Flint et al. 2002; Gioia et al. 2013). The choice of companies was made by theoretical sampling (Glaser and Strauss 1967) where data collection occurs concomitantly with data coding and analysis to then decide who will be the next respondent. Data collection took place until the saturation point, that is, until the moment when there was theoretical contribution. In addition, it is intended to return respondents with research findings in order to verify the analysis performed and increase the credibility of the results (Flint et al. 2002; Gioia et al. 2013). Data analysis was performed by two researchers to ensure the confirmation of the findings and ensure that the results are not influenced by researchers’ bias. Finally, reporting and resulting data from document analysis were used to increase the reliability of the data serving as a data source and triangulation. Excerpts from the speeches were transcribed in the presentation of the results to faithfully portray the thinking of the stakeholders surveyed.

4.4 Data Presentation and Analysis 4.4.1 Profile of Research Participants Table 4.1 shows the professionals who were surveyed for this study. Table 4.1 shows that respondents have been working on average for 16.8 years in this activity. They are predominantly male, a cultural characteristic of the region,

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Table 4.1  Profile of respondents Actuation area Rural producer

Acting Coverage time Regional 18 years

Prod.02

Rural producer

Regional 10 years

Prod.03

Rural producer Rural producer Rural producer

Local

30 years

Local

8 years

Age Gender Scholarship 52 years M Elementary school, incomplete 51 years M Elementary school, incomplete 59 years F Completed high school 44 years M Post-graduate

Local

30 years

52 years M

Prod.06

Rural producer

Local

16 years

38 years M

Prod.07

Rural producer

Regional 20 years

60 years M

Prod.08

Rural producer

Regional 18 years

50 years M

Var.01

Retailer

Regional 8 years

31 years M

Var.02

Retailer

Regional 30 years

51 years M

Var.03

Retailer

Local

8 years

33 years F

Regional 6 years

21 years F

Code Prod.01

Prod.04 Prod.05

Distrib.01 Distributor/ retailer Total

Completed primary education Higher education, attending Higher Education, complete Elementary school, incomplete Higher education, complete Completed high school Completed high school Higher education, complete

Interview time 56′06″

40′18″

51′57″ 48′10″ 1 h16′

52′26″

55′04″

21′05″

18′37″

45′11″ 15′14″ 41′27″

12 respondents

where men are responsible for business, for professional referrals of productive activities developed on rural properties. The woman is an assistant, who accompanies, performs the tasks, and encourages the children’s engagement in the routines of family farms. These are productive activities developed at the local level that provide food which supply local and regional establishments.

4.4.2 Circularity in the Produce Segment For data analysis purposes, the typology of 10Rs was used, recommended by Reike et al. (2018) (Table 4.2).

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Table 4.2  The 10Rs and purposes for value retention and resource circularity Rs Principles R0 Refuse

R1 Rethink

R2 Reduce

R3 Reutilize

Purpose Products that harm nature at any stage of their production, from raw material extraction to disposal. Refuse products or services from companies that do not respect environmental legislation, that use slave labor, or that carry out tests on animals. Reflect on daily attitudes, especially consumption, and how they impact the environment around us. Everything we do every day has impacts, whether positive or negative. The key is to act in a way that has as little negative impact as possible. Conscious consumption is a great ally in this process. Our ecological footprint, the mark we leave on the planet by living and consuming. Consumerism is harmful to life on earth and generates one of the main environmental problems today: Garbage.

Code Stage Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08

Opportunities Full adoption Greater added value to produce Sustainable products

Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08; Var.01; Var.02; and Distrib.01

Full adoption Competitive edge Aggregation of more income Resource circularity Conscious consumption

Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08; Var.01; Var.02; and Distrib.01

What would be discarded, giving it another destination. What for some is garbage, for others it is a solution. When we reuse objects, we extend their useful life and reduce waste generation.

Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08; Var.01; Var.02; and Distrib.01

New alternatives for waste management of produce New ways to pack products New ways of marketing production Children’s empowerment in productive activity Follow zero waste guidelines Focus on the circularity of natural resources Thinking about differentials for the consumer, giving them alternatives for packaging reuse (continued)

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Table 4.2 (continued) Rs Principles R4 Repair

Purpose What can be fixed. As well as reusing, repairing also increases the usefulness of objects. If something can be fixed or fixed, it’s still useful and doesn’t need to be replaced. R5 Recycle When there is no more reuse or repair. Returning materials, for example, as paper, plastic, metal, and glass to the production chain so that they can see other products reduces both waste and the extraction of raw material that would be used in the production of new objects. R6 Reintegrate To nature what came from it. Organic waste is nothing like garbage. Composting reduces the amount of waste we send to landfills. R7 Remanufacture Bring the product back to its original function, through a more complete industrial process.

Code Stage Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08; Var.01; Var.02; and Distrib.01 Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08; Var.01; Var.02; and Distrib.01

Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08; Var.01; Var.02; and Distrib.01 Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08; Var.01; Var.02; and Distrib.01

Opportunities Repair production storage artifacts Repair reusable packaging Fix production negotiation dynamics Recycle plastic, paper, glass, and metals Source of extra income

Greater incentive to compost waste

Industrialize fruits and vegetables for the manufacture of pickles, preserves, jellies, and homemade sweets Alternative source of income Inclusion of women and young people with extra income potential Partnership with local restaurants to absorb these industrialized products (continued)

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Table 4.2 (continued) Rs Principles R8 Re-extraction of resources

Purpose Recover waste materials/ resources that are finally disposed of in certain places (e.g., landfills).

R9 Energy recovery

Recover energy from waste through the application of different technologies.

Code Stage Prod.01, 02, Partial 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08; Var.01; Var.02; and Distrib.01

Opportunities Greater encouragement of composting practices Emphasis on alternatives to prevent the generation of waste and wasted produce materials Prod.01, 02, Incipient Focus on preventive management to 03, 04, 05, avoid dents, losses, 06, 07, and waste, and 08; Var.01; expiration date Var.02; and Redirect fruit crops Distrib.01 before they lose quality for agro-­ industrialization Emphasis on applications for integration between suppliers and consumers

Source: Adapted from Reike et al. (2018)

Note that circular economy initiatives are present in research stakeholders. Although some are present in an incipient form, there are already viable applications that show the potential for using circular economy practices in the produce segment. It is necessary to create an integrated system of cooperation and engagement of all the links in the production chain so that it is possible to build a circular production chain. The possibility of knowledge integration is visualized and, for example, highlights one of the respondents “Now also with the issue of online courses, improvement, we have to know a lot about pests and natural enemies and products, so now more and more availability is increasing of these products” (Prod.01). And yet, the potential for building synergy between stakeholders, as mentioned, “many customers also end up returning the packaging and we reuse it when nothing has been damaged. So it’s cool that we also reuse the packaging” (Prod.01). And the generation of alternatives to reduce losses “[food waste] the ideas of not having this is because a strawberry is a very sensitive fruit, so we prioritized selling directly to the customer, so this greatly reduces losses” (Prod.01).

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4.4.3 Social Inclusion and Family Farming The study shows that the production of vegetables is an important alternative for family farming. It has the potential to add up the productive activities already developed on the property. The initial investment cost is not that high. It allows you to include all family members in cultural practices, productive management, and harvesting of fruits and vegetables. The mapped evidence was grouped into relevant analytical categories that emerged in the content analysis. Thus, the following aspects are highlighted. –– Quality and food safety: For marketing and food, two elementary attributes are to have quality products, with good appearance, and should be healthy and handled following good manufacturing practices. In the beginning it is necessary to have traceability, so in the market today every product that is sold directly has to have traceability, it is a government agency that controls this, so when you are already registered, there are the main data and the data of the orchard, we also have the ‘Caderno de Campo’ which is where all the procedures for the good cultivation of the orchard are written down. (Prod.02) So all the procedures that are carried out are noted there: harvesting, cleaning, etc. With this registration, you have access to the supermarket and delivery is normal, here we try to have the products as fresh as possible, for example, tomorrow morning I will deliver lemons at XXXX market, at the end of today, as it wasn’t a very hot day, we’re going to pick the lemons. (Prod.02) We produce, choose, transport and deliver to the markets. In this case, the partnership takes place through the sale, right, and we also have an agreement, as the products are perishable, right, so we always try to return to the supermarket what we are going to say…it is like this longer, that it was sold less normally. (Prod.02) I managed to put all my fruits, at a good price, right. Because it has to have price and quality, without either of them it is difficult for you to enter the market. Because the market is full so comes the quality, then we started producing, producing, selling here and today as the orchard is already adult I deliver to São Miguel at Mercado XXX, to Pinhalzinho at Mercado XXX and to Maravilha at all markets, including the fruit trees too, right. It’s just like what I told you, it’s price and quality right, then the guys come from Rio Grande do Sul, then they already buy from the producer there. (Prod.04)

–– Chain complexity: The fruit and vegetable chain can be considered as relatively simple, being therefore of low complexity. It starts with suppliers, who are mostly local or from the state of Paraná. They are responsible for providing seedlings, seeds, and the different varieties of fruits and vegetables that are cultivated in the region. Some producers even cultivate their own seedlings. Subsequently, the product is directed directly to the customer or goes to supermarkets, fairs, and local fruit plants. This shows a short chain and whose communication flow is done face-to-face or via WhatsApp. Deliveries are made by the producers themselves, and, therefore, there are no intermediaries that increase this production chain.

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–– Chain coordination: There is no actor responsible for articulating the different stakeholders that work in the produce chain. This has generated some difficulties, especially in technical assistance, guidelines for handling and managing diseases that can affect crops. Likewise, there is still no structure to integrate producers and buyers, which could supply the acquisition in times of harvest and surplus volume. This is an important mechanism for survival and risk management associated with the productive business. In the first years I lost a lot of mute because I still didn’t have the experience of which problems were most attacking. At that time, the surprise was the cold, the frost that damaged the seedlings a lot, and little by little I was taking care of that and it got better, better, and the market was right because all these fruits came from abroad, especially São Paulo, Paraná. (Prod.02)

–– Trusted relationships between stakeholders: There is no contract, integration system, or any other chain coordination mechanism between the various stakeholders. This can be observed in the statements of some producers: We don’t have any permanent contract, in a small town it’s more about trust because many times salespeople come from abroad and they only come during the high production season and then end up not coming, so the customers are left on hand. So mainly bakeries, restaurants. (Prod.01) in the summer or strawberry, production decreases a lot, so we prioritize these people who have a trusting partnership so that they don’t let them down and they don’t let us down either. (Prod.01) if the foot is small I put two, it won’t give the same value, right, 2 feet I get 1, but it won’t go out. (Prod.03)

Therefore, it is noted that trust relationships are a management mechanism of the produce supply chain that is considered essential for its success. –– Short production cycles: Local production makes products close to their customers. And so, in a short time, usually less than an hour, they can take the production to the retail location. This helps to reduce losses and damage to the merchandise. Furthermore, it helps the fruits and vegetables to reach the point of being fresh for sales and even show a fresh appearance. And in this way, the customer values the product they buy. we pick the fruit directly inside the package, and we pick what we sell on the day, often we already have a lot of orders, and when not, we only pick the part that we know we have more or less programmed than it can sell. So stored it stays in the plant. (Prod.01) It is collected and sold on the same day. (Prod.01) So around 1995, I found in supermarkets mainly the Tahiti lemon that came from São Paulo, so it was very expensive, I thought it was very expensive for the consumer, so I thought: why can’t we produce for on here? Then I started to acquire some seedlings, I had an area, I was a banker at the time, I had an area in the countryside and I started planting, then together I started to plant some Bahia oranges, but more specifically like the Tahitian lemon. (Prod.02)

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So my main client today is market XXXXX, from which I supply around 10 months a year. So it’s very quiet there, right, I got a polishing machine, where we clean the fruit, it’s a machine that cleans the fruit, it passes a felt, it’s not really a brush, but it gives a much better look than the natural one. So this cleaning, this cleaning that is done on the fruit gives a very attractive appearance and the market absorbs it. (Prod.02) We have four local producers, four or five local producers, who are the ones who have the entire period, right. Hence, for example, the seasonal fruits, which are now starting with citrus, then there are more producers in the region. Now the winter season begins and there are more producers, so we don’t bring them from abroad. So more or less that would be it. (Atac.01) It’s very calm, we buy most directly from producers, even if they supply and something else we buy from Ceasa. (Atac.01) In transport, the loss is zero. We have half an hour from farming, say from the Orchard, half an hour to the supermarkets. It’s very easy, because we do it during periods or early in the morning or at the end of the day, at the most appropriate times for that. (Prod.02) So I kept thinking but let’s produce near here, let’s have a better price for the consumer, let’s have a higher-quality product because it’s already here next to the orchard, these things, so that was the intention. (Prod.02) In the region here, it is the farmers themselves who deliver the delivery, and in this one from Ceasa we will look for it, from other suppliers in the region, to make the delivery themselves. (Atac.01)

–– Strict sanitary legislation and municipal inspection: The level of requirement of municipal and state legislation for the production of processed foods discourages producers from joining industrial processes for the industrialization of super-ripe, second-quality, and partially spoiled fruit. A good part is a strawberry even frozen, right, so for jam or something, only when people order us to make something. But the health surveillance does not really allow it, there has to be a suitable place to do this, otherwise it is not allowed, it has to have all the right labeling according to the laws. (Prod.01) It has to have a ‘one thousand and one’ license from the municipality, it will have to have a seal, it will have to have a biologist, something like that, a nutritionist, but I don’t know what and I don’t know what else to be there watching you to do. They come every day or every week to pick something up and take it for a test. (Prod.03) I know because the neighbor XXXX down there, he packs honey right, he spent an absurd amount to make it within the standard. He spent about 25 or 30 thousand just to make the house. And then they are there every time, twice, three times a month they are there ‘pissing off,’ looking and seeing if it’s right, if they’re not doing it wrong. That’s what discourages us in Brazil, right, sometimes we have so much idea, but it doesn’t exist in this bureaucracy there. (Prod.03) There are municipal, state and even federal, I think. We have to put everything away, you can’t even donate it to anyone. If you were to see one day in the garbage dumps what goes out of fruit, you would be terrified. Apple, for example, which is now apple season, any shake that comes from nature itself, that a bee comes and…bit, laid an egg there, it creates like a wound, but the rest of the fruit is all good. Just take it out there and more than half…but we can’t, it’s all discard so the loss is big, very high! (Atac.01)

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S. Sehnem and V. de Oliveira Marques Junior but you go out to sell so you are barred from trade. (Prod.04) We sold a little bit of everything like that: cheese, milk, eggs, a little bit of everything. Then when the municipal inspection started, we had to choose only one branch, keep one thing, and then we went for vegetables. There was always a little vegetables together, so we left the other activities aside to stay only with vegetables at the time, right, until today. (Prod.05) We have a lot of inspection by the sanitary surveillance, mainly on traceability issues, today we have all the products in the sales area that have the traceability code. Even we don’t get it, even if you’re a producer here, if you’re not accredited with Cidasc, with traceability we don’t make the purchase, because of this issue. Our consumer can then get there, and through the QR code on the label, he can see where this product came from. (Retail.02)

–– Need for value addition alternatives: There is still no incentive and encouragement for value addition alternatives to become present in rural properties. I talk to friends, some agribusiness, for example, that would make jams, sweets, that would be very interesting here in the west region of Santa Catarina, there is little strawberry cultivation, so an agribusiness that could pick up fruit issues in general, as it has a lot of waste fruit. For example, there are oranges, there are peaches, everyone has a small fruit tree at home and ends up losing. So if there was an agro-industry that took all these fruits, collected them and made jelly, something sweet, right. For example, for strawberry, if it’s left over from a day that we couldn’t sell everything, something that spoils making jelly, it’s a form, or even liqueur, we make it. Put it in the cachaça and make a liqueur, right, then it ends up selling it too. So it’s just a way of not losing, right as we’ve already said: clean, freeze it, put it in a nice package, right, with the ideal weights to sell or consume in the future. (Prod.01) the idea would be to reuse these products taking advantage of 50% to 70% of the item, right, reuse it. How: tomatoes making tomato sauce, fruit making vacuum-packed or making a fruit salad, for example. You pick a banana here, take it from the bunch, it’s out of the bunch, but there’s nothing, it’s intact, you peel it and use it. The apple, the strawberry tray…there’s one strawberry that’s rotten and the other nine…and because of that one, you have to put everything away, packaging, film, label, everything goes out. Juice could be made! An orange, it’s not that it’s rotten, but it’s gone…it could be made orange juice. Because when it’s withered, it’s on the outside. (Atac.01)

–– Multiple activities on rural properties: The exercise of multiple activities that generate income and the scarcity of labor and working capital for large investments imply difficulties for the professionalization of agro-industrialization on rural properties. I even had it, once the people from Epagri suggested building an agro-industry like that, to make jam, but it turned out that we didn’t go after it and now that we’re starting to focus more on this business and not on other things. (Prod.01) If we had a little more time, could make a partnership with someone I would put it, today São Miguel do Oeste, for example, looks for me but I don’t have time to attend, right, so I needed some people who would be interested. (Prod.02) I can’t deliver anymore because I don’t win alone, right. I do it with my truck (Strada). And I also work with bee honey, but it’s mostly vegetables. (Prod.03) our project after the girl graduates is to buy one with a cold chamber to transport. (Prod.06)

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–– Cooperation and partnerships to make agro-industrialization feasible: Rural producers see that joint alternatives, such as associations, small cooperatives, or partnership systems, can contribute to making local horticultural agro-­ industrialization viable. But at the same time, they recognize the absence of public authorities to face the legal and structuring barriers of a rural agroindustry for technical guidance, training, and support. I think that working more together, people forming barter cooperatives, something like that to help each other, right. And then gather more production in general to be able to add more value, make, for example, an agribusiness to benefit all these products, not only strawberries but also others that could be reused. Why, for example: there are many producers who plant other vegetables and there are a lot of loss for having only one destination or in Natura, which is the harvest and the rest ends up losing, right, it could be destined, for example, to people who have needs, who are unable to buy these products, so they could be donated and such and together in a cooperative, a public agency could perhaps help, right, to benefit these products to obtain…to add value, to sell in greater quantities, to achieve something like that. (Prod.01) There is a lot of question of public power, even a question of qualified technical assistance that could be obtained for small producers as well, because many small producers together would join forces and the entire production could be marketed for more…a very sensitive fruit could be marketed in general right, but why not for export, for example? (Prod.01)

–– Large markets and networks demand production scale: The difficulty of small products is the production scale. It does not have manpower, land area, and availability of resources for large-scale investments, which makes it unfeasible to enter large production commercialization networks. To start with, they want 3000 packages per shot, for every type of thing. At that time, to start with, they were going to give me about 5000 or 6000, just to start, then I’m delivering it in the package, right, in those market rolls. And those here that I get for Rúcula, parsley, green beans, Cambuci peppers. So far the markets…they said they were going to demand it, but then it kind of fell out, so they demanded that tracking stamp. I made the seal, I have the seal. (Prod.03)

–– Seasonality of production denies large supermarkets from purchasing from local producers: The fact that they do not guarantee supply all 12 months of the year, due to the production seasonality associated with the stricter climatic seasons at some times of the year, makes larger supermarkets prefer acquisitions in the ceasas of Curitiba and São Paulo. and if I get a big market like an XXXX or Cooperative, or any other chain, I’ll have to have direct, and our region doesn’t support it because of the winter. Hence, they prefer to get it from the outside world than to get it from the producer here. So even I’m small, I have a small garden like that; my limitation is the small market and snack bars, right. Green beans, broccoli, carrots, beets, these things…if there is a strong frost, it kills, right? (Prod.03) There, suppliers of other derivatives, like potatoes, onions, these details we get, when needed, from distributors in the region. If not, we’ll get it from Ceasa in Curitiba. (Atac.01)

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Sometimes the product is not of good quality, so we have difficulty, the customer ends up not buying it. There is also a lack of a product, which even now, to have head broccoli or cauliflower will have to be from the greenhouse, otherwise…it is a difficulty because it is concentrated in the hands of one or two suppliers, broccoli. The price of broccoli, cauliflower is now 6 or 7 reais a head, and you have to go outside to get it, because even in Paraná only a few days ago the temperature changed if it wasn’t raining directly, they lost practically everything they produced. This market is very sensitive; it is a department that demands a lot from the climate. The tomato cooks, the tomato has been very sunny, it has a lot of rain and it bursts, it doesn’t grow, the flower falls. (Atac.01) For example, now we are not having cabbage here in our region, because of the drought, so I bring all my cabbage from a producer there in dispute, near Curitiba. So here the people do not have irrigation, the people there have irrigation. Now in winter they start producing, but then I’ll leave you who supplied me at the time I didn’t have to be able to serve, and now I’ll leave to get another one here. ‘Oh but I’ll make you one real less, you pay two there,’ but at the time you didn’t have it, he gave it to me. It’s not just price, it’s not just price!” (Atac.01) Because sometimes there are setbacks, there are a few sunny days – you lose, there are a few rainy days – you lose, so the loss is a lot, right. (Prod.04)

–– Spirit of collaboration and help from the community: Rural producers demonstrate their collaborative spirit with the community, by donating leftovers to social entities. In Brazil, we also have Mesa Brasil, which is an intermediary of leftover food from industrial restaurants to charitable and social entities. In the case of family farming, this process is to inform. If by chance I see that a lot is left over there, I take it here to the nursing home; I take a lot for them there. These days ago there was zucchini left down there, it’s too fast for her I came, then I left it in a box and took it there. There was a time when there was a lot left over there, broccoli and kale, I took it here, I took it to the other one upstairs (the nursing home). I took it to the hospital. I don’t throw anything away, I take it and give it away. (Prod.03) If there are 10 or 15 of those lettuce left over there (pointing to the plantation), that’s a lot. Once I cut in the morning and took it to the city, not now, I have everything registered on whats. ‘How many feet do you want tomorrow morning? So many,’ then I cut right the amount that goes and never comes back. If it’s there on the ground, it doesn’t spoil. (Prod.03)

–– Fragility of the product requires careful handling: Fruits and vegetables are sensitive. Any impact, fall, or strong pressure on them can impact their appearance and result in devaluation in the consumer market. We take care not to move it, because any little bump, let’s say a papaya that they don’t even deliver, will spoil faster. There at my father, for example, they have papaya and bananas all year round, and they don’t spoil, but they’ll get those from the market…it doesn’t last 2 days. And we see when they make the deliveries, that they take them and just throw the boxes around. So I think in that sense, but here I have almost nothing. (Prod.03)

–– Losses in the wholesaler or retailer link are passed on to the rural producer: This burdens the producers, since the losses can reach up to 10% of the products offered. There was one producer who lost 70% of their pumpkin crop and ended up having to replace all the products. This greatly inconveniences the producers and can make productive activity unfeasible.

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They take all their products but they replace everything that goes bad. Let’s say you spoiled five peppers, they already take it off the stand, weigh it, mark it in the notebook there, and look: ‘this week was so bad’, and then on Monday comes the spoiled product. You can go there, they say: ‘I’ll pay you 1.80 and whatever spoils you still have to replace.’ That’s why we have little chance of entering these big markets, right. One condition is that you always have the product and the other is that you change. Like me, little like that, will I deliver little and will I have to change the product yet? There won’t be anything left for me. (Prod.03)

–– Production transport impacts losses: The fact that goods come from other states, generating a mileage of approximately 1000  km from Ceagesp in São Paulo to the extreme west of Santa Catarina, and approximately 600 km from Ceasa in Curitiba, PR, to the west of Santa Catarina. In addition to the path containing a highway with stretches of precarious asphalt, it generates a gigantic ecological footprint. All of this could be significantly minimized with local production. But for that, it is necessary to invest in public policies and in the promotion of the fruit and vegetable sector. That’s why in Brazil there is so much waste, right, the people who deal with this are poorly prepared and the transport is also terrible, with these roads. (Prod.03) Not because the path is short, the path is from here to there, if it was a long path, if it was over 150, 200 km then there would be a loss, right, it hits, shakes in the truck, bad road, but here it it’s picked in the morning, in the afternoon it’s at the market, it’s fast so the fruit is firm, the one that goes to the market, because the one that has a problem there, the bird bit or some problem, we already discard it in the garden, don’t even bring it home. (Prod.04)

–– External dependence: Most of the produce sold in the region comes from the CEAGESP in São Paulo and Ceasa in Curitiba, and even lettuce comes from the city of Chapecó to supply the far west of Santa Catarina. So here it would be like, to get the producers and start because the lettuce in Maravilha comes from Chapecó, one of the biggest producers. A lot of production comes from outside but the land is the same, it disturbs the cold a little bit but then you regulate with the greenhouse or protect it. There’s a guy in Iraceminha who went to plant tomatoes in a hunter, the other day I talked to him in a fruit bowl, and he was producing some tomatoes, and he thinks about beautiful tomatoes, right. He was going to produce in the frosty winter, right; he was trying to produce for the whole year; he was doing some greenhouses, but then I didn’t talk to him anymore, right. (Prod.04)

–– Low level of education of farmers interferes with production alternatives: There are few rural producers who completed high school and attended higher education and postgraduate courses. And this interferes with the level of clarification, the alternatives they see for their property and the optimization of productive resources existing in rural properties. It would be a small industry, in jams that you reuse, right, because when you sell your fruit on your property, you make jam, jam, it would be reusable. And having more agronomists because the settler doesn’t study, the settler only works; it’s like a truck driver; he drives a truck, right? Score. (Prod.04) In Rio Grande do Sul, there are some nut farms; they even have that machine that you shake your foot like an olive, so a lot of things that could be produced here, but there is no incen-

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tive; there’s nothing and then the people here are of milk, milk, milk. Now, with this drought there, everything has no treatment for the animals and corn is at a high price; the producer did not produce and then what are they going to do, so at the mercy, right, so there. And then the industry arrives and ‘hey, let’s lower the price of milk a little,’ ‘bah but it’s going to lower the price,’ they’re going to drop and so what? Then they don’t go down and make cheese, but they don’t because when you get to town, the guys catch you, right! (Prod.04)

–– The produce sector generates weekly income: This is an attractive alternative for survival for family farmers. It contributes to paying the fixed costs of the property and provides for the family. It’s a daily gain for us to survive. Better than when you depend on a crop that you harvest once a year, let’s say; it’s more complicated. So you sell some things every day and a little money comes in every day, so it seems to make our daily lives easier, right. Every day you sell something and the crop you harvest once a year. (Prod.05)

–– Difficulty in accurately planning the quantities of products that are sold daily: There are several aspects that interfere with the consumption of produce, such as temperature, time of year, festive events, educational campaigns on healthy eating and habits, if there is incentives from class entities for consumption, and if the school lunch absorbs and the students have in-person classes, among others. And this makes it difficult for the farmer to be able to plan their production cycles with precision. The use of applications has helped to bring to the consumption centers the amount requested by commercial establishments, to avoid losses and waste. And what is not sold becomes surplus and is generally destined for rural properties to be used as animal feed or compost. I prefer it to be lacking, but I don’t lose as much, like vegetables; everything has a very high cost, fertilizer, seeds, everything became quite expensive so we have to have control over it to have a minimum loss. (Prod.05) The leftovers they have in the fruit and vegetable market, they are leftovers that are generally not used in our region, or are not used in terms of human consumption. Here in the city, I know that there are people who collect to feed animals, what is possible is that it could be made compost and left, let’s say, in the form of organic fertilizer, so it doesn’t cost the market. It generates like this, let’s say, if someone gets three, four fattening pigs for consumption, they will produce a pig with a very low cost, right. (Prod.05) The leftovers of solid waste, generally…including cooperatives and people who pick up recycling even pay a little, but generally in companies they give so they don’t have the cost of taking it to other municipalities to make a specific deposit for this, right. (Prod.05) The vegetables come every day in the morning; they bring it here and they place it themselves; they arrange everything just right. The rest come twice a week. It comes by truck. We buy some things from the producer here, what we can get. (Retail.01) Those who have a seal we can sell, the rest cannot. Cassava, corn, these things we are already getting with a seal. We can’t buy other things from the countryside anymore because it’s not allowed. (Retail.01) Today the waste I would say is a high volume; there are months when we reach 8% of the total we sell, so of every 100.00 we sell, 8.00 is put in the trash. Often due to weather issues, especially in the summer, we suffer a lot from faster ripening; sometimes the fruit is a little out of place. I can mention in this example the banana that is sometimes overripe, and we

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can’t sell everything on the same day, and the next day you end up losing, going abroad. So it revolves around this number, from 6 to 8% per month that goes to waste. Fruit mainly on Mondays, as the market is closed on Sunday, so on Monday it is a very large volume that ends up going out, reaching 2000 on Monday, which we end up throwing in the trash. (Retail.02) We try to be practical in trying not to make purchases above the amount that is our turn, but this is very relative, because not always every day we always sell the same products; then there may be a lack of some and which is not good for the consumer here at the supermarket. But apart from that, the Supermarket issue, in relation to the producers here, they deliver in the first hour of the day, right after the harvest, before the sun even appears. On this path there is no waste. Regarding ceasa, we have refrigerated trucks. (Retail.02) Loss reduction comes a lot when buying; as I mentioned earlier, it’s something we don’t know about the business as it will be the next day, so it may happen that you sell 200 kilos of bananas in 1 day, and you buy 200 the next day and only sell 50, so if it comes past the point, it’s 150 kilos thrown away the next day. The idea is for us to achieve this issue: storage, to improve it, but mainly what you can do to reduce losses is in the purchase itself. (Retail.02) We have, for example, six supermarket bases and none of them lose the same amount, sell the same amount. It depends a lot on the consumer, the turnover and the issue of storage, how it is done and such, for us to be able to reduce these values then. In this matter of waste, it is what we mentioned before; they end up having a final destination, taking them to the interior for animal feed or for fertilization. (Retail.02) On our part, we have no loss in transport, as I mentioned, the losses happen after the product is already in the supermarket, on the shelves. (Retail.02) I would have to be able to reuse it, so at the moment we don’t have something that specific. In a little while you can get a fruit, a papaya, get the good part of it to repackage again. We don’t have an adequate space to do this. Yes, it would be possible to reuse it, but at the moment, we do not have anything in that sense, because the issues, mainly sanitary legislation, prevent us from having our own structure to do just that. There are people who work with vacuum-packed products; they pick carrots and chop them up, vacuum-pack them, and let them sell again; they can do that. (Retail.02)

4.4.4 Discussion of Results It can be seen from the research evidence that the produce sector is promising. It generates weekly income for family farming and alternatives for inclusion and family succession, with guaranteed income and quality of life. It includes children, young people, teenagers, adults, and seniors in productive systems, generating female empowerment, value-adding alternatives where the role of women in business plays a prominent role, including generating income for the improvement of the family’s residential structure. When women have their financial income from family farming, they tend to think first about the house and children. In this way, it contributes to providing comfort and well-being for the whole family. However, there are critical situations and bottlenecks that need to be managed so that it becomes an attractive sector for family farming, for example, coordination of

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the production chain, public policies and development, accessible technical assistance, and reduction of bureaucracy in health legislation to make it compatible with the reality of small properties. Today, the rigor and law is applied using the same prerequisites of the large agroindustry for small rural establishments. So, the cost of an agribusiness is incompatible with the income it generates, making investments unfeasible. Actors who can coordinate, stimulate, and manage the produce chain are necessary so that there is stimulus, and the producer feels confidence and bets on this sector. The rural production link is unstructured, highly dependent, and unable to lead the produce chain today. The wholesale link has clear strategies and develops viable and profitable solutions for its survival. The retail link creates articulation mechanisms with local producers to guarantee fresh products and daily deliveries. All links hold producers responsible for production losses, which burdens this production link. It is notorious that the sector demands a productive restructuring to become attractive for investments made by family farming. These investments are capable of generating social inclusion. In this sense, it is necessary to create a strategic plan for the revitalization of the sector that is capable of generating confidence and credibility to encourage family farmers to engage with the horticultural segment. There should be a relevant stakeholder who can be the articulator and leader of this chain, capable of supporting the global and shared objective of the produce supply chain. And this is in line with the words of Alcântara et al. (2021), which highlight that a chain needs the coordination and commitment of multiple companies to be able to implement a company’s strategic objectives. They demand traditional strategies at the business unit level, including low cost, product differentiation, level of innovation, coordination of internal functions, coordination between companies in order to stimulate income growth, reduction of operating costs, efficient use working capital, and fixed assets to maximize the value of stakeholders. It also requires investment in relationship strategies, building synergy, partnerships, and cooperation. This requires companies to create a structure and processes that improve behavior, transparency, and synergy among partner organizations in the produce supply chain. This perspective of collaboration, according to Alcântara et  al. (2021), is a key element for aligning the operational processes of multiple companies in an integrated supply chain system. It helps companies compensate for their weaknesses or often lack of resources by connecting with other companies that have strengths which compensate them, thus allowing all companies to have their productive resources valued and their weaknesses supplied by the actors of the horticultural productive ecosystem. This integration between actors can generate important initiatives to promote and encourage circular economy practices. Some examples are collective infrastructure for customer relationship management and supplier relationship management; management of customer services through the use of sharing platforms, e-commerce, and applications; demand management, synchronizing supply with demand, reducing variability, uncertainty, and more precision in production plans; accuracy in

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order processing at the lowest cost and with the least error; order processing with integration between different areas and coordination with suppliers and customers; management of the manufacturing flow, with the capacity to produce a large variety at the right time and at the lowest possible cost; and product development and commercialization, providing a framework for generating innovations, using open innovation platforms to develop solutions with customers and suppliers, generating support for production, logistics, and marketing and return management. With identification of the alternatives that reduce the return on products, the cost of this type of operation can be reduced. Therefore, family farming, which generates social inclusion and adheres to the premises of the circular economy, should focus on strengthening intra- and interorganizational flows, which in turn should be integrated into a single purpose, associated with increased productivity and reduced inventory and cycle time. And finally, they should strive for customer satisfaction, market share, and profit generation for all participants in the produce supply chain. This is only possible, as stated by Alcântara et al. (2021), with the creation of conditions for collaborative relationships and for sharing information, benefits, and risks. The awareness of the interdependence between companies in the produce sector, the possibility of adhering to certification seals, commitment, leadership, partnerships, collaboration, trust, information sharing, process integration, risk, and reward sharing, will contribute to the management of the produce supply chain.

4.4.5 Demands that Must Be Prioritized for Circularity in the Produce Sector In order to make progress in the produce sector, making it representative in southern Brazil and with less dependence on other states, it is necessary to invest in actions that optimize the use of local resources and contribute to the circularity of the produce sector. Based on the mapped evidence, it was possible to draw up an agenda for retaining the value of productive resources in the region, generating employment, collecting for municipalities, and innovative and alternative opportunities for local agribusiness, as shown in Table 4.3. The implementation of the proposed agenda will significantly contribute to the coordination of the produce chain and stability for the actors who work there. More structured chains give the impression that they are safer for family farmers to invest. Furthermore, they can be an important complementary alternative for the west of Santa Catarina, where the agribusiness of commodities predominates. At the same time, it can decisively contribute to the creation of purpose-driven businesses, which can also become a differential for this production chain. Likewise, there should be integration of key business processes along the produce supply chain, with the purpose of adding value to the consumer and stakeholders.

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Table 4.3  Agenda for advancing the circularity of resources in the produce sector Assumptions of circularity Circular supply chain

Actions Invest in closed cycles of local production, with producer, wholesaler, retailer, and agribusiness engaged in integrated projects Encouraging the use of renewable energies throughout the produce supply chain Encouraging the use of fuel and bio-based products for the production of fruit and vegetables Local and municipal programs to encourage family agricultural production of produce Assistance programs for technical assistance, qualification, and training of rural producers for the production of fruit and vegetables State and federal government programs that encourage family agricultural production of produce Waste as a Creation of horticultural agro-industrialization ecosystems resource Incentive for the creation of associations and cooperatives for the use and industrialization of produce Partnerships with local universities to invest in research and innovation to generate new uses for waste and leftover produce Use of nanotechnology and biotechnology to generate high value-added alternatives for the produce sector Encouragement for partnerships and cooperation between productive sectors so that disruptive innovation becomes present in the fruit and vegetable sector, generating value-adding alternatives for leftovers and losses Second life Incentive for agro-industrialization Incentives for the recovery of traditional recipes from the local culture that make use of horticultural products, to create products with an appeal of origin and geographic identification Partnerships with the adventure tourism segment, cycle tourism, and traditional tourism in the region to create spaces for tasting and reselling agro-industrial products for tourists Create new uses supported by nanotechnology and biotechnology for leftovers and losses from the fruit and vegetable sector Create innovation projects to encourage entrepreneurship in the produce sector and innovative projects for the region Sharing platforms Invest in e-commerce Integration of producers and buyers via apps Disseminate good online input purchasing practices for the produce sector Disseminate good online marketing and sales practices for the produce sector Use of blockchain and artificial intelligence to encourage and adhere to the traceability of the entire productive sector

4.5 Final Considerations This study aimed to analyze business models based on circular economy principles and practices for the fruit and vegetable sector, an analysis from the perspective of social inclusion of family farmers. The results show that southern Brazil has a high external dependence on produce. And this impacts production and consumption

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asymmetries. It creates instability for local producers, who are highly dependent on wholesalers and retailers for the commercialization of their production. In this context, the assumptions of the circular economy can provide important alternatives for bringing together producers and buyers. They can generate greater security for investment in the sector and contribute to making new investments, professionalizing the production chains of produce in the region. This study corroborates the findings of Srivastava et al. (2020) by showing that the hortifruti sector has the potential for resource recovery, waste recycling, conversion of waste into energy, soil restoration, and job creation and social inclusion through the internalization of circular economy premises in management processes waste. Furthermore, it is possible to produce added value by manufacturing different products derived from organic waste management processes. Examples include biogas and electricity, biofuels, bioplastics, biopolymers, organic acids, and other industrial chemicals. The formalization of an ecosystem of transition to circularity in solid waste management can add a lot to the region, especially by moving the local economy, innovating in processes and procedures, and transforming a production system to an eco-efficient model, especially with regard to the entire structure of coordination, engagement, support, and provision of productive resources. This should be a structure that contributes to generating trust, mitigating the risks associated with the produce sector, and generating legitimacy, recognition, and value for local products. The main practical contribution of the study is the diagnosis and mapping of the value chain and circularity of resources present in the fruit and vegetable sector in southern Brazil. So we proposed a research agenda for the progression of good circular economy practices in the context of family agriculture and the horticultural sector, with the potential to generate income, jobs, family succession, and quality of life for rural families. The practical contribution is the identification of the assumptions of circularity active in the produce sector. This decisively contributes to social inclusion and regional sustainability and SDG 2, The managerial implications of the evidence demonstrate that there are many practical and administrative opportunities that can be internalized in the produce chain. The engagement of public administration and agribusiness leaders is necessary to provide information, training, and incentives for the local population to visualize the opportunities that this production sector offers locally. Associated with the assumptions of the circular economy, it can generate short production cycles, sustainable production chains, and fresh and healthy food on the local population’s plate and use of resources with value retention in production cycles. Multiple companies working together, with shared purposes and integrated processes, can build synergies and improve the individual performance of each company. This will contribute to the development of differential advantages by encouraging the training of different members of the chain. Knowledge and integrated communication can generate strategic opportunities relevant to the produce sector in the local context. The limitation of the study is associated with the study being cross-sectional and presenting a specific reality. Longitudinal studies are welcome to assess local

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consumption behavior over the decades. Another opportunity for future studies is the comparison of evidence with other Brazilian regions, to identify opportunities for national projects to promote and encourage the horticultural sector. Acknowledgments  The authors would like to thank the UNIEDU, the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for the financial support to conduct this research.

References Alcântara Fagundes AF, do Amaral Moretti SL, Dias da Silva Gabriel ML, Domingues Pereira do Prado RA (2021) Comportamento dos consumidores durante a pandemia de COVID-19: análise de classes latentes sobre atitudes de enfrentamento e hábitos de compra. Estud Gerenc 37(159):303–317 Andler R, Valdés C, Urtuvia V, Andreeßen C, Díaz-Barrera A (2021) Fruit residues as a sustainable feedstock for the production of bacterial polyhydroxyalkanoates. J Clean Prod 307:127236 Andreola F, Lancellotti I, Manfredini T, Barbieri L (2020) The circular economy of agro and post-consumer residues as raw materials for sustainable ceramics. Int J Appl Ceram Technol 17(1):22–31 Boccia F, Di Pietro B, Covino D (2021) Food waste and environmental-sustainable innovation: a scenario for the Italian citrus market. Qual Access Success 22(182):145–153 Christensen D, Bach LT (2015) A Danish–Vietnamese partnership for business and technology development in solid waste management. Resour Conserv Recycl 105:123–133 Clube RKM, Tennant M (2022) Social inclusion and the circular economy: the case of a fashion textiles manufacturer in Vietnam. Bus Strateg Dev 5(1):4–16 Cuadros Blázquez F, González A, Sánchez Sánchez C, Díaz Rodríguez V, Cuadros Salcedo F (2018) Waste valorization as an example of circular economy in extremadura (Spain). J Clean Prod 181:136–144 Cudjoe D, Zhu B, Wang H (2022) Towards the realization of sustainable development goals: Benefits of hydrogen from biogas using food waste in China. J Clean Prod 360:132161 Della Spina L, Giorno C (2022) Waste landscape: urban regeneration process for shared scenarios. Sustainability (Switzerland) 14(5):2880 EMF – Ellen Macarthur Foundation (2015) Financing the circular economy: capturing the opportunity. Ellen MacArthur Foundation Publishing, Glasgow EMF – Ellen Macarthur Foundation (2020) Objetivos universais de política de economia circular. Disponível em: https://emf.thirdlight.com/file/24/UQH9_liUt5MoQfUQok-UNsr6yz/% 5BPT%5D%20Universal%20circular%20economy%20policy%20goals.pdf. Acesso em: 26 mai Ferronato N, Rada EC, Portillo MAG, Cioca LI, Ragazzi M, Torretta V (2019) Introduction of the circular economy within developing regions: A comparative analysis of advantages and opportunities for waste valorization. J Environ Manag 230:366–378 Flint DJ, Woodruff RB, Gardial SF (2002) Exploring the phenomenon of customers’ desired value change in a business-to-business context. J Mark 66(4):102–117. https://doi.org/10.1509/ jmkg.66.4.102.18517 Gioia DA, Corley KG, Hamilton AL (2013) Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research. Organ Res Methods 16(1):15–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428112452151 Glaser B, Strauss A (1967) The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. Sociology Press, Mill Valley

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Granato D, Carocho M, Barros L et al (2022) Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in the dairy sector: perspectives on the use of agro-industrial side-streams to design functional foods. Trends Food Sci Technol 124:128–139 Grant F, Rossi L (2022) The Italian observatory on food surplus, recovery, and waste: the development process and future achievements. Front Nutr 8:1342 Kalmykova Y, Sadagopan M, Rosado L (2018) Circular economy – from review of theories and practices to development of implementation tools. Resour Conserv Recycl 135:190–201 Krishnan R, Agarwal R, Bajada C, Arshinder K (2020) Redesigning a food supply chain for environmental sustainability – an analysis of resource use and recovery. J Clean Prod 242:118374 Liu C, Jiang H, Badulescu D, Bac DP (2022) Achieving zero hunger goal through minimizing waste in food supply chain: evidence from Asian emerging region. Sustainability (Switzerland) 14(10):5930 Manríquez-Altamirano A, Sierra-Pérez J, Muñoz P, Gabarrell X (2021) Identifying potential applications for residual biomass from urban agriculture through eco-ideation: Tomato stems from rooftop greenhouses. J Clean Prod 295:126360 McCarthy B, Kapetanaki AB, Wang P (2019) Circular agri-food approaches: will consumers buy novel products made from vegetable waste? Rural Soc 28(2):91–107 Pan SY, Du MA, Huang IT, Liu IH, Chang EE, Chiang PC (2015) Strategies on implementation of waste-to-energy (WTE) supply chain for circular economy system: A review. J Clean Prod 108:409–421 Reike D, Vermeulen WJV, Witjes S (2018) The circular economy: new or refurbished as CE 3.0? – exploring controversies in the conceptualization of the circular economy through a focus on history and resource value retention options. Resour Conserv Recycl 135:246–264 Sehnem S, Vazquez-Brust D, Pereira SCF, Campos LMS (2019a) Circular economy: benefits, impacts and overlapping. Supply Chain Manag Int J 24:784–804 Sehnem S, Preshlak D, Bernardy RJ, Santos Junior S, Ndubisi NO (2019b) Circular economy in the wine chain production: maturity, challenges, and lessons from an emerging economy perspective. Prod Plan Control:1–21 Sehnem S, Pereira SCF, Jabbour CC, Jabbour ABLS (2019c) Improving sustainable supply chains’ performance through operational excellence: circular economy approach. Resour Conserv Recycl 149:236–248 Song S, Ee AWL, Tan JKN et al (2021) Upcycling food waste using black soldier fly larvae: effects of further composting on frass quality, fertilising effect and its global warming potential. J Clean Prod 288:125664 Srivastava V, Vaish B, Singh RP, Singh P (2020) An insight to municipal solid waste management of Varanasi city, India, and appraisal of vermicomposting as its efficient management approach. Environ Monit Assess 192(3):191 Stahel WR (2016) The circular economy. Nature News 531(7595):435 Van Renswoude K, Wolde AT, Joustra D (2015) Circular business models. Part 1: an introduction to IMSA’s circular business model scan. IMSA, Amsterdam. https://doi.org/10.1787/e59f8dd6-­en Vasconcelos DC, Viana FLE, de Souza AL (2021) Circular economy and sustainability in the fresh fruit supply chain: a study across Brazil and the UK. Lat Am Bus Rev 22:393 Webster K (2015) The circular economy: a wealth of flows. Ellen MacArthur Foundation Publishing, Cowes Yin RK (2009) Estudo de caso: planejamento e métodos, 4th edn. Bookman, Porto Alegre

Chapter 5

Fighting Hunger and Educating Farmers with Regenerative Agriculture in Maputo’s Green Horticultural Belt Roberta Souza-Piao, Rekha Rao-Nicholson, Natalia Yakovleva, and Diego A. Vazquez-Brust

Abstract  The chapter analyzes the social and environmental impacts of the Green Horticultural belt in Maputo, where Mozambican and Brazilian researchers jointly implemented demonstration plots and trained small-scale farmers in circular – ecologically regenerative – farming practices aimed to upgrade soil quality and ameliorate food poverty. The project also involved circular water management practices and technologies combining irrigation, rainwater collection, and the use of low-cost portable greenhouses to preserve humidity. The adoption of greenhouses with water harvesters strongly reduces water use. Sustainable farming practices also include direct planting and land rehabilitation. The chapter uses resource-constrained innovation theory to analyze factors underpinning the success of this initiative. Positive impacts on SDGs 2 and 4 are discussed, as well as the factors influencing the success and scalability of the project. Keywords  Circular economy · Sustainable agriculture · Sustainable development goals

R. Souza-Piao (*) Production Engineering Department, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] R. Rao-Nicholson Essex Business School, University of Essex, Colchester, UK e-mail: [email protected] N. Yakovleva KEDGE Business School, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] D. A. Vazquez-Brust Faculty of Business and Law, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_5

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5.1 Introduction One of the biggest challenges in the world is food security. In 2020, between 720 and 811 million people faced hunger in the world. From 2019 to 2020, only in the African continent, there was an increase of 46 million more people undernourished. About 12% of the global population was living in food insecurity, which represents 928 million people (FAO et al. 2021). In the case of Mozambique in the African continent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 80% of the population cannot afford an adequate diet, and 42.3% of children under five are stunted. According to Carrilho et  al. (2017) in the report about food security and nutrition challenges in Mozambique, it also changes the eating habits of the urban population which contributes to increased weight gain and obesity. According to the World Bank classification, Mozambique is also a low-­ income and food-deficit country. Considering the many challenges for achieving food security, the implementation of sustainable farming practices could be an alternative for transferring knowledge to small producers about sustainable production techniques, also considering environmental and social benefits. In the case of Mozambique, this alternative is even more important considering that in 2020, 62.93% of the population is rural (World Bank 2017). In these terms, a circular economy could be considered a promising strategy to support sustainable and regenerative agriculture (Velasco-Muñoz et al. 2021; Rhodes 2017). We define circular economy as a new economic, Social, and environmental paradigm aimed to regenerate natural systems and make the most efficient uses of resources to create value for the economy and society without trespassing the ecological boundaries of the planet. In turn, UN/DESA defines circular agriculture as a type of agriculture that “focuses on using minimal amounts of external inputs, closing nutrients loops, regenerating soils, and minimizing the impact on the environment” (Helgason and Julca 2021, 1). The regenerative system is one of the foundations of the circular economy approach (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2021). Regenerative agriculture is related to preserving and maintaining resources, considering the interactions of agriculture with the natural system (Morseletto 2020; Newton et al. 2020). The farm is understood as a part of a large system. As stated by EMF the crops need insects to pollinate, surface and groundwater to irrigate, microbes to cycle nutrients, and soil to provide a strong and fertile growth medium. In this sense, regenerative agriculture comprises a group of techniques for producing high-quality food and improving the surrounding natural system. The techniques are embedded in this idea of changing from extractive to implementation of regeneration cycles and making things better. It is also important to consider the local conditions where the system is implemented. The regeneration techniques need to be tailored to local conditions. In this matter, we understand that it would be important to analyze the local conditions from the perspective of resources constraints theory. For this theory, constraints in resources are an incentive to innovate for combining resources available creatively.

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The theory assumption is based on a resource-poor environment (Acar et al. 2019; Molina-Maturano et al. 2020; Sharmelly and Ray 2021). Taking this, this chapter analyzes the implementation of the Green Horticultural belt in Maputo where Mozambican researchers, from the Institute for Agricultural Research of Mozambique (IIAM), and Brazilian researchers, from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), work together to mitigate food insecurity. The chapter is structured into five sections. After the introduction, a theoretical background is presented based on resources-constraints innovation theory and regenerative agriculture literature followed by the methodology, the presentation of results, analysis, and conclusion.

5.2 Theoretical Background This section presents the main concepts related to resource-constrained innovation literature and regenerative agriculture. These concepts will support the discussion of results in this chapter.

5.2.1 Resource-Constrained Innovation Literature Extant literature has widely explored the role of resource constraints on innovation and the nature of innovation (Garud and Karnøe 2003). Along with its impact on incremental and cumulative innovations, resource constraints have been observed to promote rather than impede radical innovation, especially in the context of knowledge constraints compared to financial constraints (Klarin 2019). It is notable that firms that can achieve innovation in a resource-constrained environment are likely to perform better than their peers (Leifer et al. 2001). Although the earlier works emerged from developed countries focusing on firm-level differences in resources and innovations, in the recent couple of decades, scholars have widely explored the origins, practices, and outcomes of resource-constrained innovations in developing countries (Adomako et al. 2022; Bhatti et al. 2018; Devi and Kumar 2018; Faris 2015; Vazquez-Brust et  al. 2013). These developing countries have several constraints prevalent in their business environment – poor access to domestic and international markets, inputs, services, and information as well as limited infrastructure development including energy, transport, telecommunication, and water (Ianchovichina and Lundström 2009). Furthermore, in many cases, these countries experience fragile state functions including public safety and security, primary education, public health education, and public health (Ianchovichina and Lundström 2009; Karnani 2007). Also, firms might experience other issues like the lack of skilled human resources and high financial, monetary, and fiscal instability (Ianchovichina and Lundström 2008). At the same time, the rise of emerging markets like India and China has led to greater research interest in the role of innovation

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in these countries as well as opportunities for context-relevant innovations (George et al. 2012). Studies have highlighted that appropriate resource-constrained innovations have the capacity to generate local knowledge, improve access to infrastructure, develop business capacity and capabilities, and alleviate poverty (Sarkis et al. 2010). The importance of social, political, and cultural skills has been acknowledged in the literature as some of the critical tenants for innovating in the resource-­constrained environment, especially the developing countries (Khoury and Prasad 2016; Bruton et al. 2013; Wu and Si 2018). In fact, these authors note that in many developing countries, these soft skills are crucial for enabling innovations in the light of the lack of appropriate resources, including institutions. This is uniquely pertinent as the products and services need to be tailored to the local requirements while aligning with the resources available to the firms. In many cases, firms have to engage in bricolage to match the resources available to the opportunities available in their environment (Vazquez-Brust et al. 2013). Yet, in most resource acute stages, this typically calls for the firms to adopt a more entrepreneurial position and leverage new and unique innovations leading to breakthrough innovations. Earlier works have observed that these radical or breakthrough innovations are most notably present in products and services that address the needs of the local income consumers in developing countries (Prahalad and Hart 2002). Also, these studies highlight that for resource-constrained innovations to emerge there needs to be an active interface between various stakeholders and firms. Ausrød et al. (2017) identify four elements relevant for resource-constraint innovations, namely, suitable value proposition, supply chain, customer interface, and finance. Recent studies have explored the impact of origin and ownership of firms in resource-constrained innovations. Bu and Cuervo-Cazurra (2020) note that foreign firms and business groups are more inclined to induce innovativeness in this context, while state ownership leads to less innovativeness. Similarly, Onsongo (2019) highlights the role of multinational firms and foreign investment in these resource-­ constrained innovations. The study notes the role of both investments from the global north and south firms in the development of these innovations suitable for the resource-constrained context. Although much of the earlier works focused on the entrepreneurial and firms’ led resource-constrained innovation, recent studies have noted the valuable role of the state in enabling some of the resource-constrained innovation (Kolk et al. 2014; Ramani and Mukherjee 2014; Hietapuro and Halme 2015; Hyvärinen et al. 2020). Furthermore, studies have examined the nature and role of south-south collaborations (Abdenur 2015; Chen 2018). Adopting the perspective that examined the technical cooperation between Brazil and Africa, to the author notes that technical cooperation between these two contexts which themselves experience several resource constraints was driven by the work of national governments and policies adopted to encourage dialogue and innovative activities between the firms from these countries. Other studies have further highlighted the role of national governments in these engagements between the south-south partners (Thorsteinsdóttir

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et  al. 2010). They suggest that developing countries’ innovation and knowledge transfer activities are greatly driven by the policies of the national government and various bilateral, multilateral, and regional agreements have emerged between partners from the south. Also, they suggest that these partnerships between the firms from the south are more likely to generate a relevant model for innovations. In their study, they observe that more than a quarter of the health biotech firms engaged in the south-south collaboration and that Brazil was the leading country in the south-­ south collaborations. Such south-south collaborations have also been explored in the case of approaches to eradicating diseases and identifying new, more resource-­ effective models of innovations (So and Ruiz-Esparza 2012). Similarly, Chen (2018) explored the collaboration between the Chinese firm and Ethiopian wind farms, noting the higher level of knowledge transfer between the host and home firms and university scholars. Aerni et al. (2015) implore the use of agricultural innovation systems to build on the resources in the southern countries and develop suitable innovations in the context. In order to address the resource constraints in these developing countries, Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems (AKIS) perspective enabled research in suitable areas, but over a period, this approach was found unsuitable since despite providing relevant technical knowledge it did not generate appropriate solutions and meet the needs of the local farmers. Thus, agricultural innovation systems emerged which considered the context of innovation as well as the technological innovation itself. Hence, these new innovation systems were able to generate relevant resource-constrained innovations to correspond to the needs of the farmers.

5.2.2 Regenerative Agriculture According to FAO, agriculture is one of the main causes of biodiversity loss, the highest consumer of water in the world, and responsible for about 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. Besides, it is responsible for soil contamination by using herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers (Velasco-Muñoz et  al. 2021). For facing these challenges, prior studies investigate the application of circular economy (CE) principles to food production. Previous research stresses that CE in agriculture comprehends resource efficiency which refers to minimizing resource use and avoiding waste. It is also highlighted the essential role of agriculture in conserving biodiversity, guaranteeing productivity over time, providing food security, and eradicating poverty (Velasco-­ Muñoz et al. 2021; Burgo-Bencomo et al. 2019). One of the main principles of CE is regenerating nature which implies that the concept of waste does not exist in nature. Everything is food for something else according to Ellen MacArthur Foundation. From this principle, it comes the concept of regenerative agriculture which implies keeping the ecosystem to guarantee balance with food production. Regenerative agriculture is also related to soil quality which needs to be free of

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external synthetic input (such as pesticides and fertilizers) (Rowntree et al. 2020). Soil quality also increases the capacity of water storage and generates their own fertility. As stated by an organic milk farmer in Brazil soil is the savior in regenerative agriculture (Piao et al. 2021). In a review conducted about regenerative agriculture, Giller et al. (2021) emphasized that regenerative agriculture implies changes in the macrostructure and social relevancy. As an example, the authors stress the connections of all parts of a farming system, such as a farmer and his family for promoting regenerative agriculture. Besides, regenerative agriculture also refers to increase levels of employment, integrated systems for promoting biological nitrogen fixation, and an increase in soil productivity. Methods such as no-tillage for avoiding soil erosion, intercropping, crop and livestock rotations, crop and livestock production system, agroecology techniques, and composting largely define a circular agricultural system (Giller et al. 2021); FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO (2021). From the literature review, the authors elaborated a conceptual framework for conducting the data analysis which is detailed in Table 5.1. Table 5.1  Conceptual framework Theoretical background Resource-­ constrained innovation literature

Regenerative agriculture

Dimensions Encourage the adoption of general local knowledge Improve access to infrastructure Develop business capacity, develop capabilities to alleviate poverty Develop soft skills Develop products and services tailored to local requirements Promote active interface between various stakeholders and firms No-tillage Crop and livestock rotation Crop and livestock production system Composting Water management Soil management Increase levels of employment Connections of all parts of farming system Agroecology

Source: elaborated by authors

References Prahalad and Hart (2002) McKenzie (2021), Ahadi and Kasraie (2020) and Duker et al. (2020)

Rowntree et al. (2020), Giller et al. (2021), Velasco-Muñoz et al. (2021), Burgo-­ Bencomo et al. (2019) and FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO (2021)

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Table 5.2  List of interviews Organizations Details Institute for Agricultural Research of Technical director (I1) Mozambique (IARM) Researcher responsible for Umbuluzi Agrarian Station (I4) Students (I5, I6, I7) One-day field visit of research team, composed of three researchers, in the Umbuluzi agrarian station Duration: 6 h EMBRAPA organization located in Two researchers directly involved in the project (I2 and Brasilia, Brazil I3) Duration: 2 h Former Embrapa director during the development of the project (18) Duration: 2 h Source: elaborated by authors

5.3 Methodology Four interviews were carried out to investigate regenerative agriculture in Maputo’s green horticultural belt. The individuals selected were from EMBRAPA and IIAM organizations. They are two researchers from EMBRAPA, directly involved in the project in Mozambique, and two researchers from the Mozambican research organization. In addition, the research team had a day field research trip to the Umbuluzi agrarian station, in Mozambique, where the project was implemented. In this opportunity, the research team was able to observe and talk with researchers, technicians, and students working in the agrarian station. The pictures from this field research are at the end of this chapter. The interviews were recorded on a digital recorder and later transcribed verbatim in Portuguese or English before being translated into the English language. A team of researchers was involved in the data collection in order to guarantee reliability as suggested by Denzin (1978). The interviews in Mozambique were conducted in July 2019 and in Brazil, with EMBRAPA researchers, were in May 2019. The interviews are detailed in Table 5.2.

5.4 Results The case study of this paper is the Trilateral Project of Technical Support to the Programs of Nutrition and Food Security (PSAL) from 2011 to 2015. The PSAL project was a collaboration between Institute for Agricultural Research of Mozambique (IIAM), EMBRAPA and two Universities from United States (the University of Florida and Michigan State University). The objectives of the project are focused in three areas: socio-economic production system and post-harvest and agro-processing technologies for increasing the horticultural production and

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productivity. The main activities of the project are to test and adapt production, post-harvested, and processing practices and technologies, to contribute in the creation of infrastructure for research, extension and processing, training of Mozambican researchers and extension technicians, and organized socioeconomic information about horticultural value chain (Schmink et al. 2020). One of the main locals of development of the PSAL project is Umbuluzi, an agrarian station, where IIAM has an experimental unit. The research team had the opportunity to visit the Umbuluzi station for 1  day. On that day were conducted interviews with the director of Umbuluzi agrarian unit; the Mozambican research team leader, who was the technical director of IIAM; and some students who were working on the station that day. The technical director had a Master’s and PhD in agronomic engineering from the Federal University of Viçosa, which is located in the Southeast of Brazil (Figs. 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3). In the Umbuluzi agrarian station, the researchers from EMBRAPA worked together with researchers from IIAM, technicians, and interns. The interns are students from different universities in Mozambique with agronomic engineering degrees. Until the end of 2018, all interns were paid with funding from the PSAL project. The interns received from 200 to 300 American dollars per month, which is more than the salary paid to an agronomic engineer trained in Mozambique. According to I2 the project trained from 300 to 500 students and around 15–20 thousand small producers. According to the interviews, the money received was not their main motivator. The interns want to stay in the Umbuluzi unit because they have the opportunity to learn by doing and they teach their communities (I5, I7).

Fig. 5.1  Research team with IIAM director in the fieldwork in Umbuluzi: Production of a new variety of garlic. (Figures from the Umbuluzi Agrarian Station (July 2019). The people in the figures are part of the project and/or author of the chapter)

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Fig. 5.2  IIAM director in the fieldwork in Umbuluzi: greenhouse for production of fresh vegetables and local people working in the field. (Figures from the Umbuluzi Agrarian Station (July 2019). The people in the figures are part of the project and/or author of the chapter)

Fig. 5.3  Greenhouses built with EMBRAPA for producing fresh vegetables in Umbuluzi agrarian station. (Figures from the Umbuluzi Agrarian Station (July 2019). The people in the figures are part of the project and/or author of the chapter)

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They also have very high regard on the knowledge and mentoring skills of the technical director (I6). Even in July, when no one was receiving the scholarship, interns are still there. One of the main pieces of knowledge transferred in this project from EMBRAPA to IIAM is the technic of building greenhouses. Because of the lack of water and the high intensity of sunlight, it is difficult to cultivate vegetables free of pests. The technic of building greenhouses, to develop the varieties and the production system is essential. The Mozambican team, composed of the IIAM leader of the project, students, and IIAM technicians, built with EMBRAPA researchers a greenhouse. So, in 2019, only students built a new greenhouse based on the knowledge acquired with the EMBRAPA team. The production system is agroecological and some plant varieties were used as a barrier to pests. According to I1, …we work in agroecology. So you have a pest management plan that considerably reduces the need for pesticide use. This barrier is exactly the first model we designed to handle interference. According to an EMBRAPA researcher (I2), they also use some techniques to maintain the water in the plant, such as straw mulch. According to I1, most of the small farmers are illiterate, and they can get knowledge through their children who get formal education in the university. In his words, …It is very difficult to work with an illiterate but we reach them through their children, because the children of farmers are in the university to strengthen the production. So, this knowledge can be easy for the farmer to see via their children, because they believe on them. This is a model that fits more or less what we learn from our colleagues (EMBRAPA colleagues). From EMBRAPA interviewees, they highlight the problems related to the production of vegetables such as water scarcity, soil poverty, and contamination of soil and water by sewage sludge. According to I3 …the production of vegetables is very precarious, there are many problems with contamination of soil, water, their water table is very dense and the cultural aspect itself did not help much for the production. They had no irrigation system. The water channel was already contaminated. So, we had to teach how to prepare the soil, the need to use a bed because it needed to be planted in beds because they could not use the soil itself, the spacing and in addition to working at the institute we also worked with the instructors with their own farmers. In terms of seeds, I2 mentioned …the seeds we brought to Mozambique were tropical seeds, they were appropriated for tropical condition nations. So that’s the reason the major success because all the varieties that we brought in were work. They adapted very well and very quickly. He added: the good thing of this project the internalized the processes and the technologies and somehow there are using it with knowledge of whatever. This fact leads the entry of Brazilian companies in Mozambique that work with seeds trade and irrigation equipment. Overall, the Mozambican researchers and students were convinced that the circular agriculture techniques were making a strong social impact in the livelihoods of small farming communities. Farmers around here are subsistence farmers, they have very primitive techniques and cannot afford pesticides or fertilizers. In winter

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they move to the cities to beg for money. The green belt provides vegetables all year for the local communities, which makes a lot of difference for their food security. Student I6 commented that My parents travelled from far north to visit the demonstration plot and later they built their own greenhouse, now others are coming to see the magical vegetables that resist pests and growth with little water. Regarding the activities on the agrarian station, the EMBRAPA researchers detailed the importance of learning by doing processes. According to them, agronomic research in Brazil has a very strong reputation stemming from its experience in the field. They pointed out that in Brazil, PhD researchers and technicians work together in the field learning from experience. The Brazilian researchers brought this practice to Africa, where it was not usual. The EMBRAPA Researcher I2 describes one of the field experiences in his words, “In one of experiments conducted we put all the researchers in the field. So, the ones that come as engineers, they are only spectators. They don’t carry anything. So, one of the engineers say I’m an engineer, and refuses to work in the field, And I said: look at me I’m doing this and you should do the same.” For EMBRAPA researchers, the leadership of Mozambican researchers was very important to transfer knowledge in the field and promote the engagement of researchers and students. According to EMBRAPA researcher I2 in an event after the end of the project, he visited the Umbuluzi agrarian station; he met about 50 students who were still doing practice despite the end of funding. “So, the leadership of Mozambicam researcher keeps moving with that project and making the difference.”

5.5 Analysis The analysis is based on the conceptual framework detailed previously. From the perspective of innovation constraint theory, the results indicate the importance of local knowledge and relationships (Aerni et al. 2015) for developing suitable innovation and alleviating poverty in contexts of extreme hardship. However, our analysis suggests that rather than looking at institutions or organizations, the key for successful knowledge transfers lies on the interactions between individuals. It is clear the importance of the soft skills of the technical director of IIAM in his close relationship with Mozambican and Brazilian researchers, technicians, and students in the agrarian station. He used a cascading strategy where illiterate small farmers can get knowledge from their children who get formal education and training in the agrarian station. Thus, knowledge is transferred indirectly from the researcher to the farmers through a chain of personal bonds based in trust and respect. The students have already a family bond with their parents, which makes them more likely to be heard. The testimonies suggest a cascading process. The farmers that learnt from their children or demonstration plots later demonstrate the results of new knowledge to other farmers in a horizontal scaling process.

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In addition, the Director forged a relational bond with the students. It is also important that the research leader got his formal education in Brazil where he acquired also skills related to “learning by doing” in the agronomic engineering knowledge area. This contributes to establish strong ties with Brazilian researchers. As a result, knowledge generated in Brazil is transferred to African farmers through a chain of personal, one-to-one bonds, where knowledge is reconfigured and its communication adapted to make it more appealing to the recipient. All these micro-processes allow the dissemination across farmers and communities of techniques from regenerative agriculture as soil and water management, natural control of pest disease in plantation, no-tillage, and use of greenhouses (adapter to be built with materials easily obtainable in rural Mozambique) which also reduces the use of water and makes produce more durable by protecting them from pests (FAO et al. 2021). The other point related to regenerative agriculture is the use of Brazilian seed varieties, which are more productive than local varieties but also adaptable to African local conditions. This allows the production of vegetables with more productivity and addresses the problem of hunger in Mozambique. Regenerative agriculture also details the importance of connections of all parts of the farming system, as stated by Giller et al. (2021)). This element is pointed out when it is promoted in the agrarian station the integration of researchers and students for developing new skills and fighting hunger. It is also essential to the relations of students with their parents, who are part of the farming system. Soil management is another important dimension of regenerative agriculture. The adoption of agroecological techniques keeps and enriches the fertility of the soil, as stated by Rowntree et al. (2020). The leadership of the Mozambican researcher is recognized by the Brazilian team from EMBRAPA as crucial for the development of the project and its continuity. As stated by the literature, soft skills are essential for enabling innovations in the lack of resources (Khoury and Prasad 2016; Wu and Si 2018). Overall, the project shows how innovative circular agriculture techniques can be adapted to other counties’ resource-constrained contexts leading to improvement in social conditions. Different from many other foreign-funded projects that are discontinued when the funding ends, the project has been scaled in other parts on Mozambique through a cascade of small farmers’ interaction and the leading example of the researchers from Brazil and Mozambique working together and jointly with students in the adaptation, implementation, and demonstration of circular and sustainable agriculture techniques. The main outcomes are detailed in Table 5.3.

5.6 Discussion and Conclusions The objective of this chapter was to analyze the implementation of the Green Horticultural belt in Maputo where Mozambican researchers and Brazilian researchers, work together for mitigating food insecurity.

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Table 5.3  Conceptual framework Theoretical background Resource-­ constrained innovation literature

Regenerative agriculture

Dimensions General local knowledge; products and services tailored to local requirements Improve access to infrastructure

Relations to the case To develop seed varieties and infrastructure adapted to local conditions and resources constrains, as the building of greenhouse with materials available in Mozambique To develop seed varieties and infrastructure adapted to local conditions and resources constrains, as the building of greenhouse with materials available in Mozambique Develop business capacity, To transfer knowledge to engineers, develop capabilities to technicians, and students and promote the alleviate poverty culture of “learning by doing” Soft skills Soft skills from Mozambican research leader as personal will, perseverance, and overcome obstacles No-tillage To promote the learning skill of students who are going to transfer this knowledge to their parents who are farmers (social ties for promoting regenerative agriculture) Crop and livestock To promote the use of seeds adapted to local rotation conditions Crop and livestock To promote the use of seeds adapted to local production system conditions Composting To promote the use of seeds adapted to local conditions Water management To promote better management of soil and water Soil management Natural control of pest To promote the learning skill of students who disease are going to transfer this knowledge to their parents who are farmers (social ties for promoting regenerative agriculture) Increase levels of To promote the learning skill of students who employment are going to transfer this knowledge to their parents who are farmers (social ties for promoting regenerative agriculture) Connections of all parts of To promote the participation and “hands on” farming system (social culture of all involved in the experiments (as ties) engineers, technicians, and students) that promotes the transference of knowledge Agroecology To promote the learning skill of students who are going to transfer this knowledge to their parents who are farmers (social ties for promoting regenerative agriculture) To promote the dissemination of agroecology practices from Brazilian and Mozambicam researchers as natural pest barrier and soil fertility

Source: elaborated by authors

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The main outcomes indicate the importance of inclusive leadership, as soft skills, for promoting sustainable development in the local context. Technical skills are fundamental for promoting the use of seeds and regenerative agriculture techniques adaptable to local context, but the leadership of technical director of IIAM was essential to the success of the project and its continuity. The charismatic and handson leadership and strong relational ties between researchers in Brazil and ­ Mozambique enabled a high level of knowledge exchange and trust that allowed the “regenerative agriculture elements” of the Brazilian model to be transferred. Also, the attention given to adapt the project to local needs and resources, resulting in the inclusion element. A green belt providing food for the more vulnerable but also acting as a practical school showing young volunteers how sustainable farming methods can be productive. Recall how these young students mentioned that they will convince their parents – traditional farmers – to try the new techniques, and later other farmers would want to know about these techniques. This effect of knowledge transfer from Brazil, knowledge adaptation to Mozambique’s needs and resources, and dissemination of such adapted knowledge among vulnerable farmers are among the main outcomes of this investigation. The results align with the intervention strategies proposed by Vazquez-Brust et  al. (2009) for education in areas with high social vulnerability and environmental deterioration. These researchers recommended de-emphasizing power differences, co-learning, and building meaningful one-to-one relations. In terms of SDG 4, the results obtained through the orchestration of demonstration plots, bricolage, generational knowledge transfer, and horizontal leadership provide a pathway not only for bottom-up dissemination of circular agriculture among subsistence farmers but also for the education of disenfranchised groups. These results are in contrast with those obtained by traditional hierarchical training in an ambitious project for productive inclusion of small farmers in North Brazil. In that case, the subsistence farmers refused to plant the seeds offered (Zapata et al. 2010). Another point of interest is that in interviews with Emprapa directives (I8) it was hinted that the demonstration plots that became Embrapa’s trademark knowledge-­transfer strategy were developed jointly with African researchers. The results indicated that some social sustainable development goals are addressed as SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 4 (quality education), and SDG 10 (reduced inequality). In terms of SDG1, SDG2, and SDG10. The chapter shows a strong and seemingly long-term impact of CE practices in the alleviation of poverty, reduction of malnutrition, and marginalization of poor farmers. The cooperative and nonhierarchical nature of the training with farmers empowered them to develop their own solution and make circular economy practices their own. Our results support the positive effects of CE on social challenges. It also showcases the crucial role of collaboration and partnerships to promote CE, as assumed by SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals). The type and quality of partnership is key. The horizontal approach seen in this project not only ameliorated to some extent the effects of power asymmetries (between Brazil and Africa, between farmers and researchers) but also succeeded in reducing the bias of Mozambican technicians against disenfranchised farmers.

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Finally, the chapter also makes a contribution to the literature on cross-border collaboration for sustainable development (e.g., Vazquez-Brust et  al. 2013; Gray and Gills 2016; Claus et al. 2020) with an empirical case study showing how south-­ south collaboration succeeded to develop a scalable and context-sensitive innovation, when many projects funded by developed countries had failed (Claus et  al. 2020). Empirical research on Brazil-Africa cooperation is still scarce. Our chapter is singular in having accessed and visited in situ the project and leaders of the team in both countries. The chapter honed in on resource-constrained innovation, leadership, interpersonal relations, and empowering training as explanatory factors. However, in alignment with previous research in Brazil-Africa agrarian cooperation (Amanor and Chichava 2016), our interviewees in Mozambique and Brazil also highlighted the cultural and linguistic affinities between Brazil and Mozambique, the shared history as former colonies of Portugal, the education in Brazil of the Mozambican lead, the Brazilian narrative about Brazil’s historical brotherhood with Africa and African roots, and the similarities in soil and biomass between Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa. However, more research is needed to investigate the role of cultural and discursive aspects influencing the translation of innovation in the context of implementation of south-south collaboration to scale the “Brazilian model” of agricultural development in Africa. Limitations of the study include that we could not interview farmers, nor quantitatively measure impacts. Further studies could identify and interview more farmers, implement a survey first with farmers in the demonstration plots and later with the same farmers in their communities, or compare yield before and after interventions. We observed the combined results of demonstration plots, leadership, and both cross-border and generational knowledge exchange. Future studies could advance the theorization of relations between these factors, or design experiments with only one factor at a time. Further research could also involve a wider range of actors such as non-governmental organizations with a critical instance, community leaders, politicians, and academics in social sciences. Acknowledgments  This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Carvalho Carlos Ecole–Technical Director of the Institute for Agricultural Research of Mozambique (IIAM), who inspired us with his leadership and kindness.

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Chapter 6

Partnerships for Transitions from Open-­Air Markets to Circular Smart Food Markets in Kenya Gerald Masila, Elvira Nalyanya, and Carol Mungo

Abstract  Similar to the rest of Africa, outdoor open-air markets in Kenya are the main outlets for food commodities flow serving over 90% of the population. These markets are not only critical for access to nutritious food but also shape the national economy through trade. Circular economy solutions are timely in solving some of the pertinent issues that open-air food markets face. The Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) is collaborating with partners including market players, county and national governments, academia, and service providers to implement a project on “Establishment of Smart Food Markets for the Future in Kenya” project in partnership Rockefeller Foundation. The solutions proposed through this project and discussed through this chapter include, but not limited to, waste management through recycling and reuse for farming black soldier flies for insect-based feeds and organic manure for farming foods to be sold back in the markets, thus completing the cycle. Markets are live structures with multiple dynamic social interactions that need multistakeholder engagement to propose, implement, and sustain reforms. Hence, this chapter highlights the role that partnerships could play to enable the implementation of circular solutions at the market level. A detailed and empirical multi-case study method has been applied to write this chapter. An in-depth literature review has been conducted to quantify gaps and a comprehensive stakeholder analysis undertaken to determine their collaboration for the realization of circular smart food markets. Keywords  Circular economy solutions · Smart food markets · Social benefits · Partnerships

G. Masila (*) · E. Nalyanya Eastern Africa Grain Council, Nairobi, Kenya e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] C. Mungo Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_6

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6.1 Introduction Simply defined, an open-air market refers to a physical facility where merchandise of different nature is traded either daily or on a regular basis. They are often preferred because of their convenience, competitive prices, a variety of produce, social interactions, and the role they play in ensuring food availability and accessibility. Similar to 90% of Africa, open-air food markets in Kenya are a crucial component of food market systems, serving as a nexus between producers and consumers. These lively markets are deeply embedded in culture driving food and nutritional security hence vital to a community’s economic survival. Findings from the political economy study conducted by Eastern Africa Grain Council indicate that about a third of the food crops produced in Kenya are marketed as surplus while about 77% of consumers buy food from open-air markets. In these markets, wholesalers (43%), traders (33%), and farmers (24%) are all important suppliers of food (EAGC 2021). However, the functioning of these markets has been marred by challenges which overall presage inefficient and ineffective operation of markets; ultimately reducing trade margins, increasing consumer prices, and dampening the economy thus perpetuating a vicious cycle. The challenges faced by open-air markets and exacerbated by the Corona Virus pandemic have shown the need to transform the current status quo. Kenya produces 0.39 kg/per capita of waste per day (Kaza et al. 2018). Therefore, a market without a sound waste management system ends up accumulating waste/filth with foul smell and blocked drainages and sewers causing food contamination and disease outbreaks. Inadequate drainage and lack of water harvesting lead to flooding which soaks produce on sale further increasing post-harvest losses. Moreover, absence of storage space aggravates hygienic provision for food handling leading to commodity loss as stated by 70% of large traders in open-air markets in Kenya (EAGC 2021). Responding to the abovementioned challenges, the Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) in partnership with Rockefeller Foundation is reimagining how food markets are built in Africa. “Smart Markets” aim to increase access to safe, affordable, and nutritious food in a sustainable ecosystem in Kenya. This will be achieved through provision of smart solutions such as sustainable waste management, circular sanitation facilities, and water management that enable reuse, recycling, and upcycling of products in and outside of markets showcasing smart markets as an integral part of circular economy for safer, more efficient, and resilient food markets. Through sustainable waste management, food waste generated in markets can either be sold to black soldier fly (BSF) farmers for production of animal feed or treated into compost and sold back to farmers for use. A similar circular loop can be created for water management where grey water can be collected, treated, and distributed to facilities that do not require fresh water such as cleaning toilets among others. Further, rainwater harvesting increases the amount of reusable water for the markets (Dalberg 2021). For circular sanitation, Moya et  al. (2019) opine that human excreta is usually treated as a waste that needs to be disposed rather than a resource. Faecal sludge can be collected and treated into compost or biofuels that

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can generate agricultural produce that can re-enter food markets. Improved post-­ harvest handling techniques such as cold storage, drying, and value addition through food processing play a crucial to reduce food and post-harvest loss. The use of solar photovoltaic systems to power cold storage facilities and for mini-processing activities presents an opportunity for circularity in food markets (Nijman 2020). Sustainable Development Goal number (SDG) 2 advocates ending hunger, achieving food security, and improving nutrition while promoting sustainable agriculture. According to the SDG tracker, SDG 2, target 2.a emphasizes the need to invest in rural infrastructure, agricultural research, technology, and gene banks. The smart circular solutions proposed by the smart markets for the future project will create new avenues for job creation and improved service delivery at the market level and increase profits through the entire value chain. SDG 12, target 12,3 talks about halving global per capita food waste which is lost along production and supply chains including post-harvest losses. The cold storage facilities discussed in this chapter elaborate opportunities to meet this goal. As target 12.5.1 still suffers from limited data available for recycling rates according to the SDG tracker, this study identifies how smart markets of the future will incorporate digital technology that will facilitate capturing of such data. Last but not least, if you look at target 2.c on ensuring stable food community markets and timely access to information the solutions proposed in this chapter brings actionable initiatives that will go a long way to solve the current challenges faced by open-air markets. Overall, SDG 17 on partnerships has set the basis and foundation to achieve other SDGs in the food markets (UN 2016). To this extent of the project, partnerships have strongly emerged as the foundation for conceptualising to materializing circular smart solutions for open-air food markets. The chapter in hand analyses the type, nature, and approach of various stakeholders involved in the smart food markets project, a first-of-its-kind in Kenya, in advancing circular economy solutions encompassing the larger society’s benefits. This chapter describes how partnerships could potentially assist in upscaling circular economy solutions. The main research question this chapter sought to address is “how can smart food markets of the future apply circular economy solutions and provide social benefits through partnerships?” To address this main question, the chapter sought to address the following sub-questions: • What role do circular economy solutions linked to waste management play in open-air food markets? • What are the enabling conditions to ensure the success of circular economy solutions in open-air food markets? Organization of This Chapter The subsequent sections of this chapter are as follows. The second section summarizes the literature reviewed to inform the research on existing circular business models in food markets. The third section is on the approach applied to conduct the project and to derive the findings from the project implementation to the chapter

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development. The fourth section discusses the proposed circular economy solutions for markets of the future based on the findings of this study and the social inclusion in circular practices. The fifth concludes with a discussion on how partnerships could contribute to the implementation of a circular economy.

6.2 Literature Review 6.2.1 Circular Business Models for Food Markets Markets have evolved over time and have become differentiated in types and functions, with some offering either wholesale and/or retail services. In Kenya, a typical market has a wide range of produce for sale including cereals, pulses, roots, tubers, fruits, vegetables, livestock, clothing, and electronics among other commodities. Most of these markets are open-air spaces, while others have basic infrastructure in form of shades and a kind of enclosure to control entry/exit and for the purpose of collecting fees and taxes from the traders and merchants operating in the markets (EAGC & RF 2020). Market stakeholders are composed of traders (retailers and wholesalers), consumers, service providers, government (national and county officials), market management, trader association, and development partners. Traders operating in these markets pay taxes to market attendants who remit to the county government responsible for budgeting resources toward operational expenses including salaries, electricity, maintenance, and occasional improvements in infrastructure. Services for waste collection in these markets are often outsourced from the private sector and paid for by the county government (Cherono and Jakinda 2016). Circular economy (CE), as an approach to sustainability, offers efficient, and realistic solutions from the current “take-make-waste” linear model to a circular one, which aims to gradually decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources. It is based on three principles: (i) design out waste and pollution, (ii) keep products and materials in use, and (iii) regenerate natural systems. In the technical cycle of CE, products are reused, repaired, remanufactured, and recycled (EMF 2013). On the hand, Kottaridou and Bofylatos (2019) explain that the biological cycle recaptures value from waste in the system through the reuse of food, utilization of by-products and food waste, and nutrient recycling. Waste becomes the input to new products to support crop production, food processing, feed and energy, as well as the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Closing input loops minimize discharges, reduces demand on resources, and increases resource efficiency, creating circularity in agribusiness practices. Mentink (2014) defines a circular economy business model (CEBM) as “the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value with and within closed material loops.” Thus, the overarching goal of a CEBM is to generate value through using resources in multiple cycles and, simultaneously, reducing waste materials that otherwise must be disposed of. Guided by this, Lüdeke-Freund et al.

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(2019) provide a typology of six major CEBM patterns, namely, repair and maintenance; reuse and redistribution; refurbishment and remanufacturing; recycling; cascading and repurposing; and organic feedstock that are mainly derived from the Ellen Macarthur Foundation “butterfly diagram.” Reviews on the current CE concept have pointed out gaps, particularly the lack of consideration of social and institutional dimensions, issues that are considered important to the development of the CE concept. Geissdoerfer et al. (2017) claim that many conceptualizations of the term seem to ignore socioeconomic effects and only emphasize economic issues, while simplifying the environmental dimension. In solidarity, Murray et al. (2017) support that circularity approaches benefit some aspects of sustainability but lack the integration with social dimension. Cross-sector social partnerships bring Sustainable Development Goal 17 on Revitalizing the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development to life. The SDGs provide a framework through which social issues can be addressed through collaborative, complementing efforts. Understanding the current challenges with open-air markets in Kenya and how cross-sector social partnerships can help propose circular economy solutions are important in the transition from open-air food markets to smart markets (or markets of the future). The contextual conditions in the markets assessed are important and their difference brings elements such as early adopters or experimenters to the transition. This creates an opportunity for the partnerships to tap in for the future. The case studies highlighted by this study leverage on different players for collaborative partnerships in both the private and public sectors. The partnerships aim to close loops in alternative sources for heating and cooling, transportation, digitization, and the challenging aspect of markets, waste disposal, and management.

6.3 Approach and Methodology The chapter employed a detailed and empirically rich multi-case study approach to derive the study findings. A case-study approach involves an in-depth exploration of a specific bounded system, utilizing multiple forms of data collection to systematically gather information on how the system works. This approach is used when (a) the focus of the study is to answer “how” and “why” questions; (b) you cannot manipulate the behavior of those involved in the study; (c) you want to cover contextual conditions because they are relevant to the phenomenon under study; or (d) the boundaries are not clear between the phenomenon and context (Baxter and Jack 2008). For the chapter in hand, reasons (a) and (c) are applicable. The analytical framework for understanding the political economy of sectors methodology was used due to the fact that it involves: (a) sector mapping, (b) sector political analysis, (c) how players influence the policy process, and (d) operational implications. Additionally, the model aided in the generation of detailed knowledge of the incentives, interests, and actors within the food market sector who are important in shaping the discussion on how circular economy solutions fit into the food

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markets of the future and the social benefits they can provide. A mix of data collection methods was employed during the political economy analysis (PEA) study. Primary data was collected through administration of questionnaires designed to unique views and input of each category of stakeholders. Additionally, an observation guide was developed to enable the research team to record observations that were not easily captured in the questionnaires or key informant interviews. This was also supported by secondary data from desk review of the existing appropriate reports. The study was conducted in 23 open-air food markets located in 10 counties, namely, Garissa, Meru, Kajiado, Machakos, Mombasa, Nairobi, Kiambu, Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, and Kisumu all within Kenya. It attracted a total of 616 comprising traders (295 retailers and 72 wholesalers), consumers (144), county government officials (15), development partners (11), representatives from trader associations (8), and respondents from the various market management committees (16). As part of the PEA, the survey sought to know the top priorities recommended by stakeholders for transition from open-air food markets to circular smart food markets for the future (EAGC 2021).

6.4 Findings 6.4.1 Desired Solutions for Transition to Smart Food Markets With regard to the proposed solutions transition from open-air markets to smart food markets, the stakeholders who participated in the PEA study desired a range of features in their markets categorized into five areas as follows: (i) modern buildings and infrastructure, (ii) security and safety, (iii) accessibility, (iv) cleanliness and hygiene, and (v) power and lighting (EAGC 2021). The stakeholders’ desire for infrastructure is a modern building which houses stalls, stores, shops, offices, and conference facilities for their social meetings. The structure should be enclosed in a perimeter wall with lockable gates to control movement in and out of the compound. Additionally, it should be having adequate space and allow for aeration as well as multiple entries for access. To promote the safety and security of people and property, the markets should have firefighting equipment, garbage collection and disposal, ample ventilation, a CCTV network, and stationed guards to thwart any forms of insecurity, such as theft, terrorism, and civil unrests. Digitization of market information such as the daily number of market user, the amount of commodity sold, and correct number of traders and available stalls among others should also be considered (EAGC 2021). Another key area of concern is cleanliness and hygiene. Stakeholders desire markets that have underground and overhead water tanks and boreholes for sufficient water provision. To lower the costs of pumping, it should consider gravity water flow and the use of renewable energy like solar pumps. The traders also desire clean and modern washrooms that conserve water usage. The roofs can be used to harvest

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rainwater, while they desire good drainage to control flood-waters. Concerning power and lighting, the marketers want the possibility of considering solar panels and rechargeable batteries to lower electricity bills. The market should be accessible through quality roads and walkways as well as well roofed to allow for shopping in rainy seasons. To consider motorists and people living with disabilities (PLWDs), the parking should be ample, connected with climbing ramps and stairs for ease of access. The aisles should be well connected and gates considered from all directions to give all traders equal access to customers. Additional recommendations were more dustbins around the market, more water points in the market, more first aid kits and clinic, security, sanitation, and market spacing among others (EAGC 2021).

6.4.2 Proposed Circular Smart Business Models Comprehensive analysis on “Smart Markets for the Future  – A Sustainable Investment Opportunity” identified and proposed sustainable waste management system, circular sanitation facilities, water management system, cold storage, mini-­ processing, and solar mini-grids as circular smart business models as solutions for open-air market challenges in Kenya as showcased by Fig. 6.1 (Dalberg 2021). A sustainable waste management system will enable circular economy, through reusing, recycling, or upcycling of both organic and inorganic waste. Throughout the market, there will be specifically labelled and differentiated bins for organic and inorganic waste for market stakeholders to responsibly dispose of their waste. The market will further hire unemployed youth as formal employees to collect the waste

Fig. 6.1  Circularities of smart market components. (Source: Dalberg analysis 2021)

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Fig. 6.2  Overview of inorganic waste management CEBM. (Source: Dalberg analysis 2021)

from vendors and other service providers such as mini processors as well as from the common bins. The collected waste will then be aggregated at the designated sorting site and divided into sub-categories based on the off-takers’ needs. The service provider then collects the sorted waste from the market at specific regular intervals and undertakes the reuse, recycling, and upcycling of the waste collected. Organic waste collected from the market can then be sold to BSF farmers which is a sustainable alternative protein source for animal feed that is then sold to animal farmers. The remnants of the organic waste are then composted into organic fertilizer which is used as a substitute for chemical fertilizers. The resulting animal and crop produce is then brought to the market for sale and the cycle repeats (Fig. 6.2). Circular sanitation facilities leverage the water management system and existing waste collectors while ensuring hygiene in markets. Market stakeholders pay a nominal fee to use the sanitation facilities which are managed by either the market management committee or an independent third party. The sanitation facilities can be connected to the mini-grid to ensure proper lighting. Handwashing stations with soap, clean running water, and drain connected to the greywater management system are also available and attached to each sanitation facility. The human waste is then collected at regular intervals by a third-party service provider who upcycles it into various products such as compost. This will enable smart markets to create a circular loop, enabling solid waste generated in markets to be used as inputs for farming and the outputs of which can re-enter the markets as agricultural products (Fig. 6.3). Water management system with features such as a raised floor on stilts to prevent flooding, raised roof with rain harvesting ducts to collect rainwater efficiently, and a drainage system to collect greywater at different collection points of the market will be useful. The water harvested from rainfall and reused from the system will

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Fig. 6.3  Overview of circular sanitation facilities CEBM. (Source: Dalberg analysis 2021)

Fig. 6.4  Overview of water management CEBM. (Source: Dalberg analysis 2021)

lead to cost savings in meeting water needs at the market, thus contributing to CE. The collected greywater will be treated in a water treatment system, making it clean for reuse throughout the market. Further, the water system can be connected to the mini-grid through a solar-powered pump that will draw water for various uses in the market (Fig. 6.4).

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Fig. 6.5  Overview of cold storage CEBM. (Source: Dalberg analysis 2021)

Cold storage prolongs the shelf life of fresh and perishable produce such as fresh fruits and vegetables and animal products (e.g., fish and meat) at markets through the rental of cold storage rooms and cooler boxes to vendors, therefore reducing potential post-harvest food losses. The cold storage facility has the potential to act as an aggregation and distribution point for farmers or wholesalers who bring in high volumes of produce into markets. Potential users of the cold storage facility at food markets include wholesalers, food processors, and individual vendors (retailers). Cool rooms would be used to store excess produce overnight or during the day so that vendors can keep their produce fresh and in good quality for an extended amount of time. Reduced food losses would also mean more food available for the Kenyan population and opportunities to generate additional revenue from sales for the vendors at the market (Fig. 6.5). Mini processing business aims to reduce the loss of perishable agricultural produce, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, at markets through the creation of new products. The operator purchases ripe produce from vendors that would otherwise go to waste and processes them into new products such as jams, juices, and sauces that they then sell in the market to vendors and customers. They may also be partially or entirely powered by solar-generated electricity and make use of recycled glass jars for packaging (Fig. 6.6). Solar mini-grids provide a cross-cutting solution that powers other core components such as cold storage and mini processing, and a reliable source of power to market stakeholders, households, and businesses at and near the market. This circular business model will include a solar system to generate and distribute solar power to the market and other customers connected to the system. It will require solar panels installed onto the market building roofs alongside multiple energy access points to connect vendors and service operators to power their tools and charge their phones among other related activities. Currently, Kenya’s electricity supply is predominantly sourced from renewable energy such as hydropower (29%), geothermal

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Fig. 6.6  Overview of mini-processing CEBM. (Source: Dalberg analysis 2021)

Fig. 6.7  Overview of solar mini-grid CEBM. (Source: Dalberg analysis 2021)

(29%), wind (12%), and also fossil fuels (thermal, 26%) (USAID 2019). Transitioning from the energy sources with higher emission levels to solar to power open-air food market operations and its surroundings could mitigate carbon emissions. Moreover, as the energy generated is estimated to be greater than the markets’ planned loads, there will be potential to connect surrounding households and businesses, improving energy access and reliability (Fig. 6.7).

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Table 6.1  Relevant social impact indicators for circular smart business models Circular smart business model Relevant social impact indicators Sustainable waste Availability of multiple waste service providers management system Number of formal and informal jobs created for women Circular sanitation Number of people with access to clean toilet facilities facilities Number of formal and informal jobs created for women Number of women who have access to clean toilet facilities Water management Number of people with access to clean water system Number of formal and informal jobs created for women Number of women who have access to clean water Cold storage Volume of food losses reduced through the storage of perishable produce during the day and overnight in cold temperature, resulting in more food available Number of formal and informal jobs created for women Mini-processing Volume of food losses reduced through processing of ripe produce facility before spoilage, resulting in more food available Number of formal and informal jobs created for women Solar mini-grids Number of households and businesses connected to the mini-grid Source: Dalberg (2021)

With regard to the social benefits, expected quantitative and qualitative impact will include jobs generated, nutritional and hygienic gains, and improved accessibility to a reliable power source among other benefits for women as depicted by Table 6.1.

6.4.3 Opportunities to Rethink and Redesign Smart Food Markets for the Future There exist opportunities that can be leveraged on to rethink and redesign open-air markets to transition to smart food markets by interlining smart solutions such as solar mini-grid, cold storage, mini processing, waste management, smart building with water harvesting technology, sanitation facilities, and an integrated digital fee payment platform to create a sustainable market system. Below is a discussion of the case study exemplifying the aforesaid opportunities. Case Study: Piloting Naivasha Smart Fish Market in Nakuru County, Kenya Nakuru County was selected as one of the initial beneficiaries to pilot the smart market concept through a Memorandum of Understanding established between the County Government of Nakuru and EAGC.  Consultations between project partners and County Government of Nakuru earmarked the proposed Naivasha Smart Fish Market with an aim to address the challenge of (continued)

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the youth hawking fish at Karai area along the Nakuru-Nairobi highway, which presents the challenges of unhygienic food handling, especially for the fish, which is a highly perishable commodity, as well as incidences of accidents. The greenfield site is currently under construction and will have all the prioritized smart market solutions under one roof, including the smart building with a water management system, mini-grid, cold storage, mini processing, waste management, sanitation, and digital fee payment platform. The mini-grid opportunity at the Naivasha market is evaluated from the perspective of the total available roof space resulting in 833 kWh energy generation capacity, of which 141  kWh is the actual market energy requirement. The Naivasha Fish Market can have a multi-pronged impact in climate, economic, social, and gender aspects. The market is expected to mitigate ~31,000 MT of carbon emissions over 10  years through the use of renewable solar energy, organic and inorganic waste management, and treatment of solid waste. The market is further expected to create 380 total jobs, 217 of which are anticipated to be for women.

6.5 Discussions and Conclusions African markets have generally embraced the same characteristics, often associated with lack of structure and an opportunity for waste dumping. This is even though markets operate an economy of its own while commencing a long but regular supply chain. The loops identified in this study include energy, time, waste disposal, and storage: (i) access to clean, affordable and realiable energy for lighting, cooking, and cooling; (ii) time spent by users to access the market; (iii) amount of organic recyclable waste disposed; and (iv) inadequate market infrastructure for food storage including cold storage facilities. The proposed market solutions such as solar technology, cold storage for cooling, e-mobility services and waste-to-wealth cycle provide opportunities to close important loops in the current open-air market. Finding and funding strategic partnerships is one of the key lessons learnt through this study. Each partnership has a life of its own. To actualize some of the smart market solutions proposed by stakeholders and endorsed by this study, the right partnership mechanism has to be established and importantly funded. Funding comes in different forms such as financial contribution to infrastructural development, prototype testing amongst others; on the other hand, it can be capitalized through collaborative partnerships with sector-specific expertise creating co-­ ownership. For the markets studied in this chapter, public-private partnerships have emerged useful and promising. The devolved government system of Kenya allows for county governments to govern different sectors within their context. Some of these county governments are crippled by inadequate revenues or resources to efficiently deliver its services. Private-public sector partnerships bring complementing

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efforts to support some of the services as the open-air markets. Private sector financial and non-financial investments create a long-term sustainability aspect to some of these solutions which cannot be fully under the arms of the county governments. From the findings above, we deduce several observations regarding circular economy solutions for smart food markets of the future and how partnerships could help advance some of these solutions for smart food markets of the future. Markets by nature involve a multitude of stakeholders and by function they bring together stakeholders for commerce – selling and buying of goods and services. The market actors who include those that are involved in the design, financing, and construction of markets, operations and management, logistics and supply, traders, buyers, service providers, trade associations, and development partners all have an interest and a stake in the markets. The different roles played by these partners, however, will help improve social inclusion in circular practices proposed as each player will have a different role in advancing the solutions. In the case of the Project on Establishing Smart Food Markets of the future implemented by EAGC with support from the Rockefeller foundation, the concept of a smart food market was conceived and developed the shared with the National and County Governments who immediately embraced and supported the concept, seeing it as a solution to their standing challenges particularly waste management and a potential for transformation and for increased social benefits such as job creation. The economic viability of establishing smart food markets provides more insights into the opportunities for cyclical business models. These include waste recycling and reuse for farming black soldier flies for insect-based feeds and organic manure for farming foods to be sold back in the markets, thus completing the cycle. The initial human-centered design studies by Ideo.Org which were later refined for the specific sites of Naivasha Smart Fish Market and Nakuru Top market by the School of Architecture and Building Sciences, of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, open new doors and avenues for exploring modern functional, cost-effective, and attractive spatial planning and architectural designs that are not only user friendly, but maximize utilization of natural lighting, solar green renewable energy, water harvesting, and smooth flow of traffic and goods into and out of the market without congestion. These bring technological solutions that will highly depend on social acceptance for the overall performance of the circular solutions. Another example of how partnerships can bring circular solutions to life was seen in the case of PowerGen which saw a detailed energy study demonstrated the feasibility and economic viability of investing in solar energy in the markets with a reasonable payback period, thus solving the energy problem and opening new possibilities for powering cold storage solutions and mini agro-processing to eliminating food losses in the markets estimated at over 18%. The use of e-mobility for inbound and outbound market logistics by establishing charging and battery swapping centeres at the market is yet another result confirmed by the PowerGen study and implemented in partnership with Knight Energy in Ngong Market, Kajiado County, and Naivasha and Nakuru in Nakuru County.

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This chapter has attempted to propose some solutions for smart food markets and how partnerships could not only enable these solutions but also bring social benefits to a larger part of society. There is room for further research to be developed on the extent to which such solutions are bringing social benefits to various categories in society.

References Baxter P, Jack S (2008) Qualitative case study methodology: study design and implementation for novice researchers. Qual Rep 13(4):544–559. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-­3715/2008.1573 Cherono I, Jakinda D (2016) Peri-urban food traders’ preferences for open-air market design and management attributes in Nairobi, Kenya. African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE), p 2. https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/246920 Dalberg (2021) Business case and cyclical business modes: establishment of smart markets for the future in Kenya. Eastern Africa Grain Council Eastern Africa Grain Council & Rockefeller Foundation (2020) (Brief 1). Smart Food Markets for the Future Project Eastern Africa Grain Council, Rockefeller Foundation (2021) Political economy analysis for the establishment of smart food market for the future in Kenya. Eastern Africa Grain Council Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013) Towards the circular economy: economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition. Available at: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/ assets/downloads/publications/Ellen-­MacArthur-­Foundation-­Towards-­the-­Circular-­Economy-­ vol.1.pdf Geissdoerfer M, Savaget P, Bocken NMP, Hultink EJ (2017) The circular economy – a new sustainability paradigm? J Clean Prod 143:757–768 Kaza B, Yao L, Bhada-Tata P, Woerden F (2018) What a Waste 2.0: a global snapshot of solid waste management to 2050. Urban Development Series. World Bank, Washington, DC. https://doi. org/10.1596/978-­1-­4648-­1329-­0 Kottaridou A, Bofylatos S (2019) Design out waste methodology for circular economy. Responsive cities disrupting through circular design. Research Gate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336775475_Design_out_waste_methodology_for_circular_economy Lüdeke-Freund F, Gold S, Bocken NMS (2019) A review and typology of circular economy business model patterns. J Ind Ecol 23:36–61 Mentink B (2014) Circular business model innovation: a process framework and a tool for business model innovation in a circular economy. Master thesis in Industrial Ecology (M.Sc.), Delft University of Technology & Leiden University Moya B, Sakrabani R, Parker A (2019) Realizing the circular economy for sanitation: assessing enabling conditions and barriers to the commercialization of human excreta derived fertilizer in Haiti and Kenya. Sustainability 11:3154. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113154 Murray A, Skene K, Haynes K (2017) The circular economy: an interdisciplinary exploration of the concept and application in a global context. J Bus Ethics 140:369–380 Nijman E (2020) How can circular economy contribute to food security in East Africa? Africa Investment Gateway U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (2019) Power Africa in Kenya. Power Africa. www.usaid.gov. https://www.usaid.gov/powerafrica/kenya United Nations (2016) The Sustainable Development Goals report. Available at: https://unstats. un.org/sdgs/report/2016/

Chapter 7

Implementation of Urban Organic Waste Collection and Treatment System in a Brazilian Municipality: An Analysis Based on a Socio-technical Transition Theory Mônica Maria Mendes Luna and Matheus Moraes Zambon

Abstract  The circular economy concept has been gaining ground and changing assumptions regarding the linear approach view of waste. In Brazil, Law N. 12.305/2010, which established the Solid Waste National Policy (SWNP), stipulates that Federal States and Municipalities must draw up waste management plans to encourage the recyclable and compostable fraction of the urban waste to be valued. However, the implementation of an organic waste collection and treatment system – to recover the value of organic waste in urban centers meeting the health and safety requirements and at the same time optimizing public investments – has been one of the crucial aspects in the municipal waste management plans. The success of such a system also depends on the effective participation of the citizens and on the municipal policy changes. On the basis of a socio-technical transition theory, we highlight the importance of several innovations brought by incumbents and niche actors to the process of transition toward a more sustainable urban management system in Florianopolis, a city in Southern Brazil. The municipal holder of waste management public services, COMCAP, incrementally reoriented the regime and adjusted its action to consider social and educational aspects over time. In 1986, it was the pioneer to adopt the selective collection of dry recyclables in Brazil and composting initiatives in poor communities. Partnerships with other actors lead to outstanding initiatives, such as composting projects in a community, which was recognized as a practice in agroecology at the occasion of the International Green Week and the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture. In 2021, COMCAP was the first company to implement an organic waste door-to-door collection system. Understanding how the implementation of this system occurred from a multilevel M. M. M. Luna (*) · M. M. Zambon Department of Production Engineering, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_7

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perspective contributes to other municipalities in starting a transition process toward a more sustainable model based on circular economic concepts. The impacts of these changes on the achievement of some Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations are also addressed in this chapter. Keywords  Municipal solid waste · Organic waste · Circular economy · Multilevel analysis · Socio-technical transition · SDGs

7.1 Introduction The need to change the actual production model is largely discussed in the literature since it has been showing itself unsustainable over the years. The circular economy (CE) model is presented as an alternative to the linear approach view of waste. New stricter laws and incentives have been created as well as academic and social movements to foster its implementation around the world. As highlights (Friant et  al. 2021), CE was coined in the late twentieth century and is already recognized by the European Union (EU) as an “irreversible, global mega trend.” Circular economy, however, is still an emerging subject although it has established itself as an academic field of study and generated an optimistic wave of action in government, industry, and across society (Velenturf et al. 2019). The main idea of CE is to turn waste into valuable resources using new solutions, equipment, or techniques, while enabling manufacturing companies, municipalities, and others to recover the value of the technical and biological materials flow (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2013). In many Brazilian cities, several solutions have been adopted to recover value from solid waste by improving the efficiency and efficacy of collection, separation, and transportation of recyclables, dry waste, or technical material flows. These materials are used as raw material for several companies, which have already set up reverse logistics systems counting on the work of waste pickers who perform an important role in the value recovery process. According to Velis (2017), waste picking is currently the predominant way by which resource recovery of dry recyclables occurs in the Global South. Conversely, the implementation of a waste collection and treatment system to recover the biological materials is still a challenge. These materials are worthless when compared to dry recyclables. In 2010, the approval of Law N. 12.305, or the Solid Waste National Policy (SWNP), in Brazil established that Federal States and Municipalities must draw up waste management plans to encourage the recyclable and compostable fraction of the urban waste to be valued (BRASIL 2010). Nonetheless, the planning and implementation of an organic waste management system are more complex for the municipalities than a technical waste management system since it takes more than legal and technology aspect changes. For its implementation, the citizens’ competencies, practices, and worldviews need to change (Jurgilevich et al. 2016).

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Despite the more limited economic interest in the biological materials, an organic urban waste collection and treatment system has an important impact on ensuring healthy lives and promoting the citizens’ well-being. The implementation of an organic waste collection and treatment system using composting methods linked to the utilization of compost through urban agriculture is also perceived to offer opportunities for fresh food production and even economic benefits (Zezza and Tasciotti 2010; Herrero et al. 2021). In 2021, Florianopolis was the first Brazilian municipality to implement a door-­ to-­door organic waste collection system and to subsidize the activities in composting sites. The health and technical issues guided the actions of the City Hall, and later of the COMCAP, until the 1900s regarding the urban waste collection and treatment system. Over time, a wider perspective was adopted by these actors, especially COMCAP, whose actions considered environmental, educational, and social issues. This chapter addresses the implementation of an urban organic waste collection and treatment system in the Brazilian municipality of Florianopolis, based on the socio-technical transition theory. Understanding how the implementation of the current system of organic waste management occurred from a multilevel perspective contributes to other municipalities in starting a transition process toward a more sustainable model based on circular economic concepts. The impacts of this system implementation on the achievement of some Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations are also addressed in this chapter.

7.2 Urban Organic Waste Management in Brazil: A Circular Economy Perspective The circular economy was conceptualized in 1990 as an option to the prevailing traditional linear economic model whose principal aim is to keep the value of products, materials, and resources in the economy for as long as possible (Kyriakopoulos et al. 2019). In a circular economy, waste becomes food for new processes, and it is transformed into valuable resources. Current views on the circular economy are shaped by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which separates “biological” and “technical” materials flows (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2013). “Organic” means minimally processed materials of biological origin that can be recirculated within the environment via naturally occurring geo-biological processes within reasonable timescales, whereas “inorganic” means technical materials normally derived from mineral or petrochemical sources and processed such that their recirculation within the environment is slow and potentially damaging to ecosystem services (Velenturf et al. 2019). Organic solid waste is mostly composed of food and garden waste. For this reason, one of the main challenges to achieving an efficient municipal waste management is to minimize negative consequences of that

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highly putrescible waste, which emits bad odors and greenhouse gases and releases water while decomposing. Organic fractions comprise a greater percentage of the municipal solid waste in low-income countries when compared with high-income countries (Wei et al. 2017). In Brazil as in other developing countries (Qing et al. 2010) (Sharholy et al. 2008), organic waste is the largest share of municipal solid waste. Indeed, it represents 45.3% of Brazilian municipal solid waste (MSW) (ABRELPE 2020). Unfortunately, landfilling and dumping continue to be the most common destination of biological materials in Brazil, although alternatives such as composting and anaerobic digestion should be preferred, as established by the Solid Waste National Policy (SWNP). The circular economy principles such as non-generation, reduction, reuse, and recycling of solid waste are presented in that law and must contribute to a more circular model transition. The composting method is considered a more suitable method to process organic waste, especially in the developing countries, where the MSW composition comprises 50% or more organic matter (Troschinetz and Mihelcic 2009). Figure  7.1 illustrates the urban organic waste and the reverse flows, including composting, as a process to recover the value of waste according to a circular economy view. The adoption of a circular economy perspective instead of a linear one to plan and implement an urban waste collection and treatment system is no way an easy task. To make the recovery of the value of waste feasible, it is important to design a system that considers the waste segregation and collection type, the volume of each fraction of waste and its composition and quality, and the recyclable market and other context characteristics, such as cultural, economic, social, environmental, and legal aspects. Besides that, as pointed out by Mesjasz-lech (2019), “building an efficient and effective system of waste management can only be done through cooperation of multiple entities who are stakeholders of the system.” In a circular economic model, these multiple entities will take part in several activities, allowing the recovery of the value of biological and technical materials. Fig. 7.1  The urban organic material flows. (Source: authors based on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013))

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In general, the responsibility for building this system rests on the municipalities, and, as pointed out by Guerrero et al. (2013), “they have the challenge to provide an effective and efficient system to the inhabitants.” The municipalities play a crucial role in promoting the societal shift toward the circular economy paradigm, so the institutional quality is a determinant of the landfill disposal reduction and, indirectly, of the extent of separate waste collection (Agovino et al. 2020). However, the efficiency depends upon the active participation of both the municipal agency and the citizens (Guerrero et al. 2013), while citizens can be encouraged to adopt pro-­ environmental behavior if they have opportunities, facilities, and knowledge (Agovino et al. 2020). In the Brazilian context, it is also important to highlight the waste picking participation, which is “currently the predominant or exclusive way by which resource recovery of dry recyclables, or technical materials – such as plastics, metals, paper, and card – is achieved in the Global South” (Velis 2017). Indeed, the waste pickers are actors already embedded in a circular economy model implementation in lowerand middle-income countries, which makes the social and healthy aspects more important in these countries. The implementation of an organic waste collection and treatment could contribute to face important challenges, which are well depicted by some Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as good health and well-being, decent work and economic growth, and responsible consumption and zero hunger, among others. Aside from a waste collection and treatment implementation system increasing livelihood opportunities by creating waste management jobs, it also brings others social and economic contributions.

7.3 A Multi-level Perspective on Technological Transitions Technological transitions (TT) are defined as major technological transformations in the way societal functions are fulfilled which also involves user practices, regulation, industrial networks, infrastructure, and symbolic meaning (Geels 2002). Transitions involve mutually coherent changes in practices and structures, and because of their multilayeredness and inevitable entrenchment in society and culture at large, they are a very complex and comprehensive phenomenon (Schot and Geels 2010). To understand long-term and complex socio-technical transitions, a multilevel perspective (MLP) has been developed by scholars addressing these transitions from three different levels of heuristic, analytical concepts: (i) technological niches, (ii) socio-technical regimes, and (iii) socio-technical landscape (Schot and Geels 2010). The regimes are embedded within landscapes and niches within regimes. Technological niches and socio-technical regimes are similar kinds of structures, although different in size and stability (Geels and Schot 2007). Both niches and

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regimes are about networks of actors that share certain rules. These actors, which include professionals such as engineers, users, policy makers, societal groups, suppliers, scientists, and capital banks, among others, by their actions and interactions contribute to maintaining or changing aspects of socio-technical systems in the long term. On the other hand, the landscape has a different structure, a broad exogenous environment or a context for interactions of actors beyond the direct influence of regime and niche actors. The landscape influence over the regimes is mediated by actors’ perceptions, negotiations, and agenda setting, leading to particular windows of opportunity and tension (Schot and Geels 2010). Figure 7.2 illustrates an example of the multi-actor network involved in socio-technical regimes for the case of urban organic waste collection and treatment system. “The MLP emphasizes that the alignment of trajectories within levels, as well as between levels, will produce transitions” (Schot and Geels 2010). Since the nature of interactions between these three levels differ, Geels and Schot (2007) proposed a typology to identify four transition pathways: transformation, dealignment and realignment, technological substitution, and reconfiguration pathway (Table 7.1). This pathway typology is based on differences in timing and nature of multilevel interactions and provides support to identify what is the role of each actor and how these struggles between actors contribute to the socio-technical transition and to the context changing over time. Besides that, it is important to understand the several historical facts to explore better the possibilities of future changes, especially when one addresses a transition to a new economic model which requires the involvement of multiple actors.

Fig. 7.2  The multi-actor network for the case of urban organic waste collection and treatment system. (Source: modified from Schot and Geels (2010) and Geels (2006))

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Table 7.1  Main actors and (inter)actions in transition pathways Transition pathways Transformation

Technological substitution Reconfiguration

Dealignment and realignment

Main actors Regime actors and outside groups (social movements) Incumbent firms versus new firms Regime actors and suppliers New niche actors

Type of (inter)actions Outsiders voice criticism. Incumbent actors adjust regime rules (goals, guiding principles, search heuristics) Newcomers develop novelties, which compete with regime technologies Regime actors adopt component-innovations, developed by new suppliers. Competition between old and new suppliers Changes in deep structures create strong pressure on the regime. Incumbents lose faith and legitimacy. Followed by emergence of multiple novelties. New entrants compete for resources, attention, and legitimacy. Eventually one novelty wins, leading to a stabilization of the regime

Source: adapted from Geels and Schot (2007) and Schot and Geels (2010)

7.4 Material and Methods A qualitative longitudinal case study is the method used in this chapter to analyze the socio-technical transition on urban organic waste collection and treatment system in Florianopolis, a Brazilian municipality. A historical or qualitative case study is the method adopted by the vast majority of transition studies due to the complex and systemic nature of socio-technical change processes (Heiberg et al. 2022) since transitions are long-term processes resulting from preceding developments, struggles, setbacks, mobilizations, and opportunities (Geels et al. 2016). This case study uses information both from secondary sources (journal articles, reports, academic books) and primary sources (interviews, observations, and documents) to trace the event chains related to waste municipal system changes in Florianopolis. The data are synthesized into a comprehensive interpretation since a long period is considered in our analysis. The first data collection was conducted in the second half of 2016 by personal interviews and visits to several initiatives of urban organic waste collection and treatment in Florianopolis. Recording of notes and photos were the techniques used at that time to identify and describe each organization or community groups’ evolvement and the activities performed by them as well as the interactions with the community, companies, university, and the holder of public services of waste management, among others. Data were collected from in-depth interviews carried out in 2019 with the same organizations or groups to evaluate the activities performed and the charging methods and to identify how evolved the actors’ relationships which also are used to understand the social technological transitions. All these interviews were recorded and transcribed. Table  7.2 lists the actors interviewed and the methods of data collection adopted.

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Table 7.2  The actors interviewed and the methods of data collection adopted Actors Private companies

Project or company Company 1

Methods of data collection 2016 Personal interview with the owner and visit to the company office and composting site

Company 2

Company 3 Company 4 Hotel

NGO

NGO

Community

Community 1

Community 2

Municipal foundation

Municipal project

City Hall

COMCAP

Interview with the owner Interview with the person responsible on the composting process and visit to the composting site Interview with the responsible person of the project and visit to the composting site Interview with the residents of the community where composting site was located Interview with the residents of the community where composting site was located Interview with the person in charge of the project Visit to the composting site at COMCAP

2019 Personal interview with the owner after the closing down the company 1 (duration: 1 h and 20 min) Personal interview with the owner and visit to the composting site (duration: 38 min) Personal interview with the owner (duration: 1 h)

Interview with the responsible person of the project and visit to the composting site (duration: 1 h and 30 min)

Two interviews with the person in charge of the project in April (total duration: 1 h and 40 min) Interview with the manager of the Department of Planning, Management and Projects (duration: 56 min)

In 2022, other data were obtained by personal interviews with the manager of the Department of Planning, Management and Projects; the Communication Advisor; and the engineering team responsible for the organic waste collection at COMCAP.  On March 14, 2022, a telephone interview followed by messages exchanges with the COMCAP Communication Advisor provided data about the COMCAP history and photos from the company archives. The main objective of that interview was to ratify some historical data from secondary sources. With the support of the COMCAP team, from April 11 to 14, 2022, questionnaires were applied to companies which collect and treat organic waste. Regarding the events that have been occurring in the last 10 years, the authors have made observations since they could take part in meetings and workshops

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related to the projects at COMCAP, the company responsible for MSW in Florianopolis, besides the visits to private companies, cooperative sites, and composting yards to understand how the initiatives or projects operated. Whenever necessary, complementary data were obtained through interviews by phone or e-mail. We also described the municipal urban waste management system briefly, based on data obtained from our prior experience, technical reports, and interviews with the COMCAP engineering team. The groundbreaking feature of Florianopolis regarding its MSW management has led to the choice of this city in our study. Florianopolis is the capital of Santa Catarina – the first state in Brazil to close down the dump sites – and it has the highest HDI among Brazilian capitals and the third one among 5568 municipalities (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística 2016). The city has achieved national prominence on this theme since it was the first one to offer separate waste collection and has been an example due to its successful composting initiatives and its innovative technology, which were developed by the Federal University of Santa Catarina researchers. In a context characterized by a lack of economic interest in organic solid waste, this chapter presents some successful practices adopted in Florianopolis to implement an urban organic waste collection and treatment system. The description of the Florianopolis experience allows us to improve our understanding on how the municipalities could promote more efficient and effective waste management based on a circular economic view, especially regarding the valorization of the organic waste. This chapter presents the changes in the landscape-, regime-, and niche-level in the organic waste municipal system in Florianopolis from the description of historical facts related to innovation technologies, social movements, and projects conducted by several actors. Since a transition is a temporally long process, this study mainly focused on the development in the last years, but historical changes dating back to the 1800s have also been described here. Five stages of the transition process were identified in the socio-technical urban organic waste collection and treatment system. Besides analyzing the regime-level, we describe changes on the landscape and initiatives on the niche-level, showing how they linked up in this transition process. The transition pathway toward a more sustainable model, based on a circular economy concept, is evaluated according to the typology proposed by (Geels and Schot 2007).

7.4.1 First Stage: From the Garbage in the Sea to the Garbage in the Dumps (1830–1956) Around 1830, as described by Bagnatti and Abreu (2014), there was a recognition and recommendation to the population of the Municipality of Desterro (former name of Florianopolis) that garbage should be thrown into the sea, in order to not

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infect the atmosphere. This situation remained until 1877, when the City Council granted the city’s first garbage collection and disposal service; however, garbage still continued to be thrown into the sea from its periphery (Bagnatti and Abreu 2014). Due to the city’s growth, and the consequent accumulation of garbage on the beaches, throwing garbage into the sea was no longer a possible solution. To get on with that, it would be necessary to build structures that would allow the launching of the garbage further into the sea. Thus, in 1914, a garbage incinerator started to operate as a new solution. It remained in operation for almost half a century (Bagnatti and Abreu 2014), and to this day the chimney can be seen downtown (Fig. 7.3). Once again the growth of Florianopolis and of the garbage volume generated made this solution infeasible, since the population was bothered by the smoke (Bagnatti and Abreu 2014). In 1956, the city’s waste began to be disposed of on the Itacorubi mangrove (Baldissarelli 2009). The mangrove was considered a pestilent and humid place, so filling it with “garbage” would be a way of recovering it, since at that time the importance of the flora and fauna of the mangroves was not known. Besides that, the Itacorubi was one of the less densely populated areas in the city. Figures  7.4 and 7.5 show the beginning of the dumping operations and garbage disposal in the Itacorubi mangrove area in the 1950s.

Fig. 7.3  Incinerator chimney in downtown Florianopolis. (Source: author’s archive (2022))

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Fig. 7.4  Beginning of the dumping operations in the 1950s. (Source: COMCAP’s archive)

Fig. 7.5  The garbage disposal in the mangrove area. (Source: COMCAP’s archive)

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7.4.2 Second Stage: Arising of Social Movements and the First Composting Projects (1957–2000) In 1971, a public-private company with public administration, COMCAP (Companhia Melhoramentos da Capital), was created by the City Hall to collect fees and develop community-paving programs (Florianópolis 1971). In 1976, COMCAP took on the garbage collection services from the company Sanenge, a third-party company from Rio de Janeiro, but kept the disposal of garbage in the mangrove. For more than 30 years, all the garbage collected in the city was thrown in the Itacorubi mangrove. In the meantime, the emphasis on the protection of the environment emerged in Florianopolis through social movements. Among others, the “Free Ecological Movement” (Movimento Ecológico Livre or MEL) began in mid-1983 as one of the movements that acted in the defense of the Itacorubi mangrove and demanded the shutdown of all dumping activities (Bagnatti and Abreu 2014). These environmental movements arose in a worldwide context, being characterized by different strategies which involved direct-protest actions designed to obstruct and draw attention to environmentally harmful policies and projects and also public education and media campaigns, community-directed activities, and conventional lobbying of policy makers and political representatives. Bagnatti and Abreu (2014) also highlight the political Brazilian scenario at that time, which was characterized by redemocratization with candidates committing to the expectations on the part of the population, expressing the desire to take part in the changes. In the context of these political changes, there was a public discussion about a solution to the “Itacorubi dump” in Florianopolis. In 1987, the involvement of the MEL (Free Ecological Movement) in the public debate on waste began, and a partnership with UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina) was established with discussion about a selective collection project (Boeira and Silva 2004). One year later the MEL promoted an “ecological strike,” preventing the entry of trucks and the dumping of garbage on the mangrove in a partnership with the Itacorubi residents’ association. The new mayor of Florianopolis bet on a cultural change in relation to “garbage” and appointed a multidisciplinary commission formed by technicians from the City Hall, COMCAP, CEPAGRO (Center of Study and Promotion of Group Agriculture), and UFSC, to deal with the Itacorubi dump issues. In 1987, COMCAP took on the activities of the first experiences of selective collection and formalized the Beija-flor Program in a partnership with UFSC, CEPAGRO, and community groups (Bagnatti and Abreu 2014). This project pioneered the establishment of door-to-door selective collection in Brazil reaching 80% of Florianopolis’ population with a door-to-door waste collection (COMCAP). It also included the composting of municipal organic waste, which lasted for 6 years (De Abreu 2013). Under the Beija-flor Program, projects in three communities were developed. The garbage, before being disposed inappropriately, then began to be collected and

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sold to generate income to the community in one of the poorest communities in Florianopolis, Morro do Mocotó (Bagnatti and Abreu 2014). In another district, Monte Verde, the project also involved the community social organization, the school, and the Parish. The Parish provided the area for composting and became the first environmental education initiative to the students and the community residents (Bagnatti and Abreu 2014). In the third community, characterized by a higher-­ income population living in apartment buildings, the project was focused on the separation of dry recyclables and reached the participation of 87% of households (Baldissarelli 2009; Bagnatti and Abreu 2014). The dominant model of urban growth in Brazil started to change as a process of self-confrontation of society based on the principle of socio-environmental sustainability: solid waste management gradually abandoned the state-centric approach and started to consider multiple social actors, including several social actors representing civil society organizations and the private sector as well as the most forgotten historically actors  – the waste pickers and their emerging associations and cooperatives (Boeira and Silva 2004). In 1989, the Itacorubi dump had its activities shut down (COMCAP). A landscaping design to recover the degraded area has been carried out from 2000 to 2008, where the Solid Waste Transfer Center (CTReS) was built and is currently operated by COMCAP (Baldissarelli 2009).

7.4.3 Third Stage: The Reinforcement of Composting Projects (from 1994 to 2010) The Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), in Florianopolis, has played an important role since the 1980s taking part on commissions to discuss alternatives to Itacorubi mangrove. In the following years, the development of a composting method can be highlighted, among several other contributions. The known UFSC composting method is a variation of the static pile passively aerated technology adapted and disseminated by a UFSC research group. One of the projects conducted by UFSC was called the “UFSC Composting Project,” which started in 1994. This project aimed to recover the organic waste produced from the various restaurants and cafeterias at the university campus in Florianopolis. The food waste was disposed of in plastic drums with a capacity of 50 liters, collected, transported by a compact tractor, and composted in a yard maintained by the university town hall. Professors and interns were responsible for the daily activities of composting of organic waste (Pitsch 2011). In view of the difficulties encountered to take this project forward, a partnership was established with the COMCAP and an association founded by a group of UFSC alumni. The composting activities started to be carried out in a yard at the Solid Waste Transfer Center of COMCAP, currently called “Waste Recovery Center,” where it remains until today (Fig. 7.6).

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Fig. 7.6  Activities performed by Company 3 at COMCAP site and by Community 1. (Source: authors’ archives (2016))

In 2008, another composting project called “Revolução dos Baldinhos,” or the “Revolution of the Little Buckets,” started with the aim to face problems raised by the improper disposal of waste in a poor community of Florianopolis, the Chico Mendes Community (De Abreu 2013). The waste curbside pick-up service in that community was infrequent, partially due to the neighborhood’s narrow streets, which makes truck traffic extremely difficult, leaving a great part of the waste on curbsides (CEPAGRO 2016). As a result, the garbage attracted rats and other disease vectors that contributed to an outbreak of leptospirosis in that community. To counter this outbreak, the residents got together to start the composting project, as suggested by the health professionals of the municipality. CEPAGRO obtained resources to finance this project, as well as in the subsequent years through public programs and awards. It began by raising awareness among families about recycling leftover food and how to turn it into organic compost, but it also promoted planting as a tool to improve health and healthy eating (Nações Unidas do Brasil 2019). This project contributed in many aspects to that community; in addition to promoting street cleaning, the compost obtained from a local organic waste treatment boosted the urban agriculture in domestic and public spaces (De Abreu 2013) (Fig. 7.7). In the 1990s, an NGO composted organic waste from supermarkets of different supermarket chains of Florianopolis using the composting UFSC method. Since 1997, this NGO works in the rehabilitation of drug users and in the integration of former homeless people into the workforce (Zambon and Luna 2016)(Zambon 2017). One of the main partners in this project was the Santa Catarina Supermarket Association (ACATS). The composting product was used in an onsite garden cultivated by the NGO members. However, this project ended in 2018 due to the need to adapt its composting site structure in order to meet legal and environmental requirements.

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Fig. 7.7  Activities performed by the “Revolução dos Baldinhos”. (Source: authors’ archives (2016))

7.4.4 Fourth Stage: New Federal Legislation and the Spread of Composting Projects (from 2010 to 2018) In 2010, the Solid Waste National Policy (SWNP), Law N. 12.305, was approved. Regarding the organic solid waste, the SWNP establishes that it is incumbent upon the holder of public services of urban cleaning and solid waste management to draw up plans to encourage the recyclable and compostable fraction of the urban waste to be valued (BRASIL 2010). The SWNP is underpinned by circular economy concepts, according to which all the organic waste should be valorized and come back into the biological cycle. The idea that these legal requirements would transform the sector led some entrepreneurs to start businesses to offer collection and treatment of organic urban waste services, especially to meet the demands of large waste generators such as supermarkets and restaurants. In 2014, Company 1 started its operations using the UFSC composting method. It is worth pointing out that this company was set up with a service proposal based on the quality of the waste collected to assure the quality of the organic compound produced. Thus, partnerships with compostable bag suppliers and with clients were established; as well as equipment was developed to avoid odors or other common negative consequences of handling organic waste. Company 1 developed a project of a truck with automated loading of waste into a sealed body truck and digital weighing (Fig. 7.8), providing its clients with online access to information related to date, time of collection, amount of waste collected, and waste destination. In mid-2016, it ceased its activities after many financial losses. Other companies with less volume of investment also started operating. Company 2, for example, has a leaner structure that processes the organic waste from different clients located nearby its composting site location, which include schools,

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Fig. 7.8 Truck developed by Company 1 for organic waste collection. (Source: author’s archives (2016))

restaurants, guesthouses, and cafeterias. In 2010, Company 3 was founded. This small company collected food waste from households and offices and processed it using the vermicomposting method. A study conducted in 2017 (Zambon 2017) identified six main composting initiatives conducted by private companies or NGOs in Florianopolis and three main composting projects ran by community groups supported by NGOs or government organizations – here called Community 1, Community 2, and Municipal Project – and the COMCAP’s composting facility managed by a partnership with an association of UFSC alumni. These initiatives processed, at least, 6% of all organic waste generated in Florianopolis. Interviews conducted in 2019 with the owners of some private companies, such as Company 1 and Company 2, indicate that they expected a growing demand for these services since the approval of Law N. 12.305, in 2010. According to them, the proper disposal of the organic urban waste by large generators should have been made mandatory by the municipality by 2014. Thus, it was foreseen that the established companies which were already providing these services in accordance with the law would have a competitive advantage. However, it took almost 10 years from the approval of the SWNP for a municipal law to make the recycling of organic solid waste in the municipality of Florianopolis mandatory. Only in 2018, a city councilman of Florianopolis presented the bill of Law N. 17.506/2018 to make mandatory the appropriate destination of solid organic urban waste through recycling and composting processes. In the meantime, the “Community 1” project won the National Social Technology Award from the Bank of Brazil Foundation in 2011. In 2013, it won another award from the same foundation in the category of Educational Institutions, Research, and Universities (Fundação Banco do Brasil 2019). In 2018, the initiative was recognized as an outstanding practice in agroecology advancing the transition toward

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Fig. 7.9  Shed of waste pickers association at the COMCAP area. (Source: author’s archive (2021))

agroecology at the occasion of the International Green Week and the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture 2019 in Berlin (World Future Council 2019). Regarding the technical waste, since 2016, the main Waste Pickers Association of Florianopolis has had its headquarters in the Solid Waste Transfer Center of COMCAP where a shed was built in order to sort, consolidate, and store the recyclables collected in Florianopolis (Fig. 7.9). The income from material sales remunerates the waste pickers’ associates. According to the COMCAP manager of the Department of Planning, Management, and Projects, the company started a few years ago to give support to many associations for them to get the operations license and solve other administrative issues to allow their activities in the municipality.

7.4.5 Fifth Stage: The New Municipal Legislation and Organic Selective Collection Kick-Off (from 2019 to Nowadays) Since the beginning of the “Community 1” project, COMCAP staff sought funds to consolidate the several projects of organic solid waste composting and urban agriculture developed by COMCAP and its partners, such as CEPAGRO, Education Secretary, Health Secretary, UFSC, and FLORAM (Municipal Foundation for the Environment of Florianopolis). In 2018, a COMCAP project got the second place in a National Public Notice issued by the National Environment Fund. This fund has

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been used to implement composting systems on individual, community, and institutional levels through actions to raise awareness and educate the community (SMMA 2020). On April 8, 2019, the bill of Law N. 17.506/2018 on urban solid waste municipal was approved. The Law N. 10.501 made mandatory the environmentally appropriate destination of solid organic urban waste through recycling and composting processes by public and private companies and residential or commercial condominiums (Florianópolis 2019). In 2020, COMCAP had already started a project aimed to implement a door-to-­ door organic waste collection. Despite the delay caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, in 2021, the company launched a garden and organic waste collection pilot project in Florianopolis. The organic collection was scheduled to serve some districts of Florianopolis after awareness-raising and training of residents. This way, the first organic collection project in Brazil started operating in June 2021. The garden and organic waste collection pilot project started with a door-to-door collection of garden and food waste and a collection of food waste from the drop-off points. The food waste is disposed of in brown bins (Fig.  7.10) or in buckets (Fig.  7.11). In the second semester of 2021, the COMCAP collected separately around 10% of the organic waste generated by households, considering that the organic waste represents a fraction of 35% of the total waste collected. In the first 2 months of 2022, this rate rose to more than 12%. The municipality has also acquired specific types of vehicles for garden waste collection (Fig. 7.12). The routes are programmed to serve each district 10 times a year. This material is an important input in the composting process. It is worth mentioning that this organic collection project is related to initiatives with the aim of encouraging decentralized waste treatment. The previously

Fig. 7.10  Collection of food waste in bins. (Source: PMF by Leonardo Sousa)

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Fig. 7.11  Collection of food waste in buckets. (Source: PMF by Leonardo Sousa)

Fig. 7.12  Truck for garden waste collection. (Source: PMF by Leonardo Sousa)

mentioned funds from the National Environment Fund are being used mainly to (i) start a new phase of the “Minhoca na Cabeça” project, a household vermicomposting project launched at the end of October 2017; (ii) strengthen initiatives of organic waste community management; (iii) implement projects in five other communities; and (iv) publish books and teaching material on recycling organic waste in partnership with COMCAP partners to inform the citizens about the importance of their participation and how that can be accomplished.

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In January 2022, the City Hall invited specialized companies to take part in the accreditation process to provide food waste treatment through composting techniques in the municipality of Florianopolis. The Public Notice N° 591/SMA/ DSLC/2021 (Florianópolis and Municipio 2022) establishes the technical standards of composting that must be followed by the companies and provides a payment based on composted volume. The strategy of adopting decentralized composting yards to the organic waste treatment has contributed to job creation and income generation in several communities of Florianopolis. The majority of composting yards are run by companies founded by young agronomy alumni from UFSC, such as Company 3. This company has increased the number of staff (from 15 to 19) since January 2022 after its accreditation by the municipality. All these initiatives aim also to raise an awareness of collecting and transforming waste into fertilizer through community involvement in the composting process and the use of fertilizer on vegetable gardens and small organic plantations. Some public schools take part in these initiatives. One of the communities’ projects, Community two, is now paid by municipality to compost the organic waste. Table 7.3 shows the companies which offer organic waste collection and treatment service to waste generators identifying those that are paid by the City Hall as well as the number of their staff. While this decentralized organic waste system is being set up, COMCAP continues to support the communities’ initiatives and expand the selective waste collection. The results of several projects are disclosed in COMCAP’s homepage using an interactive data visualization software which allows anyone to monitor the results achieved in terms of types and quantities of waste recovered. This is another way to promote the citizen’s participation in the waste source separation process. The data indicate the increasing of 60% and 41%, respectively, in the food and garden waste mono collection stream from 2020 to 2021. The municipal Law N. 706/2021 approved on January 27 redefined the organizational structure of the Municipal Public Administration of Florianopolis. In 2021, some struggles between the mayor and the COMCAP employee’s union occurred and caused interruptions of the collection service due to strikes, which has led the municipality to start the outsourcing process of waste collection in some Florianopolis districts. Table 7.3  Organic waste collection and treatment by companies in Florianopolis and staff Initiative conducted by Private companies

Companies accredited by the City Hall

Company Company 2 Hotel Company 5 Company 6 Company 3 Company 7 Company 8 Community 2

Source: authors with the support of COMCAP (2022)

Number of staff 7 3 4 4 19 4 3 Na

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7.5 The Social and Technological Transitions through the Stages The above-described changes in the urban solid organic waste collection and treatment system in Florianopolis over time characterize a journey from a linear to a more sustainable model based on circular economy concepts. This transition is a complex and multilevel process that goes beyond the choice of which system technology to adopt, and its success depends on the effective participation of several actors. So the social transition is also here described to highlight the role of the different actors over time. Five stages could be identified in the transition, which explain the relationships between the three levels on which the actors performed different roles. At the same time, their beliefs, behaviors, and expectations change over time, altering the course of development trajectories. In the first stage, the waste was considered a threat to health and safety, bringing a sort of urgency to dispose it as soon and as far away as possible. Although there were radical technological changes – like the incinerator substituting the garbage into the sea and the garbage dump substituting the incinerator – the city authorities remain responsible for the decisions related to the public health and the definition of waste treatment solutions, since there were no other actors to replace the incumbents. As in the case of the hygienic reform of waste disposal in the Netherlands during the late nineteenth century (Geels 2006), city governments implemented incremental changes within the existing regime. At this stage, one can observe the growth awareness of the importance of the waste collection and treatment to community health, but there were no concerns related to environmental issues. At the second stage, one can already observe a growing awareness regarding environmental issues and the first socio-political mobilizations. The societal groups, especially the “Free Ecological Movement,” stood out and demanded changes which were mainly conducted by the incumbent of the solid waste management of the city (COMCAP). New entrants’ actors emerged becoming incumbent partners – as CEPAGRO, UFSC, community groups, and the waste pickers  – and carrying forward effective actions: the closing down of the garbage dump in a mangrove area and the kick-off experiences of selective waste collection and composting with the involvement of the communities. The new entrants were important drivers for the transition from a linear to a more sustainable model, but the incumbent, COMCAP, enacted the transition path and altered the course of development trajectories. It is worth mentioning that because of the Beija-flor Program, a closer relation with the communities in need was established. Aside from avoiding the inappropriate waste disposal, the program promoted benefits as the increasing income of residents from the sale of recyclable waste and other benefits related to composting and urban agriculture. That was the first time the social issues were addressed in a waste collection and treatment project in Florianopolis.

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The third stage is marked by the reinforcement of decentralized composting initiatives in the communities and the starting of “Company 3” operations as COMCAP partner. Since then, COMCAP has started to offer this service to all citizens that wish to drop food waste off in its “Waste Recovery Center.” The “Community one” is also an awarded example of how community attitudes in relation to waste have changed over time in Florianopolis. The method of composting adapted by UFSC is now widely used, even in other states of Brazil such as São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul. From a threat to health and safety, the organic waste became input to food production through urban agriculture in domestic and public spaces and has generated jobs and income. In other words, the incumbents understand the importance of social issues and of coordinating multiple actors to make adjustments in their routines through incremental changes, technical capabilities, and even in adjusting their beliefs or business model. The user groups started to adopt new practices related to waste destination and treatment. In the fourth stage, the National Policy on Solid Waste (NPSW) was approved, creating great expectations, but its approval did not lead to substantial changes. In other words, the landscape change did not put pressure on the regime nor created openings for new technologies. The NPSW establishes principles and objectives for the country, but these activities must be implemented at the municipal level since the municipalities are responsible for the urban solid waste management. So, even though in this stage there were new entrants with new business models, the innovations did not cause significant changes in the regime. On the other hand, the social aspects seem to get more importance in the fourth phase. There was a greater concern with the waste pickers associations, and the COMCAP professionals began to offer support for them to operate legally. The results obtained by initiatives conducted by COMCAP, CEPAGRO, and other partners, such as the “Community one” project, gained prominence and recognition of their impact from Financial and Public authorities during this stage. In 2016, 100 families took part in the project – around 400 people (Zambon 2017). The compost produced by this project was sold and distributed to families in that community. The organic waste collection and composting process as well as the urban agriculture practices contributed to meeting some of the Social Developments Goals (SDG). The most evident consequence is appropriate waste management, which is addressed by SDG 06 (clean water and sanitation). The waste collection and decentralized treatment through composting in communities – which were not served by the municipal public services – contributed to a healthier environment. Aside from that, the generation of jobs in the composting yards and urban agriculture increased the overall income and alleviated poverty. According to Nicholls et al. (2020), urban agriculture contributes to SDG 1 (no poverty), by providing income and/or alleviating the need to purchase food, “either via the sale of surplus produce, or by reducing spending on food, which in the urban poor can represent a substantial proportion of household expenditure.” SDG 2 (no hunger) is also supported by these initiatives since the “home-growers in the city use few agro-chemicals and yet can have crop yields comparable to or higher than those from large-scale conventional farms” with the potential to contribute to food security (Nicholls et al. 2020).

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At the current stage, the COMCAP stands out with its several innovative projects related to organic waste but also with its more mature recycling programs, in which a great part of the population takes part. Besides that, the citizens show greater involvement in many activities developed by the COMCAP team, and financial funds have been received in order to make the required investments in equipment for the organic collection services. Almost 10 years were taken for the approval of a municipal law in Florianopolis concerning organic waste. Thus, in general, one can observe that there were social movements and technology developments over time, as well as niche-actors that contributed to the transition, however not as main drivers. The landscape also changed with new regulations that concern mainly the environmental and social aspects. Nevertheless, the described transition has been taking place so far without any specific shock or a disruptive change. Moreover, the incumbents, mainly represented by COMCAP, since 1975, incrementally reoriented the regime by adjusting search routines and procedures. Thus, the case study demonstrated that the urban solid organic waste collection and treatment system in Florianopolis followed a transformation pathway. As described by Schot and Geels (2010), …in the transformation pathway moderate landscape changes create pressure on the regime, leading to reorientations by regime actors and outsiders are important because they translate landscape pressures and draw attention to negative externalities, which regime insiders tend to neglect. Societal pressure groups and grassroots movements may voice protest and demand solutions. They can mobilize public opinion and lobby for tougher regulations. Outside professional scientists or engineers may have specialist knowledge that allows them to criticize technical details of regimes and propose alternative courses of action. Outsider firms, entrepreneurs or activists may develop alternative practices or technologies. The demonstration of viable alternatives may change perceptions of regime insiders and lead to reorientations of (innovation) activities.

The transformation pathway analysis also makes clear that the societal groups and grassroot movements contributed to reveal the importance of the environmental, educational, and social issues to the urban organic waste collection and treatment system. Although the healthy and environmental issues that marked the first phases are important, the COMCAP has adopted to a wider perspective over time and has remained the main incumbent actor in the regime level since its start.

7.6 Conclusions From a circular economy perspective, this chapter focused on a biological cycle of municipal solid waste management, a subject infrequently reported in the literature. We presented an overview of the events on the organic waste municipal system in Florianopolis considering the landscape, the regime, and niche-level over time in order to understand the transition process toward a more sustainable model. Since a transition is usually a temporally long process, a qualitative longitudinal case study was used to describe the phenomena in a Brazilian municipality pioneer

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in organic selective collection projects. We highlighted landscape changes – especially Law N. 12.305 approved in 2010, which only provoked changes in the long term – and the social movements, which were decisive for the short- and medium-­ term changes. The COMCAP, the main incumbent actor, was able to do gradual adjustments as a consequence of environmental and social demands. We also highlight how this transition brought contributions to the Social Development Goals (SDGs). The appropriate waste management performed in the city together with the community composting and urban agriculture projects assists in decreasing hunger and poverty and in improving sanitation. The municipal solid waste is composed of heterogeneous waste, and the aspects related to both cycles of materials – technical and biological – must be considered to guide the municipal plans. It is worth pointing out that the separation of technical and biological materials contributes to the efficiency of the collection and treatment of both materials flows, and recyclables are currently an important revenue stream to waste pickers. Based on the socio-technical transition theory and MLP, we can highlight the relationships between the three levels and clarify the role of several actors in the transition of the organic waste municipal system. Besides that, the interaction between COMCAP and other niche and regime actors characterizes the transition path as a transformation pathway.

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Chapter 8

The Significance of SDG16 “Strong Institutions” Toward the Adoption of Circular Economy Approaches for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa Inamutila Kahupi, Natalia Yakovleva, and Stephen Chen

Abstract  The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), Goal 16: Peace, justice, and strong institutions can drive positive environmental, social, and economic changes in sub-Saharan Africa while transforming informal sectors. Peer-reviewed English language publications on Google Scholar were explored based on a systematic literature review using loop analysis modelling, mapping out currently underdeveloped gaps such as the intersection of circular economy and the ASM sector in African countries. By identifying the significance of circular economy adoption within the realm of sub-Saharan Africa, which is rightly rich in quarried natural resources, this chapter laid the groundwork for the significance of strong institutions for the adoption of a circular approach and environmental management. Thereby, the problem of mining waste was highlighted, and the state of institutions was identified as the main facilitator of a circular economy for the ASM sector. Countries with institutional voids, weak policies, and marginal international collaboration are instructed by this chapter to carry out formalization that can enable stakeholder participation as well as institutional and policy changes, which support targets and indicators of SDG16. Given the blurred margins of functioning systems in emerging economies such as the case of developing sub-Saharan African countries, often the indicators for implementation, monitoring, and distribution data may be inadequate. Therefore, stronger regard for further research is encouraged to target more refined versions of clearer circular economy approaches, which would offer clearer and supportive adoption guidelines, i.e., easier to implement in poor or I. Kahupi (*) · S. Chen Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] N. Yakovleva KEDGE Business School, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_8

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informal communities. The chapter is aligned with the need of formalizing the ASM sector toward efficiency and the decarbonization of the global economy at all levels of production, starting with the sourcing of raw materials – “mining.” Keywords  SDG16 · Strong institutions · Circular economy · ASM

8.1 Introduction Mining operations are considered destructive practices regarding the ecosystems and ecological footprints in which they operate (Gule 2021; Varfolomeeva 2021; de Castro Leal et al. 2021; Cao et al. 2021). However, it is reasonable to recognize that society needs mining and the global demands for new raw materials have increased recently (Kinnunen and Kaksonen 2019). The need for resources is expected to double between 2010 and 2030 (European Union 2016) and may involve both renewable and nonrenewable because they significantly contribute to state economies (Mandishekwa 2021; Herrington 2021). Today, over 100 million people across 80 countries around the world rely on informal mining (Yakovleva and Vazquez-­ Brust 2018), predominantly the extraction of precious minerals such as colored gemstones and metals within the ASM, also known as the informal mining sector. Research and industry have acknowledged a significant expectation to apply circular economy methodologies to the mining sector, including ASM (Upadhyay et al. 2021). In sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture and ASM are some of the preferred destinations for poverty-stricken members of society mainly because informal mining does not require any academic qualifications, and it is low-tech and is self-employing (Hilson et  al. 2019). In sub-Saharan African countries like Namibia, it has been reported that environmental sustainability and management is one of the key issues caused by mining in general (Gule 2021; Varfolomeeva 2021; de Castro Leal et al. 2021; Cao et al. 2021). Therefore, introducing circular economy approaches can be significant in the minimization of environmental degradation, produced waste, and reducing resource use (Brandl et al. 2021; Mahoney and Thelen 2010; Upadhyay et al. 2021). Frequently, the mining industry is historically known to have a fractious relationship with conservationists of the environment (Namibian Chamber of Environment 2022). Sub-Saharan African countries that aim to boost their economic performances and create employment are blamed for allowing unscrupulous mining companies to extract natural resources with little regard for the negative impacts of their activities on the environment and social well-being of those affected such as future land users. The large-scale mining sector and environmental practitioners are working together to ensure that the formalization of the extraction of mineral resources is taking place in a sustainable manner (Namibian Chamber of Environment 2022). This formalization of large-scale mining companies mainly focused on positive aspirations to environmental concerns and social impressions as this approach has

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been a well-celebrated and cooperative endeavor as reported by the Chambers of Mines of Namibia; however, it may have left behind the small-scale mining companies as described by the Ministry of Mines and Energy Namibia (MME). The Mines Ministry emphasizes how environmental and social issues are the biggest challenges faced by the ASM sector in Namibia and may require significant formalization (MME 2022). Recent studies are underlining that the formalization of the ASM sector is significant toward maintaining peace and order in the country, in addition to managing lasting-negative environmental, social, and economic impacts which are often associated with mining operations with circular economy approaches (Brandl et al. 2021; Mahoney and Thelen 2010; Upadhyay et al. 2021). The formalization of the ASM relies heavily on available institutional infrastructures of the home and host country (Aguilera and Grøgaard 2019). Therefore, it is important to analyze the institutional landscape of sub-Saharan African countries that are supporting ASM growth. To analyze the institutional setups in a country, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be used as a guide toward positive analysis and formalization. This is because SDGs are in place to influence positive outcomes such as the processes of sourcing materials to happen by environmentally friendly principles (Lèbre et al. 2017; ICMM 2015; Brandl et al. 2021). The UN member states adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with the creation of the 17 SDGs. Particularly, SGD16 emphasizes strong institutions needed for formalization, or the building of a nation’s capability to upgrade and innovate (Porter et al. 2003; Wilson et al. 2020). This chapter would pay close attention to SDG16 – peace, justice, and strong institutions – which seeks member states to promote peaceful societies for environmental development, serve justice to communities, and effectively build inclusive and accountable institutions at all levels of government (United Nations 2022). It is also described that institutions, like international networks, the society, and African Union collaboration, were considered to drive the diffusion of circular economy into the mining sector (Kinnunen and Kaksonen 2019). Circular economy is an emerging concept that focuses on resource efficiency, industrial waste prevention strategies, and regional job creation (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017; Liu et al. 2017). The concept would replace the linear economy approach (cradle-to-grave) to manage mining waste and environmental pollution (Lèbre et al. 2017). The concept of circular economy has the potential to reduce waste and reserve mineral resources for mining operations (Kinnunen and Kaksonen 2019), large or small because growing scrutiny is being placed on where materials are coming from and how they were sourced (Haupt et al. 2017; Rizos et al. 2015; Mulrow et al. 2017). This chapter examines whether circular economy approaches can be applied to informal mining operations (ASM) and the crucial role that strong institutions can play in the adoption of circular economy models in Namibia and sub-Saharan Africa countries at large (Brandl et al. 2021; Mahoney and Thelen 2010; Upadhyay et al. 2021). The overall aim of this chapter is to highlight the importance of SDGs in general, how they can be a pillar toward broader environmental concerns of mining operations, and the implementation of emerging models through literature. The chapter asks the question: How significant is SDG16 “Strong Institutions” towards

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the adoption of circular economy approaches in the ASM sector to resolve environmental waste challenges? This chapter consists of the following sections: a review of the relevance of circular economy to mining and ASM operations, a review of the significance of strong institutions toward the adoption of circular economy in the ASM sector, and related enablers and barriers to the adoption of circular economy approaches.

8.2 Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining and Circular Economy This section reviews the literature that is closely related to ASM, institutions, and circular economy. It identifies the significant features that distinguish those reviewed studies and the contributions of this chapter.

8.2.1 Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) A study by Hilson and Maconachie (2020) on ASM found that although leaders of nations in sub-Saharan Africa frequently highlight and discuss the economic significance of ASM for the country, the leaders offer little commitment beyond rhetoric, especially in the form of the much-needed action steps to effectively formalize the sector. Therefore, part of the paper is gauging the country’s institutional ability to formalize and manage potential ASM activities while making sure that circular economy principles can be at the forefront of those actions. In recent times, the ASM sector has had tremendous recognition and growth which made it emerge as a key sector for the supply of a wide variety of precious minerals and revenues for many people across Africa (Hilson and Maconachie 2020; Hilson and McQuilken 2014; Laing 2021). The terminology “small-scale mining” was first covered in a report by the United Nations (UN), namely, Small-­ scale mining in the developing countries (Hilson 2009). That UN report underlined the significance of ASM revenues in developing countries for the first time. The report also featured the significance of reforming and implementing supportive policies to positively encourage institutions that are involved with ASM (Hilson 2009). The ASM sector is a significant industry to many people; however, it is described as a labor-intensive job that uses low-tech during the process of extraction and mineral processing (de Haan et al. 2020; Hilson 2009). The informal business side of ASM is substantial in the support of livelihoods and contributions to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. However, ASM activities are reported to bring about other serious social and environmental challenges, such as (1) poor environmental management, (2) dangerous and unsafe working conditions that can affect the health and safety of those involved, (3) immoral behavior issues such as child labor and human trafficking, (4) gender discrimination, and (5) conflicts with

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large-scale mining companies (Laing 2021; Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2014). Other studies stressed that corporate social investment (CSR) in Africa has been studied by literature, however, not around elements that can drive institutional support toward a corporation between ASM and foreign multinational enterprises (Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2018). Apart from the needed institutional support, the marketability of ASM products (beautiful and cheap jewelry) and resulting competitive prices are explained as some of the key factors that are responsible for the tremendous growth of ASM (IGF 2017). The decrease in farming harvests for crop farmers and other agricultural-­ based producers is described as a scenario that is pushing people toward ASM (IGF 2017). Thus, today ASM revenues maintain the lives of about 100 million people in more than 80 countries worldwide (Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2018). Most of those people surviving through ASM are pursuing a way out of poverty of lower-­ income livelihoods, especially in sub-Saharan African countries where alternative employment may be difficult to find (Hilson and McQuilken 2014; IGF 2017; World Bank 2020; Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2014). Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are categorized as not having a stronghold on their natural resource capital as well as little to no advocation for the promotion of circular economy models in the ASM sector (Jongh 2013; Nyambe and Amunkete 2009; IGF 2018). ASM laborers in sub-Saharan Africa report the importance of streamlining the licensing process so that the socioeconomic benefits can be improved for both local, regional, and nationwide stakeholders (IGF 2018). Other several studies on ASM also found many key weaknesses and gaps related to laws and policies of ASM in sub-Saharan Africa (IGF 2018; Jongh 2013; SAIEA 2010; Huntington and Marple-Cantrall 2016; Fritz et al. 2018). In some cases, those gaps and weaknesses in aging laws and policies of some countries have been reformed; however, certain shortcomings still exist because the majority of countries continue to experience problems related to lack of growth reforms and stagnation and ineffectiveness of ASM-related economic targets (SAIEA 2010). Most documents and reports on ASM recognize that there is room for improvement on all existing regulations and legislation regarding the sector (SAIEA 2010; MITSMED 2016). This is also evident because over the years, many countries have demonstrated a commitment to the values of environmental management and circular economy approaches (Huntington and Marple-Cantrall 2016; IGF 2017). For example, Namibia has established two legislatures: (1) Prospecting and Mining Act, No. 33 of 1992, and (2) Environmental Management Act, No. 7 of 2007 (Jongh 2013). Previous studies also highlight how governments are eager to participate in assessments that reflect the willingness and openness toward processes and ideas that strengthen the ASM sector (Jongh 2013; Priester 2017). However, governments are realizing that the economic challenges of ASM are not up to regulations alone; for example, one study highlighted that the key challenge is international prices for gemstones and minerals, stating that those prices are unstable (Nyambe and Amunkete 2009).

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8.2.1.1 Factors for the Development of ASM in Sub-Saharan Africa In sub-Saharan Africa, the rapid growth of ASM is in a causal relationship with poverty in the area (Hilson 2011). Previous studies explain that this rapid growth in ASM workers is mainly because of “agricultural poverty,” which is associated with the difficulty of subsistence rural farmers’ ability to feed their families (Hilson and Maconachie 2020). The absence of significant agricultural harvest due to decreasing rainfall or too much sunlight may lead people to join ASM as self-employed entrepreneurs in a desperate bid to generate additional revenue. A study by Hilson and Maconachie (2020) explained three types of ASM miners that operate on small-scale mining areas: (1) Necessity miners – who are driven by poverty and suffering; after some time, they turn into (2) mixed/hybrid miners – usually have a different job on the side are driven by the creation of wealth and making a living, and (3) opportunistic miners – discovers a financial opportunity and are mostly driven by getting rick quick activities. The majority of the people found in the ASM sector in sub-Saharan Africa are “necessity miners and mixed/hybrid miners who are described as poverty driven and highly dependent on ASM revenues for a living (Hilson and Maconachie 2020). Opportunistic miners are described as resourceful within the small-scale sector and are frequently foreign actors with links to international marketplaces (Fritz et al. 2018) (Fig. 8.1). In terms of ASM business, literature adds that ASM activities in sub-Saharan Africa have seen slow progress toward reforms and developments of internationally competitive gemstone trading (e.g., polishing and cutting), and this problem is a familiar tale faced by many African countries (Hilson 2011; MITSMED 2016).

Fig. 8.1  The three different ASM actors and their reasons for joining ASM activities. (Source: Authors’ own. Reference: Hilson and Maconachie 2020)

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Many countries are faced with distinctive ASM-associated challenges and according to Hilson (2011), sub-Saharan Africa has several listed problems that are negatively affecting the sector from all fronts, regardless that ASM provides direct employment to about five million people in Africa. Some of the underlying related problems are: (1) a detached policy framework, (2) disconnected literature (Hilson 2009), and in most cases, (3) crowded by entrepreneurs seeking to “get rich quick” (Hilson 2011; Hilson and McQuilken 2014).

8.2.2 Circular Economy A circular economy concept is a model of closing the loop between raw materials and waste (Haupt et al. 2017; Millette 2019). In a linear business strategy, raw materials are extracted from nature, and waste is disposed of, without a clear end to overconsumption (Rizos et al. 2015; Mulrow et al. 2017). But in recent years, it is becoming evident that a linear economy should be phased out to reduce waste and help the natural ecosystems (Mulrow et al. 2017; Millette 2019). Circular economy models argue for long-term maintenance of functional material cycles and sustainable economic value alongside energy efficiency and implementation of renewable energy (Henrysson and Nuur 2021). In principle, the concept of circular economy can be implemented to many types of natural resources including abiotic and biotic materials, land, and water. Waste prevention, waste recycling, repair, remanufacture, refurbishment, reuse, eco-­ design, and product sharing are all significant in a circular economy model (Kinnunen and Kaksonen 2019). Many studies recognize circular economy approaches as solutions to numerous social, business, and environmental problems (Henrysson and Nuur 2021). Hence, circular economy has gained momentum as a driver for low-carbon, resource-efficiency, and regenerative society (MacArthur Ellen Foundation 2013; Geissdoerfer et al. 2017; Henrysson and Nuur 2021). The increasing circular economy momentum is primarily driven by circular principles that are good for the business, society, and the economy (Lahti et al. 2018). The link of circular concepts explained in this chapter will be considered as possible designs to resolve ASM-based environmental and social issues, while also serving other opportunities for businesses and communities at large. Circular economy approaches have received significant preferment in recent years as helpful to developing economies, as they seek to deliver positive opportunities toward healthier mining strategies (Gedam et al. 2021; Mitko et al. 2021; Mulvaney et al. 2021). In addition, previous studies highlight circular economy’s three driving forces for the development of circular networks, namely, (1) ecological sustainability, (2) government and economic stability, and (3) the accessibility and availability of raw materials (Mishra et al. 2019).

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8.2.2.1 Circular Economy in Mining Mining practices are crucial sectors for business returns and are a vital part of the societies (Gedam et al. 2021; Mitko et al. 2021; Mulvaney et al. 2021) and economies of several nations around the world; however, mining arguably is an industry that is responsible for generating about 5–7% of total greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and on the positive side about 0.5% of global GDP (Delevingne et  al. 2020). In developing economies, the importance of the mining sector is even higher, and the positive impacts would require active institutions, ideal business practices, and conservative management strategies (Upadhyay et al. 2021). Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have numerous districts where ASM and mostly informal mining activities have been observed and monitored for years. Most of those active mined areas are faced with challenges and opportunities related to environmental management, among others (Jongh 2013; Nyambe and Amunkete 2009; IGF 2017, 2018). Environmental management approaches of mining operations are part of the inspiration of this chapter. These circular approaches refer to management strategies that efficiently incorporate both economic, environmental, and social concerns during all related operations, and the concepts promote further system analysis from cradle to cradle (Gedam et al. 2021; Mitko et al. 2021; Mulvaney et al. 2021). The importance of strong institutions and management principles is that it would promote competitive advantages such as the creation of a trustworthy, long-lasting benefit for the community, and consideration of rural impacts where mining operations are taking place (Cabezas et al. 2005). Previous literature highlights that circular economy principles would also enhance the process of solving problems that are related to policy, stakeholder relationships, feasibility judgements, promotion of corporate reputation, safety, and risk management (Botin 2009). Circular Economy Approaches That the ASM Sector Can Focus On • Long-term maintenance of functional material cycles – this includes life-cycle assessment of materials used during mining operations and opting to use local suppliers and naturally occurring tools to reduce pollution through transportation and procurement tasks (Millette 2019). • Economic value alongside energy efficiency and implementation of renewable energy – this includes an analysis of energy sources with a focus toward energy-­ saving concepts such as using LED bulbs and broader renewable energy goals for operations and housings (Henrysson and Nuur 2021). • Eliminating wastefulness during mineral resource extraction and waste disposal strategies while at the same time saving the ecologies of the area, for example, protecting fauna and flora and rehabilitating previously mined areas and saving resources such as water and energy (Millette 2019). Circular economy approaches in mining operations would mean that the mines must start making use of the “cradle-to-cradle” technique (Braungart et al. 2007). For example, one solution to the problem of mine waste (tailings) is using it toward brickmaking, road, and building constructions, respectively (Kinnunen and

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Kaksonen 2019). Another solution to the problem of limited supply of precious metals and gemstones from mining operations would be making use of mining waste as raw material resource (Nuss and Blengini 2018; Kinnunen and Kaksonen 2019). A study by Lèbre et  al. (2017) highlighted that very little efforts have been made toward the adoption of circular economy by the mining sector. While another study is highlighting that mining companies are missing to address how they “contribute to circular economy in their environmental reports and programs” (Ruokonen and Temmes 2019). 8.2.2.2 Barriers and Enablers for the Adoption of Circular Economy in Sub-Saharan Africa A study by Henrysson and Nuur (2021) highlighted that previous economic transformations already indicated that successful transitions to circular economy can only take place by understanding the institutional structures of industries, clarifying that institutions can be enablers and barriers of circular economy. This supports the main argument discussed in this chapter. Barriers According to Henrysson and Nuur (2021), studies frequently recognized institutional and regulatory barriers as the most important, together with financial and technological barriers toward the adoption of circular economy strategies. SDG16  – “Strong Institutions” can be lacking in some countries, and consequently, those nations would not be able to support, protect, and grow business activities (United Nations 2022). This type of barrier is called institutional void, and it is a prevailing problem in most parts of the developing world. The void in institutions can affect investment and growth of emerging markets, which is an issue faced by many companies (Khanna and Palepu 1997). For example, standards that are lacking and causing an institutional void in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa are stipulated in Table 8.1 below. Many countries are lacking crucial enablers and benchmarks stipulated in Table  8.2 below. The positive development of the country’s economic and social aspects would lead to the evolution of institutions, whereby a dynamic construction of new formal institutions would cast out institutional voids (Brandl et  al. 2021; Mahoney and Thelen 2010). In sub-Saharan Africa, it is important to consider the location of institutions. Formal institutions are usually emerged in urban areas, while rural regions are often dominated by informal institutions where indigenous groups in villages control natural resources and drive economic undertakings (Agrawal 1995; Berkes and Folke 1998). Informal institutions of indigenous groups which are dominant in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa are called community informal institutions – described as long-standing customs, traditions, and norms that set regulating standards in rural

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Table 8.1  Institutional barriers in sub-Saharan Africa Barriers for CE and emerging markets Frail security regulations Lack of venture capitalist firms, e.g., Shark Tank Weak educational institutions Unstable government Limited transparency Thin foreign investment, i.e., few safeguards Reduced healthcare skills Underdeveloped communication systems Slow law enforcement High rates of corruption Challenged labor market, i.e., new talent barriers Dependency on foreign services Source: Jongh (2013), IGF (2018) and Nyambe and Amunkete (2009)

regions and indigenous communities’ drive for sustainable management of natural resources (Ostrom 1990, 2005, 2009). Some previous studies highlight that the arrival of multinational enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa can be a significant positive step with regard to advanced industries and businesses that are driven by established marketplaces (Brandl et al. 2021). Previous studies also add that the arrival of foreign firms in developing countries can sometimes affect rural areas negatively and lead to the mismanagement of natural resources (Dell’Angelo et al. 2017, 2018; Brandl et al. 2021). Some studies add that even though foreign corporations provide employment to local communities, the methods of operation used by most multinationals are centered around advanced technology and industrialized approaches (Guo et al. 2021); thus, local and manual labor may be less in demand, decreasing the number of local people hired by the foreign firms (Paredes and Fleming-Muñoz 2021). Therefore, foreign firms arriving in rural areas can increase rural poverty as they negatively affect the rural population due to direct and indirect effects concerning rural land use and water overconsumption because these impacts decrease both farming land and fishing activities and other substituting advantages (Brandl et al. 2021). These impacts can highly devastate poor communities because various sub-Saharan African countries remain highly dependent on natural resources and community informal institutions that control them (Narula 2018; Santangelo 2018; Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2018; Brandl et al. 2021). In sub-Saharan Africa, most actions of foreign firms have been described as suitable for the economy but also have several implications that can result in a community outcry (Fiori 2002), because some of those activities can exploit human rights, deplete natural resources, and devastate ecosystems (De Schutter 2011). Therefore, there is a need for visibility, inclusiveness, and legitimacy (Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2018) of local communities’ traditions, customs, and norms when it comes to the foreign firms’ production, land use, and distribution activities

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Table 8.2  SDG16 targets and indicators and how they link to the adoption circular economy Targets – across all countries Target 16.1: Violence reduction everywhere

Indicators Intentional homicides Conflict-related homicides Percentage of violated population Public safety Violence against Target 16.2: Protect children children from Human trafficking exploitation, violence, Sexual violence abuse, and trafficking against youth Reports of crime by Target 16.3: Promote victims laws and equal rights to Unsentenced justice prisoners Dispute resolution Illegal financial Target 16.4: Tackle flow organized crime, illegal finances, and the flow of Confiscated or surrendered weapons weapons Target 16.5: Significantly Bribery occurrences decrease bribery and Bribery in business corruption Government Target 16.6: Develop transparent, effective, and expenses within budgeted funds accountable institutions Satisfaction with public services Representation in Target 16.7: Ensure representative, inclusive, public institutions Inclusive and responsive decision-making decision-making Target 16.8: Support the Developing countries partaking partaking in global in international governance organizations Target 16.9: Provide Birth registration universal legal identity Target 16.10: Safeguard Killings of media and journalist public access to Public access to information and protect information important freedoms.

Link to CE adoption A. CE can resolve improper management of natural resources and prevent environmental conflicts, which led to violence and unsafe public (Madani and Hipel 2011; Perry et al. 2011).

B. CE can support preventing child labor in mining which is deemed as an unjustifiable model of resource extraction (Laing 2021; Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2014). C. CE can be difficult to achieve in sub-­ Saharan Africa because of informal institutions that can have gaps for unequal rights, favoritism, biased choices made from familial networks, and unprofessional conduct like corruption and back door favors (Peng and Heath 1996; Mair et al. 2012; Brandl et al. 2021; Hilson 2009).

D. Strong institutions protect potential investors, property rights, involve society, encourage CE adoption, and stabilize the political system (Robinson et al. 2003). E. Inclusive decision-making and stakeholders engagements are necessary for institutional change that can enable CE models (Millette 2019). F. International governance which is promoting legal enforcement and legality as routes toward strong institutions that are crucial for the adoption of circular economy approaches (McDermott et al. 2019). Same as D.

(continued)

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Table 8.2 (continued) Targets – across all countries Target 16. A: Boost national institutions to combat crime and terrorism and prevent violence Target 16. B: Implement and support nondiscriminatory policies and laws

Indicators National human rights institutions

Link to CE adoption Same as C and D.

Public discrimination

Same as C.

Source: SDG Tracker (2022)

(Brosius et al. 1998; Brandl et al. 2021). Hence, foreign firms that work with artisanal and small-scale miners may be able to contribute to further potentiality, legitimacy, and formality. Enablers By “enablers” the chapter refers to frameworks and institutions in society that can, if remodeled with a circular economy mindset, support individuals to transition to circular economy (Brady et  al. 2017). Literature highlighted the following four enablers for circular economy in ASM: 1 . Strong institutions and infrastructure (United Nations 2022; Brady et al. 2017). 2. Good governance (Jongh 2013). 3. Digital technology (Brady et al. 2017; Mansell 2001; Fong 2009). 4. Capital (finance). 5. Stakeholder participation (Barney and Harrison 2020; Jones and Wicks 1999; Jin et al. 2017). Enabler 1 – Strong institutions is referred to by literature as fundamental toward adopting reforms and concepts such as circular economy in sub-Saharan Africa. Other enablers include good governance or leadership, which is significant to all types of positive national growths (Hilson et  al. 2019). Enablers such as “digital technology” and “capital” can be hard to achieve for countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Mansell 2001; Fong 2009); however, “strong institutions” (United Nations 2022) and “good governance” (Khanna and Palepu 1997; Jongh 2013; IGF 2018) can be demanded from the elected leaders (Hilson and Maconachie 2020). African nations are well known for their low economies and not being able to afford up-to-date machines and technologies, making them an ideal destination for “used or secondhand” goods (Stahel 2016). This makes the continent a good example for “repairs,” “reuses,” and “remanufacturing efforts.” Stahel (2016) and Millette (2019) explained that circular economy business models are based on extending service life through salvaging and repairing efforts. It is also recommended that circular economy build

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a good relationship with materials and goods, leading to the saving of energy, resources, and the creation of local jobs (Stahel 2016).

8.3 Institutions Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are developing countries, and they may be faced with various institutional gaps (Ostrom 2005; Huntington and Marple-Cantrall 2016; Aguilera and Grøgaard 2019) that can affect positive or negative investment and economic progress (Porter et al. 2003). Lincoln (1995) offered possibly the best description of the core ideas of institutionalism, which is authorized social structures and processes required to obtain value and stability in their legitimacies. Previous authors on institutionalism emphasized the importance of strong institutions as they add value propositions by relying on a range of data sources that offer indices measuring diverse factors like the country’s political and economic stability or safety of the intellectual property.

8.3.1 Institutionalism Institutions are regarded as regulating or governing systems – reasoning that they represent logically built edifices that are founded by individuals seeking to protect and promote their interests (Scott 2013). Previous studies refer to institutions as complex branches that are difficult to operate in isolation and cannot be dismantled (Aguilera and Grøgaard 2019). For example, Streeck and Thelen (2005) present the theory of institutional drift – which describes existing institutions not adapting to changes in the country, and institutional layering – where new foundations are added to existing institutions. This approach is understood to be a dominant theme in the economic and law sectors of international business studies, mostly initiated by multinational companies when entering new countries, environments, and markets (Morgan et al. 2010). Institutionalism as a theory has been successful and dominant in the study of organizational phenomena to a point where well-known researchers concluded that it has been overextended beyond its core purposes – to comprehend how organizational processes and structures obtain continuity and significance past their technical purposes (Morgan et al. 2010). One emerging thread of institutional theory is called organizational aesthetics and humanism. This developing strand has the potential to benefit this chapter because it instructs institutional researchers to decrease the focus of their studies to organizational “technical” or “economic” motivations and reasonably concentrate on core “social” or “institutional” activities (Dacin et al. 2002; Suddaby 2010; Lincoln 1995). Therefore, the analysis of institutional theory should prevent shaping rapport on experiences that are outside organizational influences such as mining products or external pressures. Suddaby (2010)

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recommends project analysis to focus on and implement internal perspectives. To achieve this, it is significant to look at the sector as an interpretive system (Daft and Karl 1984; Suddaby 2010) as well as place serious attentiveness on the processes that bring about the identified pressures, such as ASM institutional gaps. A study by Aguilera and Grøgaard (2019) on the “role of institutions in international business” looked at dominant strands of institutional theory published in the Journal of International Business Studies. Some of those strands are institutional systems, institutional advantages, institutional change, institutional diversity, institutional landscape, institutional resources, and home and host country institutions. The strands that are related closely to this chapter are (1) institutional systems, (2) institutional advantages, and (3) institutional change (see Fig. 8.2). Figure 8.2 shows that the institutional theory has a lot of related strands; however, this analysis would only focus on the institutional change of weak institutional systems to gain institutional advantages which are significant for the formalization of ASM in sub-Saharan Africa. Some of the main challenges faced by the institutional thinkers were identified by Suddaby (2010), noting that institutionalism has been exceedingly overstudied for far too long that it has begun to lose its variety and meaning. It has been perceived that the concept has started to lose some parts of its focus and agenda because of its affiliation with distant paradigms and priorities from many fields (Suddaby 2010). Thus, this chapter would maintain the focus solemnly

Fig. 8.2  Dominant words that are related to “institution” in journals of international business study. (Source: Authors’ own. Reference: Aguilera and Grøgaard 2019)

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on the interesting strands of institutional theory, namely, (1) institutional systems, (2) institutional advantages, and (3) institutional change. Institutions in sub-Saharan Africa require further analysis toward change, and Aguilera and Grøgaard (2019) called for more research on informal institutions in developing economies. In addition, other studies state that it is quite difficult to measure the informality of institutions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (Voigt 2018). Previous literature highlighted that foreign multinational corporations like foreign actors arriving in sub-Saharan Africa have positive effects on advanced productions that are driven by developed marketplaces. However, the arrival of foreign firms can also have negative impacts on rural communities, especially in the sector of natural resources (Fiori 2002). The literature describes transparency as the most central pillar for resilient institutions in all countries because it embodies public trust and quality governance (Asaduzzaman and Virtanen 2021).  In this context, the word “transparency” describes having unrestricted and easy access by the people to timely and reliable performance metrics and information on decisions in the public sector, adding that building societal trust through transparency is important for overall environmental management, developments, markets, and economic growth (Armstrong 2005; Robinson et al. 2003).

8.3.2 SDG16 – Strong Institutions The United Nations’ view on SDG16 outlines a total of 12 targets and 23 indicators (SDG Tracker 2022). This includes a strong focus on the rule of law, adding that its constituents with the broader trend related to international governance which is promoting legal enforcement and legality as routes toward strong institutions that are crucial for the adoption of circular economy approaches (McDermott et al. 2019). Earlier research conducted on “strong institutions” underlined that institutions have a big impetus toward building capable and strong public organizations and public policies that can power the concept of environmental management (Asaduzzaman and Virtanen 2021; United Nations 2022; Hilson 2009; IGF 2018). In addition, inclusive and accountable institutions can facilitate individuals to work together peacefully and effectively, and transparent institutions can enable justice for victims, provide opportunities for people to improve their lives, and ensure equal human rights (Asaduzzaman and Virtanen 2021). Development practitioners are arguing that environmental management and good governance of sub-Saharan Africa highly depend on the motivation and ability to improve the usefulness of public institutions (Asaduzzaman and Virtanen 2021; Gill and Smith 2021; Uphoff 1992). In studying the themes that surfaced from the list of indicators and targets laid out by the SDG16, it shows that the UN is recommending significant recognized actions steps for emerging economies such as countries in sub-Saharan Africa toward concepts such as circular models.

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8.3.3 SDG16 Themed Word Cloud Using a word cloud software, all the SDG16 targets and indicators were copied and pasted to showcase which words are dominant in quantity. This is important because it can highlight significant themes that SDG16 is targeting the most and which areas of positive influence they may be targeting (Fig. 8.3).

Fig. 8.3  Word cloud of dominant words from the targets and indicators of SDG16 – strong institutions. (Source: Authors’ own. Reference: United Nations 2022)

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8.4 Adopting Circular Economy Through Institutional Changes in Sub-Saharan Africa for the ASM Sector 8.4.1 The Need for Formal and Informal Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa Some studies have described that a country’s institutional environment has a mixture of formal (i.e., laws and regulations infrastructures) and informal institutions (i.e., traditions, beliefs, customs, values, and sanctions) (North 1991; Brandl et al. 2019). Each country is assumed to have distinct institutional combinations and depends on diverse factors involving economic, political, and social circumstances (Williamson 2009; Brandl et al. 2021). For example, in developed countries, common formal institutions are dominant, and the economic actions are guided by the law toward the protection of organizations and individual interests (Dau and Cuervo-­ Cazurra 2014; Casson et al. 2010; Brandl et al. 2021). In addition, some previous studies explained that in developed countries, informal institutions are present, and their existence is mainly to complement and accommodate the predominant formal institutions (Helmke and Levitsky 2004), while countries in sub-Saharan Africa are lacking strong formal institutions leading to an institutional void (Khanna and Palepu 1997; Brandl et al. 2019). This institutional void is identified as the current state of many countries, where impacts of formal institutions are particularly limited because of the country’s low-budget situations (Hilson 2009). Therefore, in sub-Saharan Africa, business ventures and transactions still depend on informal institutions, even though businesses that operate in the realm of informal institutions can expect to be faced with favoritism, biased choices made from familial networks, and unprofessional actions like corruption and back-­ door favors (Peng and Heath 1996; Mair et al. 2012; Brandl et al. 2021).

8.4.2 Significance of Strong Institutions for Socioeconomic Outcomes The infrastructural understanding of how different socioeconomic settings, such as the legal system, educational sector, labor markets, financial settings, and so on, co-­ exist and integrate with the country’s industries, emphasizes institutional advantages of having strong institutions and someway leads to a viable equilibrium in the country (Aguilera and Grøgaard 2019; Porter et al. 2003; Streeck and Thelen 2005). The much-needed equilibrium of institutional infrastructure comprises of the categorization of the countries’ alignment with different institutional systems that affect the social and economic outcomes such as transparency to foreign investment, level of innovation, and corporate governess (Aguilera and Grøgaard 2019; Aguilera and Jackson 2003; Morgan et al. 2006; Witt and Jackson 2016).

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A noticeable example is a study by Whitley (1999) which looked at how different proportions of the economy, such as stakeholder relationships, and interest groups can have the ability to share the authority of creating institutional business systems for the people (Aguilera and Grøgaard 2019; Whitley 1999).

8.4.3 Need for “Institutional Change” in Sub-Saharan Africa Institutional change is a necessary step for developing nations, and it is a process that has to involve all interested key stakeholders so that rural informal institutions and new formal institutions at different levels of authority should collaborate to benefit communities and fulfilment of foreign firm’s management of local natural resources (Chapin et al. 2009; Brandl et al. 2021). A significant consideration is the ability of communities to access institutions around them and how the arrival of foreign actors may influence this access. The government is required to offer adequate protection to communities by guaranteeing that societies are consulted, involved, and paid for all land acquisition and natural resource trading (World Bank 2014). Early studies propose the design policies in developing economies such as countries in sub-Saharan Africa to focus on protecting communities and local natural resources from the negative impacts triggered by the arrival of foreign firms (Brosius et al. 1998). Some studies are highlighting that informal institutions found in the rural areas and new formal institutions at different levels of authority should collaborate to benefit communities and help with the management of local natural resources, particularly those involving foreign firms (Chapin et al. 2009; Brandl et al. 2021). A significant consideration is the ability of communities to access institutions around them, and how the arrival of foreign actors may influence this access. The government is required to offer adequate protection to communities by guaranteeing that societies are consulted, involved, and paid for all land acquisition and natural resource trading (World Bank 2014). Early studies propose the design of policies in developing economies to focus on protecting communities and local natural resources from the negative impacts of foreign firms (Brandl et  al. 2019; Fon et al. 2021). Previous literature related to institutions claims that institutional change can occur at a slow, time-consuming pace (Williamson 2000); however, recent studies suggest that institutional change can be achieved faster (Chacar et al. 2018), and in addition, external actors or change agents may be involved in the process of institutional change (Koning et  al. 2018; Fon et  al. 2021; Brandl et  al. 2021). Hence, timewise, bringing about change can be difficult to measure.

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8.4.4 Stakeholders’ Role Toward Institutional Change and Adoption of Circular Economy in ASM The importance of stakeholder’s engagement, commitment, and support has been stressed by many studies in the past as significance in the implementation of circular economy practices (Belz and Binder 2015; Geissdoerfer et  al. 2017; Lieder and Rashid 2016), others mentions include (Barney and Harrison 2020; Jones and Wicks 1999; Jin et al. 2017). Stakeholders’ experiences and viewpoints may give valuable points on issues that secure and appeal to circular economy and ASM while building trust (Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust 2018). (a) The Government A government is a significant body of institutions that promote partnerships and manage statewide efforts to establish a healthy society by presenting sound regulatory, academic, economic, and other significant systems for all communities (Osborne 1993; Simon 1985). (b) Traditional or Local Authorities Local authorities in sub-Saharan Africa are strong and reliable and are mostly in charge of regulations that are important for the protection and control of natural resources. Some of the authorities can be regarded as informal and may be made up of long-standing customs, traditions, and norms that set regulating standards in rural regions (Ostrom 1990, 2009). (c) Landowners/Society Citizens are required to carry themselves in a law-abiding way and may be significant in recognizing their contributions to collective sustainable ideologies that sustain resources for the future. Their primary awareness can be crucial in issues related to waste, economic growth, and environmental management (Carroll and Buchholtz 2014). (d) Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) NGOs are given three main roles during work development: partners, catalysts, and implementers (Lewis et al. 2020). A common notion is that NGOs are institutes that promote political, economic, or social change. Thus, NGOs are crucial pillars of the concept of development (Lewis et al. 2020) as they conduct activities that are influential in creating a healthy and attractive society in the area. In addition, NGOs are also known to be instrumental in enhancing collaboration (Sisaye 2021). (e) Academic Institutions A study by Antony (2007) identifies academic institutions as capable of offering low-cost solutions to several industry problems. Academic and research institutions can boost the expansion and specialization of knowledge, which is associated with various industries such as mining, entrepreneurship, management, and so on.

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Academia can also offer reliable and objective information that is easy to understand, support, and encourage decision-making actions related to policies and investments (Antony 2007). (f) Entrepreneurs Business owners are important leaders for society mainly because they create employment, feed communities, and can be the driver of social priorities for the people (Dollinger 2008; Chen 2018). These are all significant elements, especially toward SDGs (Timms et al. 2019). Other contributions include their ability to discover opportunities and carry out disruptive inventions of day-to-day products, and their skills toward offering solutions through innovation are one of the qualities why they have a lot of influence on economic outcomes (Eckhardt and Shane 2003). (g) Investors and Financial Institutions Investors can be regarded as transport vessels for corporations and individuals from ideas, inventions, or laboratory breakthroughs to prosperous bodies and disruptive innovations. Investors can be resourceful in aspects such as starting capital and resources (Kahupi et al. 2021).

8.5 Summarized Findings 8.5.1 Circular Economy for Sub-Saharan Africa ASM, like most mining operations, also create environmental challenges through large amounts of quarrying and mining waste, such as tailings (Edraki et al. 2014; Kinnunen and Kaksonen 2019). Many studies described how circular economy can offer opportunities related to the problems of environmental degradation such as mining waste (Brandl et al. 2021; Mahoney and Thelen 2010; Upadhyay et al. 2021; Liu et al. 2017). Other opportunities of circular economy have been highlighted for sub-Saharan Africa which has abundant resources to be efficiently utilized through circular economy approaches for future generations while making use of cheap labor in those countries to access resources cost-effectively. Some of the attitudes and viewpoints of different studies have been summarized below (Fig. 8.4), summarizing different assessments on the adoption of circular economy in sub-Saharan Africa by using various themes such as opportunities, threats, weaknesses, and strengths. A circular economy would fit very well with ASM operations in sub-Saharan Africa; however, it is important to understand that it needs different crucial enablers such as good governance (Jongh 2013), strong institutions, and infrastructure (United Nations 2022; Brady et al. 2017), etc., to be in place. At the same time, keeping close attention to all hindering barriers, such as high rates of corruption (Jongh 2013; Nyambe and Amunkete 2009), and institutional voids (Brandl et al. 2021; Mahoney and Thelen 2010), frail security regulations, etc. (Fig. 8.5).

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Fig. 8.4  The existence and the formation of institutional voids in sub-Saharan Africa are indicated. (Source: Authors’ own. Reference: Khanna and Palepu 1997)

Fig. 8.5  A summary of assessments from previous studies on circular economy for sub-Saharan Africa. (Source: Authors’ own. Reference: United Nations 2022; Padilla-Rivera et al. 2020; Repp et al. 2021; Mies and Gold 2021; Brandl et al. 2021; Hilson 2009; Geissdoerfer et al. 2017; Jongh 2013; Robinson et al. 2003; IGF 2018)

8.5.2 Strong Institutions for Sub-Saharan Africa The SDG16 – Strong institutions can be difficult to attain for sub-Saharan Africa because of various shortcomings; it has been described by many studies that a large number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa may lack the capacity, knowledge, and systems that are required to exploit some of the circular concepts and ASM

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opportunities, primarily because of frail institutional capabilities (Hilson and Maconachie 2020). However, institutional change has been described by this chapter as a viable exercise with the use of stakeholders. An example of a milestone that nations should aspire toward is the World Bank’s Statistical Capacity Indicator scores (SCI) – which measures a country’s capability to collect, analyze, and publish high-level and quality data through journals, articles, and documents about the state’s economy and population (World Bank 2019). This SCI is key for countries in sub-­Saharan Africa to have available data for investors and interested participants that would grow the ASM sector. A study by Robinson et al. (2003) argued that strong institutions protect property rights and potential investors, ensure the constrain of political leaders by the political structure, involve the participation of the broader society, and provide the stability of the political system. These are all important reasons why sub-Saharan Africa should aim to attain strong institution status mainly because those strong institutions are the pieces to the puzzle that enable developed nations harvest institutional success when compared to sub-Saharan African states (Robinson et al. 2003). When this approach is compared to abundantly resource-rich countries like Angola, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, or Congo, it is easy to conclude that strong institutionalized countries have had fewer issues related to no civil wars, violence, and infighting between different tribes and groups for profits (United Nations 2022). Good political and economic institutions equate to good economics and stability (Robinson et al. 2003). Institutions such as private property institutions are described as also important for (1) delivering protection rights toward organizational and citizen’s possessions (SDG Tracker 2022), so that those with productive opportunities such as the ASM sector can predict to collect revenues from their investments (Robinson et al. 2003; Acemoglu et al. 2001), and (2) availability of opportunities to invest for the broader society, instead of a civilization that only serves a small fraction of the population, i.e., politicians or landowners, holding the political power and wealth is not a favored setting for driving investment (Robinson et  al. 2003). Therefore, nations with weak institutions risk predation and exploitation of the majority of the society by dominant private agents (Robinson et al. 2003). Weak institutions have been called out as a major problem toward circular economy adoption and can lead to other problems such as child labor, human trafficking, abuse, and so on (SDG Tracker 2022). To reform weak institutions toward reputable strong associations, the involvement of stakeholders (Belz and Binder 2015; Geissdoerfer et al. 2017; Lieder and Rashid 2016) has been recognized by literature as a change agent that is crucial for positive environmental management and constructive institutional change. Stakeholder participation in key engagements and steps is also important for the successful design of old or new institutional systems that serve everyone’s interests, and thus, studies have argued for the presence of stakeholder groups in the resolution of system-wide problems (Barney and Harrison 2020; Jones and Wicks 1999; Jin et al. 2017; Ackoff 1974).

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8.5.3 Recommended ASM Policy Resolutions ASM sector is bedeviled with excessive regulations that are designed to control and constrain the resources (ILO 1999). In addition, many existing ASM policies are not well supported by a sufficient number of inspectors that would ensure that the guidelines are followed; therefore, this is why there is little encouragement for the miners to obey those regulations (Jongh 2013), especially if the possibility of getting in trouble or paying a penalty is considered a minimal penalty to pay (Hilson and Maconachie 2020). It is also explained that some ASM actors are discouraged from getting the necessary licenses or permits because of the cost and complicated administrative procedures required (Hilson et al. 2014; Spiegel 2015, 2017). These exact problems have been reported as common in many African countries like Niger (Hilson et  al. 2019), Tanzania (Merket 2018), Guinea (Huntington and Marple-­ Cantrall 2016), Uganda (Crawford et al. 2015), DR Congo (Geenen 2012), and the Central African Republic (Hinton et al. 2010). Therefore, reforming some of the old policies that are problematic logistically and financially for the miners is critical (Hilson et al. 2019; IGF 2018). With the amount of attention given to these problems through research, a growing build of evidence shows that licensing and regulatory strategies are continuously being explored for more user-friendly schemes to be implemented in sub-Saharan Africa. Hilson et al. (2019) gives one likely explanation of this slow emergence of smoother and user-friendly licensing schemes in sub-Saharan Africa as linked to the more formal and richer large-scale mining “bias.” A direct effect of this “bias” led to a reduced interest in ASM activities by the policymakers and public in sub-­ Saharan Africa as they try to discourage people from joining the ASM sector; therefore, donors like the World Bank are supporting and encouraging governments to consider revisiting their ASM regulations and strategies (Hilson and Maconachie 2020). The positive recognition of circular economy approaches, as a solution to environmental, financial, and societal challenges by policymakers and researchers (Hilson and Maconachie 2020), means that experts would continue to target significant explanations that can make circular economy approaches easier to adopt. This could include breaking down the concepts into achievable and minor action plans for the mining sector and particularly poverty-driven ASM activities in sub-­ Saharan Africa.

8.6 Conclusions Firstly, this chapter successfully analyzed the significance that SDG16 “Strong Institutions” plays during the process of diffusing circular economy approaches in the ASM sector of sub-Saharan African countries. At the same time, this chapter contributes significantly toward efforts that aim to build on environmental

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management discussions through SDGs and the emerging concepts and themes globally while stimulating thought-provoking ideas and studies that can serve as a guide for practitioners in sub-Saharan African countries where policies and institutional setups in those areas can be heavily disconnected from the experiences faced on the ground (Hilson 2009). Secondly, it has been highlighted by studies that the large-scale mining sector is aware of circular economy approaches and willing to transform toward it (Bechtel et al. 2013; Kinnunen and Kaksonen 2019). This is significant because they are both mining companies and similar approaches can be correlated to the ASM sector. It is, however, unclear if companies operating in the small-scale mining sector are also informed on circular approaches. Multinational companies are highlighting barriers that should be noted by nations that would like to adopt circular economy in mining, and those barriers are related to technology (such as recycling technologies, products, and so on that can hinder production) and economic (current economic conditions can hinder risk-taking). These barriers if tackled can give ASM a chance to be involved in a circular economy, especially if “strong institutions” would be used to manage some of the barriers (Asaduzzaman and Virtanen 2021; Dau and Cuervo-­ Cazurra 2014). Lastly, the fact that large-scale mining companies are struggling to overcome some barriers related to the adoption of circular economy indicates that the ASM sector would also face a monumental task and it can also be seen as a reason for its low adoption and diffusion in the mining sector over the years. This study is calling for a much-needed and more refined circular economy approach, which would be easier to implement by offering clearer strategic support and guidance toward the adoption process. This new circular economy approach for the ASM sector would be easy to adopt especially in cases of developing sub-Saharan African countries.

8.6.1 Limitation and Further Research One major limitation of this chapter is the complexity of ASM-related problems that have been acknowledged by many studies that it is not a “one-size-fits-all” type of problem and answer, and thus not easily fixable cases (Hilson 2009, 2011; MITSMED 2016; IGF 2018). Therefore, this review only scratches the surface of some problem areas related to environmental management issues in mining, and the issues can be different from case to case and country to country. It is, therefore, theoretical to acknowledge that the ASM sector is not an easily reformable industry for developing economies. The methodologies used for this chapter are reasonable in highlighting the findings and can guarantee a good analysis of the challenges on the ground and potential answers; however, lasting solutions may require additional primary data methods and monitoring procedures, which are beyond the scope of this chapter. Further studies should extend the scope and methodologies used.

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Chapter 9

How Effective Are Circular Models at Delivering a Sustainable Trifactor: A Focus on Social Inclusion? Grant Blackbeard

Abstract  Circular models have been widely criticised for their lack of social considerations due to a greater focus on environmental and ecological sustainability through recyclability or reusability of products. This view is reinforced by the models and frameworks that exist for the adoption of circularity in existing business models, typically showing a closed loop principle for an existing product value chain and usually relating to circular reformation from a linear to a circular model. Although these models do little to articulate the sustainable trifactor of financial, environmental and social sustainability, circular models can be developed and built around greater social inclusion if a ‘Separated Business Model Canvas Approach’ is used when analysing existing models and/or developing new circular models. This chapter covers a brief literature review of social sustainability in circular model adoption, addressing some of the factors contributing to social exclusion and also reviewing some of the solutions for social inclusion. This chapter offers an alternative framework addressing the social sustainability aspects of circular modelling and concludes with a case study example where the framework is applied to an existing business to help identify the social elements of the circular model. Keywords  Social sustainability · Circular models · Social inclusion · Sustainability trifactor · Business Model Canvas · Separated Business Model Canvas Approach

9.1 Introduction With the rise of circular economy, circular models and the pressure being put on the industry to adopt sustainable circularity (Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019; Rhodes 2016; Jabbour et  al. 2020), many have criticised the social benefit derived from the G. Blackbeard (*) University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_9

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implementation of such models (Bilitewski 2012). Even with all the incentives and policy reform from governments to adopt circular models from a top-down approach, where existing models are being adapted to include social sustainability, the need for a more grounded approach where social inclusion is built into the design and strategy of an organisation is becoming more sought after (Bressanelli et al. 2019). Social inclusion is defined by the UN as being improvements, opportunities and rights afforded to people for a better future (UN 2020). Jabbour et al. (2020) identify that the pressure being put on organisations from shareholders, government and consumers is exacerbating the social issue even more, as corporate social responsibility expectations centre around well-being, while the inclusion of circular models requires the consideration of an ever-expanding collaborative stakeholder pool. The question then posed is whether social sustainability can be cultivated when developing circular models or whether social inclusion can be identified and built on? Throughout the literature, a wider lens approach is suggested in order to gain a greater understanding of the construct and taxonomies of circular models (Zott et al. 2011; Foss and Saebi 2018). Additionally, layered tools and multiple frameworks are suggested to existing models and frameworks for both the transition and development of circular models due to the lack of a single-solution framework (Zott et al. 2011; Qastharin 2016). These approaches provide a solution to understanding the value construct in circular models through the clarity of how value is created, delivered and captured (Teece 2018; Foss and Saebi 2018). However, the literature specifically raises concerns around the limitation on some of the single-dimensional frameworks like the Business Model Canvas (BMC) (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010), which fails to address the sustainability trifactor when adopting circularity in existing models (Qastharin 2016). The sustainable trifactor refers to the three pillars of sustainability, usually articulated through models like the triple bottom line (Elkington 2013) and defined by the UN as the key pillars of sustainable development (UN 2020). On the other hand, the literature does support the use of multiple tools, as opposed to a single tool, as a solution for the implementation for social inclusion in circular models (Joyce and Paquin 2016). In this chapter, we attempt to propose a multiple-tool framework defined here as the Separated Business Model Canvas Approach (SBMCA). This SBMCA, as suggested by scholars like Qastharin (2016) and Joyce and Paquin (2016), allows for the expansion of a single framework like the Business Model Canvas, through the separation of the canvas for each of the three sustainable areas. By using a separate canvas for each of the environmental, economic and social aspects of the circular model, each pillar can be addressed through its value creation, delivery and capture in the circular model. A literature review of some of the existing social sustainability research was conducted in order to identify factors leading to the exclusion of social sustainability in circular models. Further, the review identified contributions influencing factors that can be adopted to include social sustainability when developing circular models. In sequence, the review leads to a conceptual ‘separated canvas’ framework being suggested for a more accurate analysis, identification and development of social inclusion in answering the research questions. The chapter

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goes on to present a methodology of the elements used when analysing social inclusion in a business and offers up a case study where the methodology is used to define and identify social sustainability. The chapter concludes with a results section and further discussion for further exploration for a single framework as a solution to ensure a sustainable trifactor.

9.2 Literature Review In this chapter, we explore the literature around factors contributing to the exclusion and potential inclusion of social sustainability through a simple literature review method. This method, suggested by Tranfield et  al. (2003), allows for a broader data collection of secondary existing literature than that of a full systemic review across a cross section of papers. The data collected is presented in the form of a brief history of social sustainability in circular models leading into a critical analysis of the factors contributing to social exclusion when developing circular models. As a potential solution, the review further analyses the factors, which could possibly contribute to social inclusion when developing or analysing circular models, with the literature forming the basis of the analysis methodology when a SBMCA framework is applied to a tangible case study. The methodology for the development of the theoretical framework comes from the literature review as the primary empirical evidence. The case study is not included as a methodology for the chapter but rather a test bed for the theoretical framework proposed in the chapter.

9.2.1 Social Sustainability in Circular Models With the awareness of sustainable development introduced into the business arena by academics like Stahel and Pearce in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Stahel 1997; Pearce and Atkinson 1993), instrumental in the developing the cradle to cradle, closed loop and eventually the circular economy, the inclusion of sustainable models start to appear in the business model and business model innovation literature in the early 1990s. Authors like Chesbrough (2010) and Bohnsack et al. (2014) start showing the links between sustainability and business model innovation brought about by the use of business models as experimental models for new technology and newer sustainable processes. Although Johnson et al. (2008) argue that the innovation of a business model has little link to becoming environmentally sustainable, Amit and Zott (2001, 2012) disagree identifying sustainability as an innovation of value, through efficiency, complementarities, novelty and lock-ins. The literature unveils the path from business model innovation to sustainability models to circular models by redefinition of value creation and capture offering within the model (Zott et al. 2011).

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These changes reiterate the shift in the understanding of value from the 1980s to today, where value creation and value capture become less about cost and profit and more about the environment and social value (Schaltegger et al. 2016). Value capture is noted as key in sustainable models, as the inclusion of social value is added as an element when looking at sustainable models (Wilson and Post 2013; Schneider and Spieth 2013; Giesen et al. 2007), while the reuse of the product creates greater value capture in circular economy models (Carus and Dammer 2018; Centobelli et  al. 2020; Wells and Seitz 2005; EMF 2013). This was explained best by Schaltegger et al. (2016, p. 6) as ensuring that the value proposition provides both ecological or social and economic value through offering products and services, the business infrastructure must be rooted in principles of sustainable supply chain management, the customer interface must enable close relationships with customers and other stakeholders to be able to take responsibility for production and consumption systems, and the financial model should distribute economic costs and benefits equitably among actors involved. As the concept of value changes from the competitive advantage ‘unique product’ in the 1980s (Porter 1980) to include social value and environmental value (Amit and Zott 2012; Centobelli et al. 2020; Evans et al. 2017), the economic models for profit take on a more social consciousness (Chang 2011; Carus and Dammer 2018; Husted and Allen 2007). The focus shifts to developing models for the sustainable development of the economy and society with the least impact on the ecosystem (Whiteman et al. 2013). This change is noticed best in Porters’ works, where he introduces the concept of shared value as additional considerations to his competitive advantage strategies, defining it as policies and operating practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing the economic and social conditions in the communities in which it operates (Porter and Kramer 2019, p. 327). Likewise, scholars like Elkington (2013) start introducing environmental and social elements with the triple bottom line into the organisational planning in the early 1990s increasing the awareness of Industrial Ecology, which was slowly gaining ground (Frosch 1994). Industrial ecology identified by Frosch and Gallopoulos (1989) as ‘the traditional model of industrial activity – in which individual manufacturing processes take in raw materials and generate products to be sold, plus waste to be disposed of – should be transformed into a more integrated model: an industrial ecosystem’ becomes the foundation for circular models and circular economies as the awareness increases (Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019). Both industrial ecology and circular models rely on a greater collaborative effort between industry stakeholders to develop a symbiosis in order to be effective (Chertow and Park 2016). While Porter’s concept of shared value looks at addressing social and environmental issues, organisations like EMF use these elements as building blocks for sustainable models (EMF 2013). As the implementation of circular economy becomes mainstream, the shift from the incorporation or inclusion of a social or environmental model to developing a model with these elements as building blocks becomes more evident (EMF 2013; Bouton et al. 2016; Linder and Williander 2017).

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9.2.1.1 Factors Contributing to Social Exclusion in Circular Models One of the bigger issues still plaguing both academia and industry is the lack of attention and inclusion of social sustainability in circular models (Rizos et al. 2016). Critics highlight the single dimension of environmental sustainability as dominating the implementation of circularity, especially when adapting existing business models or trying to change corporate culture (Centobelli et al. 2020; Korhonen et al. 2018; Jabbour et al. 2020). Unlike the adoption of corporate social responsibility (Aguilera et al. 2007) where the principles of the triple bottom line of social, financial and environmental areas (Elkington 1997) are usually laid out against organisational key performance indicators, the foundation of the circular model finds its heritage in environmental sustainability first, leading to an unbalanced sustainable trifactor. Ironically Ellen Macarthur Foundation themselves present circular economy as a redesign of the production process (EMF 2020), with a focus on the reuse, recycle and repurpose of a product, spearheading the concept as environmental and ecological circularity. This allows for the assumption of social inclusion but little direction on how to implement a balanced approach. On the other hand, Lewandowski (2016) reiterates the point that circular economy is the framework for circular model adoption and that a literal interpretation may not achieve all three areas of sustainability. The issues of circularity as a concept being applied to existing business models also comes under heavy criticism (Van Weelden et al. 2016; Jabbour et al. 2020). Lüdeke-Freund et al. (2019) identify that when a circular business model is developed and executed that it is usually ‘part of an ongoing process to achieve greater resource efficiency and effectiveness’, which is concurred by Zucchella and Previtali (2019), who identify sustainable and circular business models as being adaptations of existing models and not stand-alone models for organisations. This is further explored by Schaltegger et al. (2016), who add that including circularity into existing business models, which are not complete models to address value creation, delivery and capture, makes the models less effective as additional issues arise around the profitability and social sustainability. Korhonen et al. (2018) and Jabbour et al. (2020) highlight five specific barriers to adopting a circular models, which is backed up by some of the criticisms of the circular economic models: (1) Financial – this has been one of the most criticised areas of circular models, due to the difficulty in finding the financial benefits. Contra principles within the circular model make it difficult to generate traditional profit: slow production, natural raw materials, the reuse of materials and the technology needed to develop a closed loop. (2) Structure (people issues) – launching a satellite circular model takes additional resources; on the other hand, changing the entire business model will take major structural and resource changes. Additionally, communication, responsibilities and clarity may hamper the implementation process. (3) Operational (people issue) – Implementing a circular model takes a full operational rethink, not only in resources but also in capability (Genovese et al. 2017). Challenges include changing supply chain practices, logistical processes, equipment and product flow. (4) Attitude  – Change in an organisation is not easy,

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especially when it goes against a process that has been developed and used over many years (Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019). Circularity in models is also a concept that is not well understood, making the transition complicated and difficult. Adding to the challenges, Lüdeke-Freund et  al. (2019) identify that the lack of incentive to change or clear argument in favour of transcending from a standard business model into a circular one will hamper the process. The lack of social inclusion is found in much of the literature where a cross section of social and societal issues is highlighted. Linder and Williander (2017) include negativity due to the lack of customer support to ensure a closed loop process is successful, going on to highlight the limited collaboration potential if uptake is slow, as partnerships are limited to like-minded businesses. While Bressanelli et al. (2019) touch on the issues of social control, noting an organisational reluctance to relinquish control of their supply chain when considering the collaborative elements of social inclusion. Bouzon et al. (2018) go further by pointing out issues with the redesign of the supply chain, citing potential issues with loss of jobs through different processes and extensive training requirements to meet social reform. The same idea is reiterated by Rizos et  al. (2016) foreseeing the lack of educating and training employees as having a negative social impact. This includes the compounded issue of top management commitment and ability to ensure social inclusion in the organisation (Kuo et al. 2010). 9.2.1.2 Factors Contributing to Social Inclusion in Circular Models The argument that circular economic models lack the inclusion of social sustainability due to their focus on environmental value and in most cases economical value through the retention of the product life cycle and the fact that most organisations still apply linear production processes still dominates the industry and literature (Sehnem et al. 2019; Stahel 2016; Tong et al. 2018). Therefore, it’s no wonder that the shift to include or transform to circularity is slow. Even some of the leading circular economic advocates showcase short-term recycling gains adopted in the supply chain as opposed to the long-term approach needed for a circular value chain. This long-term approach, highlighted by Geissdoerfer et  al. (2018) and Geissdoerfer et al. (2017) offers a solution to the argument around both social and economic challenges by identifying additional dimensions needed for circular model transition, including: (1) sustainable value created, (2) enlarged stakeholder collaboration and (3) longer-term vision. Geissdoerfer’s additional factors of value and collaboration showcase as key areas when adopting circularity, as the definition of value changes as the model changes (Geissdoerfer et al. 2018). The introduction of circularity shifts from the production of single-use products to include products being used multiple times, changing the design of the model from ‘produce to sell’ to ‘produce to rent or reuse’ (Tukker 2015). This in turn opens up new opportunities for value capture and the inclusion of service models alongside production models (Lüdeke-Freund et  al.

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(2018). MacArthur et  al. (2015) include ‘retention value’ as value being derived multiple times from the same product through hiring or repairing. While Pauli (2010) identifies recyclable product value as accessible raw materials for new products. Likewise, Bocken and Geradts (2020) include collaboration as a key component to circularity, as the closure of the loop requires stakeholder involvement. In a simple recycling or reuse model, based on the consumer returning the product, the engagement with the customer is necessary to reinforce the closure of the loop (Lüdeke-Freund et  al. 2018). Clinton and Whisnant (2014) identify stakeholder engagement as key to the transformation of business models, noting the greater collaborative value when developing circular ‘take back’ models. The realisation that greater stakeholder engagement or collaboration is needed to achieve a circular model is evident throughout the circular economy literature, where stakeholder collaboration becomes the foundation for models like RESOLVE (MacArthur 2013; EMF 2013). EMF (2020) suggested stakeholder collaboration to maximise all models within the circular principle which include reuse that relies on the consumer to return the product, while the supplier may be engaged to repurpose the product; this may apply to any stakeholder along the value chain who may be involved in the repurposing of the product; recycle that again relies on the relationship with the end user to return the product for reuse; repair/remanufacture which relies on the stakeholders within the value chain to repair the product or remanufacture it for other purposes as well as the reliance on the consumer to return the broken or disused product. Sustainable Value Sustainable value creation helps contextualise social inclusion by broadening the value realm to include all workers, stakeholders and employees involved in the value chain. O’Cass and Ngo (2011) explain value creation through customer-­ perceived value, exchange value and relationship value adding a fourth dimension of position value. Using this definition, we can then determine that value creation is multidimensional within a value chain and is not limited to the profit achieved as an end result to a linear flow of a product or a process. Amit and Zott (2001) and Foss and Saebi (2018) offer an explanation in terms of value creation, by developing a model based on the four drivers of value creation, that is, efficiencies, complementarities, novelty and lock-In. Efficiencies include speed, process, range and offering, while complementarities encompass the linkages between products, activities and stakeholders. Novelty speaks to the innovation of product and process, and lock-in addresses add on and price offerings. According to Amit and Zott (2001) and Foss and Saebi (2018), these drivers of value creation can affect all three pillars of the BM. Social value encapsulates many areas (Joyce and Paquin 2016) such as social culture, which includes the impact the organisation has on society and what value the organisation cultivates for society as a whole, usually captured in the organisations’ corporate social responsibility program, social impact, which are measurable

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costs, and social benefits, which are the measurable benefits gained from social inclusion (Joyce and Paquin 2016). Sustainable value capture, on the other hand, is highlighted as combining a number of elements together in order to appropriate the value created and delivered (Afuah 2004). This sentiment is echoed in much of the business model and sustainable model literature where the element of value capture is defined as how the organisation makes its money (Gassmann et  al. 2014; Betz 2003). Additionally, value capture as defined in strategy is different to value capture in the modern business model, as value capture in strategy relies on the assessment of the bargaining power between buyers and sellers (Bowman and Ambrosini 2000), while value capture in a business model may be driven by value for the stakeholders, relying on gains through pricing strategies (Afuah 2004), however, may also include any value that can be retained within the value chain. Value capture can, therefore, also be achieved through additional revenue sources and intangibles, including material usage and management practice, where the organisation retains value through indirect economic means (Centobelli et al. 2020). Stakeholders Value and Collaboration Much of the literature around value creation in business model innovation centres around economic value derived from value creation and delivery (Foss and Saebi 2017) with little attention being given to stakeholder collaborative value. Lambert and Enz (2012) identify the emphasis put on customer value while doing an extensive review of value creation, making this type of value the most important. However, Freudenreich et  al. (2020) in their most recent study build an alternate case for stakeholder value as being as important as customer value, changing the concept of value creation to include stakeholder value. Many management theories developed over the more recent years are being founded on a more social inclusion principle (Porter 2001; Freeman et al. 2010). One of the more dynamic advancements forming the base of social inclusion is built around the original stakeholder theory by Freeman et al. (2010). With stakeholder theory suggesting that organisations stand a much greater change of creating value when entering into meaningful relationships, exceeding a single organisation’s efforts and that the value created abounds the classic version of financial value (Freeman 2010). The stakeholder theory advances value creation from the single dimension referenced in business model literature (value to the customer) to including all stakeholders involved in the organisation, where shared value between stakeholders contributes to the overall innovation of the model (Freeman 2010; Porter 2001). The theory additionally extends to the concept of joint value creation, where the creation of value is directly linked to the relationship and the management of the stakeholder network (Bridoux and Stoelhorst 2016). The theory builds on the two key pillars of the relationships within the network and the joint purpose for the network, while a large portion of the literature emphasises the main influencer in creating value

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through relationships being determined by the strategy and goals of the organisation (Betz 2002). Tantalo and Priem (2016) included that exiting business models can be employed and potential new models can be developed through a relationship, insisting that the value derived from collaboration must start with an alignment with the organisation’s strategy. Tashman and Raelin (2013) reiterate this by including that the stakeholder is reliant on the organisation for their role in creating value and not necessarily given the opportunity to simultaneously create value mutually. Further confirmed by Bridoux and Stoelhorst (2016), who agree that the relationships are governed by the self-interest of the organisation, referring to this as the shared goals or the synergistic alignments of partners to be able to create value. Tantalo and Priem (2016) point out that value goes far beyond economic benefits and that value creation is not one-sided, addressing the point that value is not necessarily created for stakeholders but by stakeholders in the pursuit of a more sustainable organisation. Stakeholder value can be influenced by many factors, while trust forms the foundation for successful stakeholder relationships to develop value (Jones and Wicks 1999; Greenwood and Van Buren III 2010; Harrison et  al. 2010). Other authors Bridoux and Stoelhorst (2014) reference the approach to the relationship, which may bring out different behaviours in different stakeholders affecting the outcome of value creation. This leads to the one of the key disciplines identified by Freeman et al. (2010) and Kramer and Porter (2011) in the stakeholder theory that of successfully managing different needs of the different stakeholders. Ultimately, the benefits of collaboration and sometimes the necessity for collaboration have been well documented and widely accepted in strategic theory, so has the profitability and sustainability of an organisation increased due to the collaborative relationships (Freeman 2010; Orlitzky et al. 2003). Long-Term Approach Organisational literature pre-1990 focuses mainly on principles to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace to drive more profit (Porter 1980). Today, we find a more sustainable approach in the business management literature with strategies like corporate social responsibility, sustainability and circular economy (Aguilera et  al. 2007; Kramer and Porter 2011; EMF 2013). This new approach forms the foundation for a more sustainable way of ensuring not only the organisation but also its resources and its people, which will be around for generations to come (Elkington 2013). This includes the longevity of the organisation through the nurturing of its stakeholders and incorporating social sustainability. Social sustainability is explained as ‘…blending traditional social policy areas and principles, such as equity and health, with emerging issues concerning participation, needs, social capital, the economy, the environment, and more recently, with the notions of happiness, wellbeing and quality of life’, which in simple terms is the management of all people, whether they be employees, the community or stakeholders so as to impact them positively and proactively (UN 2020; Sachs 2012). Developed in line with

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social development (UN 2020), social sustainability is based around major dimensions identified by Lister (2010) as follows: quality of life, which includes affordability, education and employment; equality and diversity, which includes equal opportunity for everyone; social cohesion, which includes collaborative efforts to better opportunity; and democracy and governance. A long-term approach to products and processes forms the basis of circular economy literature, where the product is designed for multiple use as opposed to a single-­use product (EMF 2020). The principle of circular economy develops the product and the processing of a product in a closed loop format, meaning that the value chain is structured in a way that can either deal with the collection and reuse of the product or is able to retain the ownership of the product but lease it for use (Centobelli et al. 2020). Further models within the circular economic framework include the recycling of a product produced both in and outside of the value chain to be used in the production of a new product (EMF 2020). Ultimately, the basis of the circular economy literature is the process of how products can be produced for longer use and how the value chain is redesigned to include the recycling, reusing or repurposing of products while building a more ethical value chain which addresses every stakeholder’s needs (EMF 2013). Lüdeke-Freund et al. (2019) and Hopkinson et al. (2018) point out the financial, ecological and operational benefits of circular economy models, including additional revenue through cost saving along the value chain, new market segments, greater revenue opportunities within the value chain, new processes and revenue reusing products. On the consumer side, Hopkinson et al. (2018) explain longer-use products for consumers, returnable products to be reengineered and additional services to consumers to service lifelong products. Linder and Williander (2017) note the potential profit through resource efficiencies and energy reduction when implementing a circular model. Likewise, Lüdeke-Freund et al. (2019) explain that the intention of a circular business model is to design and produce products that can be reused or are waste reductive from the start. They express the development of the circular business model as being integrated into the value chain from the start, addressing the cost issues upfront. The literature review helps identify the criticism and concerns by academics and industry to the exclusion of social sustainability; it highlights and points to social exclusion in circular modelling as an issue and reiterates that these issues stem from the implementation and analysis process currently used when adopting circular models or attempting to develop them. It also highlights the point that business models are developed around value creation, delivery and capture and that social value or even nontangible value is undervalued. The literature articulates the barriers of adoption where social inclusion is not the primary motivation for circular models. On the other hand, the review offers up a solution through the way value in circular models is viewed and addressed, emphasising the nontangible (but still financially rewarding) benefits of social sustainability.

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9.3 Conceptual Framework In developing a framework to address the shortcomings (specifically social exclusion) of circular model adoption and implantation, we look at existing frameworks as a starting point. The Business Model Canvas was first developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) as a tool for the design and implementation of a business model as well as the innovation of an existing model. The Canvas has a rich empirical history of being used across the industry, making it one of the more favourable tools used in business model innovation today (Koprivnjak and Oberman Peterka 2020). The tool helps to understand the different components of the business model by mapping out the elements required to create, deliver and capture value (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010). Through this mapping process, the organization’s business model is broken into nine interconnected components: customer value proposition, customer segments, customer relationships, channels, key resources, key activities, key partners, cost structure and revenue streams. Helping to identify the value being created through the identification of the offering, further helping to address how this value is delivered through the key partners, activities and resources and finally how the value is captured through the cost structures and revenue streams (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010). Unfortunately, the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010) has come under scrutiny because of its single-dimensional approach to value (Bocken et al. 2017; Van Marrewijk and Werre 2003). In Qastharin (2016) paper, they analyse the effectiveness of the Business Model Canvas for the use in a social enterprise and conclude that the model is not sufficient, even against Osterwalder and Pigneur’s attempts to present it as a ‘beyond profit canvas’. Likewise, Lewandowski (2016) addresses the advantages and disadvantages of the Business Model Canvas for a balanced circular model, by proposing a different approach by combining the Canvas with the ReSOLVE framework to merge the circular economic principles with the business model framework. Joyce and Paquin (2016) support this principle by using the triple bottom line trifecta (Elkington 2013) approach (which seeks to balance the social and environmental with the financial) to the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010) in a triple-layered model. Suggesting that the three areas of sustainability (environmental, economic and social) should be addressed separately when using the Business Model Canvas. The literature helps build a framework of implementation or inclusion of social sustainability when developing circular models. Articulated well by Joyce and Paquin (2016) who explain the need to separate the social elements to be mapped separately when redesigning a circular model. Likewise, Qastharin (2016) also uses a separation approach when mapping the impact created by the sustainable value. Ultimately, most models that are suggested in the literature over the past 10 years are some sorts of hybrid mix of two existing models or tools overlaid to get a more satisfactory result when implementing circular models. The additional literature analysis in this chapter further reiterates the issues of social sustainability when adopting circular models, showing a lack of single

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frameworks found in the literature as well as application. The literature articulates the shortcomings of existing frameworks and offers a suggestion for a separation model option, which is suggested as a theoretical framework in this paper. Therefore, we propose a separation of the commerce and operational from the sustainability impact and propose them as individually mapped elements to form the Separated Business Model Canvas Approach. In this model, we present (Fig. 9.1) the original or standard BMC by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) as the commerce; however, we further include two adapted BMC for the Environmental and the Social (Joyce and Paquin 2016). This SBMCA is used as one model with all three BMC being mapped and factored individually. The model presented is applying three individual canvases as one model.

9.4 Methodology for a Case Study In applying the SBMCA to an existing business, we refer to the points in previous literature (Fig. 9.2) where social inclusion is motivated by the additional considerations of sustainable value, collaboration factor and the long-term approach, articulated by Geissdoerfer et al. (2017). By including these three areas of greater value to the canvases, we can define the social value derived from collaboration and sustainable development. The use of these three considerations is further explained in this section along with their relevance. These are applied to each of the sustainability trifactor canvases in order to evaluate the organisation through a social inclusion lens. A participatory research methodology (Bergold and Thomas 2012) is used for data collection during the case study analysis, which included the facilitation of group discussions where the organisation and analysis were done via online data collected from the organisation management team through facilitation by the researcher. These sessions allowed for multiple discussions with the organisation to identify and analyse the business in order to propose a complete circular model targeted to include social sustainability.

9.5 Case Study Using the SBMCA and the three contributors to social inclusion from the literature, we developed an action research case study of an existing social enterprise in Kenya, which had not managed to develop a complete circular model nor identified their key competencies as a social enterprise. The methodology allowed for the organisation to ground their strategic direction in social sustainability for the future.

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Fig. 9.1  Separated Model Canvas Approach – SBMCA. (Source: Adapted with permission from Joyce and Paquin 2016)

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The sustainable value factor (factor A) In order to provoke a paradigm shift in the interpretation of value, a sustainability trifactor approach needs to be adopted. Value in commerce usually equates to profit, which is reminiscent of the organisational behaviour between the 1950s to 1990s. While value today encompasses all value gained within the value chain (Windsor, 2017). The shift in value comes from unpacking value from the additional perspectives of social and environmental, where value can be found in the inclusion of all stakeholders along the value chain to gain greater efficiencies (Chakrabarty 2020), or through the proper treatment of the people in the organisation, which in turn makes the organisation more productive due to happy staff (Preston, 2017), or the value of cleaning up the community to enrich the quality of life. The value proposition, mapped separately on a social and environmental canvas, will identify the social and environmental value created in a circular model.

The collaboration factor (factor B) Collaboration or a stakeholder approach has been identified as one of the key elements in the development of sustainable models (Tantalo & Priem, 2016). Collaborating with key stakeholders in a single dimension limits the value, whereas collaboration within the second and third pillars of environment and social, allows for the value proposition to include collaboration with NGOs and policy makers to achieve environmental goals (Gunningham, 2009), collaboration with community and other organisations ensures circularity through inclusion and giving back, while collaboration with all stakeholders along the value chain makes the process ethical, fair and social inclusive (Freeman & Liedtka, 1997).

Factor A is considered as an influencing factor when applied to Part1 + Part2 + Part3 of the SBMCA

Factor B is considered as an influencing factor when applied to Part1 + Part2 + Part3 of the SBMCA

The long-term approach (factor C) Plotting the social impact on a social canvas separately allows for the two areas of social sustainability and process design to be addressed outside of the profit realm. Key partners, customer relationships, community and people are the foundation to ensuring longevity; by looking after the relationships founded in the social and environmental planes, ensures the longevity of the organisation, and greater collaborations ensure that growth and sustainable targets are met (UN 2020). Product and service design for multiple use, relies on the social value proposition through the value of mutual benefit amongst the stakeholders and the enhancement of customer experience, while repurposing and recycling relies on the environmental value proposition, where the model can be developed around products having an impact on the environment (EMF 2013) .

Factor C is considered as an influencing factor when applied to Part2 + Part3 of the SBMCA

Fig. 9.2  Consideration factors for the inclusion of social sustainability

Case Study Background Amusha Youth, a community-based organisation (CBO) in Mukuru Kwa Njenga in Nairobi, operates within their mandate of streamlining and regulating the waste management within its area of operation in conjunction with both the national and county government. The organization comprises local community youth groups and individuals that undertake waste management activities, particularly garbage collection within Embakasi South sub-county. Through different projects, the organisation provides a waste management solution to the local area through segregation programs, waste collection, waste sorting and washing and the shedding and repurposing of waste.

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Applying the SBMCA The methodology for the development of a circular model was based on the principles of a ‘Sustainable Trifecta’ approach through the application of the ‘separation approach’ Business Model Canvas (Joyce and Paquin 2016). The social value and impacts were plotted separately to the commerce value, allowing for a social focus on the community, local partners and collaborative stakeholders. Aligning the model to incorporate unskilled resources from the community to become an integral part of the value chain. The organisation went through a remapping process, where new strategic aims and objectives were developed alongside the unpacking of the sustainable model. With the organisational aims reset to include education, development and complete inclusion of the community people within the supply chain to develop the business, the direction of the organisation changed to be more in line with a social organisation. However, the objective to become self- sustainable still dominated the commerce stage of the mapping. The new direction set the platform for a circular model which achieved two social sustainable elements and one additional financial element. Table 9.1 presents the summary outcomes from the case data collected using the participatory research methodology; the process facilitated the information to be discussed and mapped on the SBMCA Part 3 social canvas in order to identify specific social sustainability aspects being missed by the business. The outcomes are representative of the case study methodology used, where the three influencing factors are considered as influencing the outcomes of the social model mapping to be more socially inclusive. Only the single (Social Part 3) canvas is presented in this chapter as the most relevant contribution to social inclusion. The new direction set the platform for a circular model which achieved two social sustainable elements and one additional financial: • Community development through education and employment. The empowerment of the resources allowed for the growth and independence of the local community contributing to the organisational value chain. This not only encouraged the local community to form smaller groups to feed the organisation; it also closed the loop by ensuring waste was not discarded outside of the circular model, leading to a circular model achieving financial, social and environmental sustainability replicable into neighbouring communities. • Collaborations between other waste collection organisations. The collaboration with other local community collection organisations led to a greater collection capacity of waste, which can be either sold for recycling or repurposed within the community. The collaboration with reputable buyers ensures the product is ending up in the recycling plants as agreed. • The circular model development allowed for the understanding of the product, the resources and the process in order for the organisation to eventually become financially self-sustainable.

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216 Table 9.1  Social value mapped separately on the Part 3 canvas of the SBMCA Stakeholder

Governance

Social value

Social culture

End user

Collaboration with the community for employment and education. Collaborations between other waste collection organisations. The collaboration with other local community collection organisations led to a greater collection capacity of waste which can be either sold for recycling or repurposed within the community.

Using verified ethical recyclers Applying ethical circular economy

Community development through education and employment. The empowerment of the resources allowed for the growth and independence of the local community contributing to the organisational value chain

The change in mindset to educate the community both to dispose of their waste correctly and to be encouraged to reuse the repurposed waste, the social culture value completes the circular model

Clean environment Employment in the community

People Employ local unskilled people from the community to help collect and process waste – developing opportunity for self-employment

Outreach Scalable into other communities and local areas

Social impact

Social benefit

Impact is measured in three areas. First, it is the empowering of the community-based youth groups to collect waste to feed into the value chain, becoming an integral part of the process. Second, it is the employment of the youth by paying unskilled local resources to collect waste in the community resulting in secure income for community families that may not have had the chance to find steady income developing a form of social entrepreneurship (Bornstein, 2004). Lastly, by developing community centres to repurpose the waste to be sold back into neighbouring communities and close the circular loop. The economic impact of the social inclusions becomes part of the income generation model for the organisation

Bringing together a community through a common need to better the environment and through the inclusion of youth groups teaching them the value of starting their own businesses. This not only ensures the community is working together, but also allows for greater social value to be realised in other communities

Source: Social value mapped on an adjusted Business Model Canvas, Joyce and Paquin (2016)

9.6 Results Through the case study presented, where the SBMCA was used to develop the social sustainability of the circular model, the success of social sustainability as an integral and inclusive part of the organisation confirms the effectiveness of a separated approach. Additionally, the separation model allowed for a three-dimensional or pillar approach when developing a circular model, as the model was built on the three pillars of sustainability separately; this ensured that the sustainability trifactor was assessed individually and forced a social inclusion strategy. This framework also allowed for the interpretation of ‘value’ to be expanded to include the value of

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people and their contribution, the value of community and their inclusion in the value chain and the value of educating the community and giving them the tools to develop their own businesses to become part of the circular value chain. This additionally allowed for the simplification of the implementation of the SBMCA when being applied to start-ups or community organisations, by unpacking the elements further than the interpretation of the original BMC. While the outcome of the case study showed that this SBMCA approach may be adequate or even successful, the concern that the approach may be limited to smaller organisations or start-ups and community organisations is something that may warrant further theoretical application. While no one model exists for the development and/or transition of circular models that guarantees the equal inclusion of all three sustainable elements (environmental, social and financial), the use of multiple models may be the best solution the existing literature has to offer (Davies and Doherty 2019). However, with the arguments around the heavy-handed approach to environmental sustainability in the circular economy models (EMF 2020), and the huge drive to recycling models as the solution, a more inclusive approach needs to be developed, a model which makes the adoption of circularity the most effective form of a sustainable model in the organisation.

9.7 Discussion Although no clear solution to the social exclusion challenge exists in theory, the identification of the key drivers of sustainable value and stakeholder engagement forms the foundation of social sustainability when developing circular models (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017, 2018). Value creation needs to be looked at from different angles identifying the sustainable impact of the organisation, both internal and external, when developing or transforming existing models. Sustainable value is defined and expressed differently to commercial value, focusing more on intangible value created by the organisation, its people, the community and society as a whole. Likewise, the interaction with all stakeholders within the value chain and the collaborative relationships beyond the value chain need to be embedded in circular models theory. The literature calls for a wider lens to be used when it comes to circularity, with De lange et al. (2012) suggesting a cross-pollination of different frameworks across different disciplines in order to broaden the theoretical antecedence.

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Chapter 10

Dirty Work/Decent Work: (De) Stigmatization of Sachet Water Plastic Waste Picking in Ghana’s Circular Economy Samuel Bonsu and Stanford Nartey

Abstract  This study explores everyday living experiences of sachet water waste pickers (SWWP) in Accra, Ghana, with particular attention to underserved areas. Using one such worker as a focal point, the study conceptualizes SWWP as ‘dirty work’ and explores how the dynamics of dirty work are deployed to act upon the work of vulnerable women towards creating decent work opportunities. We focus on women mainly because the vast majority of SWWP in Ghana are women. Ultimately, this chapter contributes to understanding how the activities of SWWP demonstrate good livelihood practices and economic empowerment. Examining the everyday practices of the SWWP, as we do, provides an analytical lens for building a situated account of socio-economic lives of these workers. Made decent, SWWP work may be connected to the circular economy in a manner that makes significant contribution towards achieving SDGs 5, 1, 6 and 10. The paper suggests policy actions towards this end. Keywords  Ghana · Dirty work · Stigma · Plastic waste · Circular economy · Sachet water waste

10.1 Introduction A recent report notes that the world produces twice as much plastic now as we did two decades ago, and many of these plastics are virgin; only 9% is successfully recycled, while 22% is mismanaged (OECD 2022). The report notes further that nearly two-thirds of plastic waste comes from plastic with lifetimes of less than

S. Bonsu (*) · S. Nartey Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Accra, Ghana e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_10

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5 years and that ‘there is now an estimated 30 million tonnes of plastic waste in seas and oceans, and a further 109 million tonnes have accumulated in rivers. The build­up of plastics in rivers implies that leakage into the ocean will continue for decades to come, even if mismanaged plastic waste could be significantly reduced’. The situation is more acute in developing countries where poor governance structures contribute to mismanagement of waste; lives and the environment are at higher risks in these economies. The case of Ghana aligns with the global trend as the country grapples with exponential growth in plastics use and an alarming mismanagement of plastic waste (Ugorji and van der Ven 2021). Ghana has emerged as an Africa economic and environmental leader. Even so, the country imports at least 2.58 million tons of virgin plastics per annum; 73% effectively ends up as waste, 19% is reused and less than 0.1% is recycled (Keesman 2019). The remaining quantities go unaccounted (Oppong-Ansah 2018). Ghana’s Long-Term National Development Plan (2018–2057) forecasts a population of 49.1 million by 2050, with 95% urbanization (NDPC 2016). This suggests even more plastic consumption and, in turn, environmental stewardship. Without attention, the growth in population, urbanization and industrialization can spell doom for the environment in Ghana and around the world. Warnings like these point to the necessity of a circular economy. The circular economy (CE) seeks to replace the ‘end-of-life’ concept (linear economy) with an ecosystem that is resilient and free of waste by adopting the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle for sustainable development (Esposito et al. 2018), thereby reducing the need for virgin plastics and increasing the life of plastics beyond 5 years, among other things. That is to say that CE seeks to eliminate single-use plastic in favour of organic materials or plastics that can be recycled. A CE approach seems highly desirable in Ghana’s context, especially when the capital city, Accra, alone generates about 4015 tonnes of waste daily, the bulk of which is plastic waste (GARID 2021) (Fig. 10.1). Plastic is used in industry but plays a social role in that people at the bottom of Ghana’s economic pyramid can afford food and other basic consumer necessities mostly through low-priced miniature packs sold in plastic sachets. Due to the inadequate reach of municipal water supply, a major source of drinking water for many is the ubiquitous sachet water. Sachet water is typically packaged in 500 mL plastic bags and heat-sealed on both ends (see Fig. 10.2). The Ghana 2021 Population and Housing Census reported that 37.4% of households use sachet water as their primary source of drinking water. In urban areas, the proportion is 51.5%. To meet this demand, there are over 2000 registered sachet water companies in Ghana, according to Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and many more that are not registered with the FDA (Ghanaweb 2022). Apart from population growth and rapid urbanization, the growth of the sachet water market has been fuelled by water resources mismanagement, water governance failures and neglect of water infrastructure (Moulds et al. 2022). While creating at least four million jobs in Ghana (Mustapha 2014) and supporting the achievement of several sustainable development goals (see Owusu-Sekyere 2019),

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Fig. 10.1  Washed-up plastics on the beach

the sachet water business is a health and environmental menace (Raviv 2015; Stoler 2017a, b), especially by reason of the significant waste that it generates. This waste litters the streets, chokes gutters and pollutes water bodies (Raviv 2015). Sachet water waste has been identified as a major contributor to the increasing health challenges and the perennial flooding that Accra faces each year during the rainy season. There is also the concern that the growing sachet water market under the control of

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Fig. 10.2  Picture of sachet water

private business may undermine the principle of water as a public good and threaten universal access (Mitlin and Walnycki 2020). A challenge for policymakers is to ensure that the growing sachet water market contributes to sustainability goals’ achievement (e.g. universal and equitable access to clean drinking water and sanitation (SDG 6), no poverty (SDG1), gender equality (SDG 5) and reduced inequality (SDG 10)). A key stakeholder to have emerged in the waste management value chain in Ghana is a set of entrepreneurs we describe as sachet water waste pickers (SWWP). The majority of SWWP are small-scale involuntary entrepreneurs whose overall contribution to job creation remains largely understudied and not clearly understood (Owusu-Sekyere 2019). They are individuals whose activities are somewhat innovative and risk-taking and also have the ability to plan and manage waste collection for economic gains … As formal [waste management efforts have failed to keep up with growing demand], a ‘niche market’ has been created for the [SWWP]. Their principal importance … is that they are deeply intertwined with enterprises of public health and of urban planning and with discourse on urban governance and right to urban life…[They] employ exceptional skills…as a way of contributing their full potential for overall economic growth … their activities illuminate good livelihood practices, proper city governance, and foster economic empowerment…(Owusu-Sekyere 2019). Drawn to the sachet waste-picking business out of economic necessity, many SWWPs are entrepreneurs by necessity and not necessarily driven by sustainability imperatives. However, they contribute immensely to reducing environmental pollution (Ugorji and van der Ven 2021). To a large extent, the SWWP job is considered ‘dirty work’ (Hughes 1958; Ashforth and Kreiner 1999), ‘lower than a snake’ (Hamilton et al. 2019), in spite of the valuable contribution they make to maintaining good public health (Dias 2016;

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Owusu-Sekyere 2019). ‘Dirty work’ is any type of labour which is ‘seen by a significant portion of society as distasteful, disgusting, dangerous, demeaning, immoral, or contemptible’ (Hughes 1958: 122); ‘a symbol of degradation, something that wounds one’s dignity’ (Hughes 1958: 49). In this chapter, we conceptualize the work of sachet pickers in Ghana as ‘dirty work’ and explore how the dynamics of dirty work are deployed to act upon the work of vulnerable women towards creating decent work opportunities. We focus on women mainly because the vast majority of SWWP in Ghana are women (Ugorji and van der Ven 2021). Workers engaged in dirty work often feel undervalued or unimportant (Bickmeier et al. 2014; Douglas 1966) and being socially excluded (Rabeloa and Mahalingamb 2019). We investigate how plastic garbage picking ‘dirties’ the SWWP and how SWWPs navigate the vagaries of their work and seek to restore a decent work reputation (cf Hamilton et al. 2019). On the belief that effective plastic waste management can support achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (cf Velenturf and Purnell 2021), the study reveals the survival skills of the SWWPs and highlights their value for actualizing SDG 6 (universal access to sanitation facilities) and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities). Examining the everyday practices of the SWWP, as we do, will provide an analytical lens for building a situated account of the socio-­ economic lives of these workers.

10.2 Literature Review 10.2.1 The Circular Economy With the exponential growth in solid waste across the globe – expected to double in large- and medium-sized cities and triple in the poorest countries by 2050 (Vergara and Jammi 2022) – there is an urgent need to transition to a more sustainable waste management strategy. The concept of the circular economy offers an alternative to the traditional linear economic model (take-make-dispose). A circular economy is an economic system designed with the intention that maximum use is extracted from resources and minimum waste is generated for disposal (Deutz 2020). Its aim is ‘to reshape resource use by decoupling growth from material extraction’ by converting waste into resource. A circular economy closes the loop between extraction, manufacturing, and disposal by advocating for recycling materials from end-of-life products back into the economy, among other things. This is especially necessary in lower-income countries where there are fewer sanitary landfills or recycling facilities and waste is managed improperly, remains untreated and/or disposed of in open dumps (e.g. Alba et al. 2019; Morinville 2017). The paradigm principally seeks to retain materials within economy and use. It is within the context of this circular economy that the importance of the work of the sachet water waste picker comes to light.

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Fig. 10.3  Sachet water on sale here

10.2.2 Sachet Water Pickers (Fig. 10.3) Sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation remains a major challenge for many across the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (WHO/UNICEF 2017). The situation is compounded by rapid urbanization, as ‘governments have been unable to extend basic water and sanitation services to keep up with urban population growth, and informal settlements and slums have become fixtures in sub-­ Saharan Africa’s urban landscape. The inadequate investment in water infrastructure over the past few decades has restricted  – or even eliminated  – piped water access for an increasingly large fraction of the urban population’ (Stoler et al. 2012), creating entrepreneurs who sell sachet water. Sachet water typically consists of 500 mL polyethylene plastic bags of water heat-sealed on either end…. Popularly referred to as ‘pure water,’ sachets have gained public affinity due to low price, convenience, ubiquity and the public perception that sachet water is of higher quality than tap water. Sachets are also notorious for constituting a major proportion of the plastic waste generated throughout the country, as consumers typically litter the plastic sleeves in streets and gutters due to lack of organized solid waste collection and removal. Clogged gutters increase the chance of flooding during the rainy seasons, which leads to subsequent loss of property and localized bouts of waterborne illness.

The primary job of the SWWP is to go around picking littered sachet water plastic waste for recycling. While the picker is motivated by the income from this activity, she contributes to the circular economy by helping to reduce virgin plastics in the environment (Fig. 10.4). Perhaps it is in response to the high unemployment in Ghana – with 12% youth unemployment and more than 50% underemployed according to the ILO (1999) – that the SWWP has taken to self-entrepreneurship as a means of livelihood. The trend towards self-employment is in keeping with the global enterprise culture

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Fig. 10.4  A sachet water waste picker with her day stock

that glorifies the self-employed worker, relieving employers of responsibility for the work environment and the worker (Fleming 2017; Vallas and Cummins 2015). SWWP seems to sustain the necessary tenets of the enterprise culture in its presumption of occupational autonomy and individual agency that allows for the entrepreneur to bear significant costs, the least of which is financial burden for securing the tools of trade. The presumed occupational autonomy engendered by this new mode of work supports the situation whereby business is absolved from responsibility for the worker who absorbs all costs and benefits associated with being an economic actor (Fleming 2017). Sachet water waste picking is fraught with all kinds of risks associated with the fact that such work is stigmatized (Goffman 1963), denying ‘decent work’ to those who labour therein. Sachet plastic water waste picking is dirty work that elicits negative responses from the broader society, with xenophobic narratives around such work that ultimately enables maintenance of associated social hierarchies (Zulfiqar and Prasad 2022). Those who do such work are acutely aware of society’s derogatory gaze and know that their occupations cleave stigma onto their social positions within the broader society (cf Wittmer 2021; Owusu-Sekyere 2019). Buoyed by economic necessities and the trendy global enterprise culture, plastic pickers are ‘encouraged to view their lives and identities as a type of enterprise, understood in relation to the self, based ultimately on a notion of incontestable economic interest’. It is within this context that we explore the ‘dirty work’ and socioeconomic lives of women who pick sachet water plastic waste for recycling in Ghana.

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10.2.3 Dirty Work/Decent Work ‘Dirty work’ is any type of labour which is ‘seen by a significant portion of society as distasteful, disgusting, dangerous, demeaning, immoral, or contemptible’ (Hughes 1958: 122); ‘a symbol of degradation, something that wounds one’s dignity’ (Hughes 1958: 49). This definition has since been refined to offer distinctions among the physical, social, moral and emotional taints that arise from dirt and dirty work (Ashforth and Kreiner 1999; Simpson et al. 2014; McMurray and Ward 2014). Dirty work relates to any form of labour that is stigmatized, leading those involved in such work to be disqualified from full social acceptance (Goffman 1963). Garbage picking has universal recognition as a dirty job, from plastic waste collection to dumpster diving (Lehtonen and Olli Pyyhtinen 2021). Those engaged in dirty work know the stigma attached to their jobs and would often seek avenues to cope with the situation, including highlighting the positive contribution the job makes. Plastic waste collectors seem to conform to the community’s derogatory gaze (Zulfiqar and Prasad 2022; Hamilton et al. 2019). Global enterprise culture stresses the agency of the individual entrepreneur in changing the nature and conditions of their work (see Lazar and Sanchez 2019). While this may not always be the case (Ahl and Murrow 2019), several studies have shown how individuals doing dirty work exercise agency by engaging with some form of identity work (e.g. Mavin and Grandy 2013; Thiel 2007) towards (re)defining their own senses of self in ways that are esteem enhancing (Ashforth and Kreiner 1999). Workers may construct a sense of dignity by emphasizing the autonomy that such work affords as well as by curating narratives that focus on how the work ‘directly impacts on the wellbeing of their clients’ (Stacey 2005: 851). The goal in all of these efforts is to de-stigmatize the job. The question is whether and how SWWPs construct a new sense of dignity in the face of the challenges posed by low-­status dirty work. That is, can dirty workers design and enforce strategies for purposes of identity self-enhancement within their sociocultural milieu? That is the question we seek to answer in this paper.

10.3 Methodology 10.3.1 Data Collection and Analysis As part of a broader study, field research for this paper was carried out in Accra over a period of 1 year from February 2020 to February 2021, beginning with secondary data collection on Ghana and her socio-economic history to gain a wholesale understanding of the dynamics of waste management in Accra. This was followed by a cursory observation of two types of waste pickers, including the SWWPs who collect plastic water sachets that litter the city. The ease of finding spent plastic sachets anywhere in Accra suggests indiscriminate disposal of this waste. There are those

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who derive income from picking up these discarded sachets and selling them to recyclers for cash. All the pickers we saw in our observations and those that we would interview later were women. For purposes of this paper, we refer to these women as SWWP. Following the informal street observations, we organized a focus group discussion intended to explore the nature of SWWP and the issues of relevance to them and our research. To abide by Covid-19 protocols, the focus group was restricted to 10 people and held in an open-air area. The participants were identified by a research assistant. Each focus group lasted about an hour, and each participant was paid 20 cedis (approx. US$5.00). The focus group for the SWWP was held one Saturday afternoon at Madina, a suburb of Accra near the homes of the participants. In February 2021, further data was collected in semi-structured, open-ended, in-depth interviews (Goulding 2002) with seven SWWP.  Once again, a research assistant identified the first couple of informants, who would in turn suggest their colleagues as informants. Two informants (Anne and Diane) participated in both the focus group and the long interviews. We focus on these two (mainly on Anne) in reporting our findings (Fig. 10.5). Interviews were conducted by the first author in Asante Twi (the local dialect) and pidgin English as needed. At the beginning of each interview, the informant was told the purpose of the interview and the interview protocols explained. This protocol included asking for consent to conduct and audio record the interview. All informants agreed. They were advised that they could refuse to answer any question asked and that they could withdraw from the interview at any point. Interviews helped explore the nature of the work that our informants engaged in on a daily basis. Interviews lasted between 24 and 90 mins, and each informant was paid 20 cedis (approx. US$5.00).

Comprehensive Analysis

Descriptive overview and conceptualization of SWWP lived experiences as “dirty work”

Observation:

Focus Group:

To develop initial To develop further understanding of understanding of SWWP SWWP work work within the broader context of management of waste, its governance and environmental sustainability

Fig. 10.5  Summary of methodology

Interviews

To understand identity dynamics of SWWP work, and their linkages to socio-economic lives and environmental sustainability.

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Data analysis was an ongoing process that began during initial data collection and continued throughout the research process (Emerson et al. 1995). Earlier analysis was considered preliminary, intended mainly to guide data collection with a focus on grounded waste practices and their relationship to the analytical categories that were emerging from the data. Detailed analysis began after data collection with a complete reading of researcher notes and listening to all interviews. Such ‘readings’ allowed for thematization at the global level within the data (Giorgi 1997) regarding categories of hustling in precarity. We travelled back and forth between personalized accounts and analytical structures in the process of developing theoretical points of interests (Emerson et al. 1995). Researchers’ knowledge of the field and literature on the sociocultural background of SWWP in Ghana provided further bases for interpretation. We note that this study is part of a bigger project to explore the nature of work in Ghana and the extent to which individual agents and multistakeholder initiatives promote responsible business conduct for achieving SDG 10 (reducing inequalities), among others. The portion of the project reported here is extracted from the ethnography of waste workers in Accra. There are several stakeholders in the waste management value chain (individuals, state agencies, civil society organizations, etc.) who come together in the hope of containing the threat of environmental degradation. The SWWP who is the focus of this paper is only one part of the larger pool of actors. The article focuses on the stories of a handful of respondents who were in the focus group discussions and then were also interviewed individually. While they do not offer a comprehensive outline of the views held by all informants in the study, these sampled SWWPs adequately represent the dynamics of ‘dirty work’ noted by informants. Their excerpted narratives and accompanying author interpretations reflect core aspects of dirty work raised in the overall project across economic sectors – mining, waste management and agriculture.

10.4 Findings Informal waste workers and their collaborators in developing countries play an important role in urban waste management as they perform different functions of waste removal, transportation, recovery of recyclables, value aggregation, waste processing, composting and biogas production (Dias 2016; Scheinberg and Savain 2015). Waste sector workers in developing countries are often women in precarious informal employment (Dias 2016; Dias and Samson 2016; Wittmer 2021). We focus on the case of one informant, Anne, to indicate the nature of dirty work and their connections to other aspects of life for those who live on the margins. Anne is a widow with three children who has had to take care of her children by hustling her way through life. Since her husband died, she has worked in various jobs – including domestic help, labourer on construction sites and finally as SWWP (Fig. 10.6). In the course of our interactions, we found out that her husband had worked at a military installation, and she was entitled to a lump sum pension upon her death.

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Fig. 10.6  Sachet water waste pickers at the recycling facility

Upon investigation, we concluded that her brother in-law who offered to help process the relevant papers for the money had taken the money for himself and told her that he was still chasing the money from the military. Anne is illiterate and did not have the means to challenge the brother-in-law’s claim. While she waited for this substantial sum, Anne perceived garbage picking as a relatively easy and morally acceptable job. She justified her continued presence in the business as a necessity since it was better than engaging in immoral activities like thievery or prostitution. She joked that at 48 years old she would not be an appealing harlot. As SWWP, she was the boss – an entrepreneur whose success depended on her efforts. That she needed to take care of her family from the related income meant she had to take the job very seriously and develop a thick skin to deal with the stigma and other challenges that came with the job. Anne’s testimonies reflect an amalgam of narratives depicting poverty and related obstacles for those who are excluded systematically from mainstream employment opportunities. She, like many other SWWPs, appreciate her work, noting that society does not owe her a living. She notes that while her work is not socially acceptable, it is one that provides for her needs and those of her children. When you are picking the plastic, some people when you touch them by accident, they act as if you are a dirty animal. Truly, they treat you like dirt and can insult you. They treat us as second-class human, as if you are infected with a contagious disease. I considered dropping the job…but I have now come to build a certain level of immunity to these abuses. I do not care about such people anymore. I see this as my job. Some have come to realise that we help them keep their surroundings clean. Others will yell at you and may even sweep up the plastic and put them in a dump bin.

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Under the circumstances of having no other choice, Anne accepts the hazards of her work including stigmatization, verbal abuse and outright violence. She observed that When my husband died… I had no other support and so I had to find an alternative. I realized that the pure water sachet collection would help me. I have been able to take care of my children… The way they treat us, even how they will look at you, it is like you are not human. Some people will verbally abuse you and ask: is this a job that a human should do? It is difficult because it causes you pain, but you know that is your livelihood. You take these abuses, ignore the people involved and move on. After all, you know what the job does for you: helping you take care of your children. It is a difficult job, but a bad job is far better than stealing… Many people collect it, but they do it at night to avoid being seen by others. It is dirty work, and you have to be desperate to do it.

Anne’s comment suggests the lack of basic respect for her and others at work. She notes being denied basic courtesies and being subjected to verbal abuse, without provocation. This is representative of what many SWWPs observed, that employment is scarce, but ‘work’ (beyond industrial labour production) is made everywhere. She has been collecting sachet water for more than 5 years at the time of her interview. In line with Ashforth and Kreiner’s (2014) classification of dirty work, plastic sachet picking would be tainted physically, thereby requiring a ‘necessity shield’ to protect it against stigmatization. Anne did not find this shield in her social circumstance and had to create it on her own. She did so by trying to cope with the ‘dirty work’ of picking up sachet water waste (cf. Soral et al. 2022), preserving her self-esteem and trying to convert hers into ‘decent work’. ‘Decent work’ connotes a view of work as a matter of individual choice, grounded in freedom, equity, security and human dignity (Burchell et al. 2014, p. 460; ILO 1999). The Decent Work Agenda calls for dignity and respect for workers within a moral economy that seeks balanced power relations and humane treatment for everyone, towards eradication of exploitation to meet the sustainable development agenda (ILO 2018a, b). However, conditions of poverty severely limit options for decent work (O’Neill 2011), especially in developing economies (Monteith and Giesbert 2017; Munck 2013) where institutional voids fund vulnerabilities generously (Moyo et al. 2019). In the context of the SWWP, informants recognize the dirty nature of their work, while they sought means by which to ‘clean’ the stigma associated with the job. As part of the coping mechanism, they redefine the job as supporting the health of the city. For instance, Denice complained about the stigmatization referenced in Anne’s comment while proudly standing for their jobs: If you have a sister who meets you in town and you are collecting your sachet pieces from the ground, she may stand and watch you and conclude that you must be so poor that you have resorted to a dirty job like this. They do not think well of us at all. But those of us who are doing that kind of work, we know it is a decent job… imagine if we were not picking up the garbage, the market and the city would be very dirty… one person told me that the city should give me an award for keeping the city clean.

Denice offered a similar observation when she said that many people are now beginning to verbally refer to them as ‘dirty’, especially in the advent of Covid-19. That the virus is transmitted by droplets, SWWP health is at risk for picking up garbage from the floor. People may have spat and stepped on the plastics. Picking them up

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increases the risk of contracting the disease. Esther supported this perspective, noting that ‘Some get very irritated and violent when your body touches them in any way. Normal courtesies are not extended’. Denice was, however, very confident that a time would come soon when people would ‘see value in the work we do. The places I clean, when I do not go there to collect the plastics, they notice my absence’.

10.5 Concluding Remarks: Achieving SDGs Through Circular Economy … they should remember that we are human beings…

This epigraph is an interview excerpt that captures the essence of the SDGs for human dignity, especially SDG 5 (gender equity), 1 (no poverty), 6 (clean water and sanitation), 8 (decent work) and 10 (reduced inequalities). The gendered nature of SWWP in Ghana was captured in the study only to the extent that the work is dominated by women. This recognition also notes the peculiarities of femininity that make the job what it is  – constructed as indecent in a patriarchal world. Indeed, garbage collection of any kind is considered ‘dirty work’ across the world (cf. Zulfiqar and Prasad 2022), but it is made dirtier when it is carried out by women. Informants talked about one male in the business that they all seemed to know. They felt he was treated differently by the people in the market. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders to respect the dignity of all and to build this respect into their dealings towards treating males and females equitably (SDG 5). Even if there are variances in the treatment of SWWP males and females, both are faced with risks that call for shrewd improvisation and adaptation to the conditions of adversity. For the SWWP, the job is an identity marker that dwells on contestation of authority to navigate the vagaries of a ‘spoiled identity’ (Goffman 1963) derived from their ‘dirty work’. The current derogatory gaze is informed by a combination of failed government policy, high unemployment and survival entrepreneurship, often associated with the poor. Informants sought to address this negative reputation by redefining the work as necessary community health work and a decent livelihood (Hamilton et al. 2019; Soral et al. 2022). Such redefinition is an attempt to minimize the derogatory gaze of society. Clearly, their own efforts are not enough to turn their ‘dirty work’ into ‘decent work’. The gaze persists and will require increased support for a transition to ‘decent work’. Through SWWP, workers may converge on the spontaneous creation of a group identity that deliberately confronts social norms and challenges discrimination against them. Informants indicated that they have long learned to ignore the stigma associated with the job through a narrative that emphasizes the social value of waste picking. Informant testimonies presented here suggest the contestations of dirty work/decent work that embody their lived experiences as SWWPs. They noted that they would take other jobs if they could find them to avoid the stigma that goes with waste picking. While they remained in that occupation, however, they would seek to redefine it to achieve societal approval, the hazards of the job notwithstanding.

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Like much of the developing world where unemployment is rife (ILO 2018a, b), Ghana’s SWWP presents the right to decent work as a compelling aspiration rather than a reality. The stigmatization of sachet plastic picking, epitomized in the epigraph to this section, is grounded in a broader macro socio-economics that does not support decent work. Our findings are incongruous with the prevailing conceptualization of dirty work and, specifically, the contention that those engaged in dirty work will have agency necessary to reconstruct their senses of self. In this context, established status hierarchies determine the nature of social relations and social organization to the extent that it effectively prohibited those doing dirty work from exciting their agentic energies towards decent work. This observation indicates the continued presence of ‘indecent labour’ resulting from an apparent disconnection between the norms espoused under the Decent Work Agenda (SDG 8) and the tangible implementation of its relevant interventions (Cooke et al. 2019). Thus, decent work as a development ideal requires more than the high-level engagement that it has been. Made decent, SWWP work may be connected to the circular economy in a manner that makes significant contribution towards achieving SDGs 1, 5, 6, 8 and 10. To this end, we recommend the following two policy actions: (1) civic education to improve perceptions about SWWP and garbage collection as a whole and (2) institutionalization of linkages among SWWP and other stakeholders (e.g. government agencies, private sector). In the same way that attitudes may be entrenched easily without conscious effort (Bonsu 2009), so too can they be reshaped. Structural processes in our everyday processes have reinforced the garbage work as ‘dirty’. Without any effort, the work has found itself with a derogatory gaze that is reinforced by the lack of coordinated activities to redefine it. As observed, individual agency is not enough to reverse the trend. We suggest a multistakeholder approach to addressing this challenge. The hope for a positive outcome of such action is grounded in part in the way that public civic education has been deployed for mass sensitization about elections and Covid. A similar aggressive approach to educate the general populace on the relevance of SWWP work to environmental sustainability can help bring decency to the work and support the provision of safe water and sanitation to the target groups. Effective environmental policy action in Ghana to support a circular economy requires active collaboration and policy coordination among all stakeholders. Ghana already has legal instruments to support this process, but there is little or no enforcement of these rules. To initiate action and institutionalize the relevant linkages for long-term benefits, the various state agencies should be encouraged to empower SWWP and provide non-pecuniary support such as the civic education already mentioned. As partners, the state can also bring together the larger private sector players to offer decent prices for the plastic that the informal sector collects. Perhaps an inter-ministerial organ to coordinate a coherent policy is necessary. The circular economy is here to stay, however, small it may be. It behoves us all to support its vibrant presence towards preserving the environment and providing decent jobs. That is not too much to ask, is it?

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Acknowledgements  The authors acknowledge FFU, Denmark, for providing financial support for this project.

References Ahl H, Murrow S (2019) Exploring the false promise of entrepreneurship through a postfeminist critique of the enterprise policy discourse in Sweden and the UK. Hum Relat 74(1):41–68 Alba R, Bruns A, Bartels LE, Kooy M (2019) Water brokers: exploring urban water governance through the practices of tanker water supply in Accra. Water 11(9):1919. https://doi. org/10.3390/w11091919 Ashforth BE, Kreiner GE (1999) “How can you do it?”: dirty work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity. Acad Manag Rev 24(3):413–434 Ashforth BE, Kreiner GE (2014) Dirty work and dirtier work: differences in countering physical, social, and moral stigma. Manag Organ Rev 10(1):81–108 Bickmeier RM, Lopina EC, Rogelberg SG (2014) Well-being and performance in the context of dirty work. In: van Veldhoven M, Peccei R (eds) Well-being and performance at work: the role of context. Psychology Press, London, pp 37–52 Bonsu SK (2009) Colonial images in global times: consumer interpretations of Africa and Africans in advertising. Consum Mark Cult 12(1):1–25 Burchell B, Sehnbruch K, Piasna A, Agloni N (2014) The quality of employment and decent work: definitions, methodologies, and ongoing debates. Camb J Econ 38:459–477 Cooke FL, Xub J, Bian H (2019) The prospect of decent work, decent industrial relations and decent social relations in China: towards a multi-level and multi-disciplinary approach. Int J Hum Resour Manag 30(1):122–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2018.1521461 Deutz P (2020) Circular economy international encyclopedia of human geography, 2nd edn, pp 193–201 Dias S (2016) Waste pickers and cities. Environ Urban 28(2):375–390 Dias S, Samson M (2016) Informal economy monitoring study sector report: waste pickers. WIEGO, Cambridge, MA. http://wiego.org/sites/wiego.org/files/publications/files/Dias-­ Samson-­IEMS-­Waste-­Picker-­Sector-­Report.pdf Douglas M (1966 [2002]) Purity and danger: an analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge, London Emerson RM, Fretz RI, Shaw LL (1995) Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Esposito M, Tse T, Soufani K (2018) Introducing a circular economy: new thinking with new managerial and policy implications. Calif Manag Rev 60(3):5–19 Fleming P (2017) The human capital hoax: work, debt and insecurity in the ear of uberization. Organ Stud 38(5):691–709 GARID [Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development] (2021) Informal waste sector workers collect more than half of the waste generated in accra -a research study. GARID (garid-­­ accra.com) Ghanaweb (2022) Sachet water producers worried over market infiltration. Business News of Wednesday, 13 July 2022. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/ Sachet-­water-­producers-­worried-­over-­market-­infiltration-­1581290 Giorgi A (1997) The theory, practice, and evaluation of the phenomenological method as a qualitative research procedure. J Phenomenol Psychol 28(Fall):235–260 Goffman E (1963) Stigma: notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Simon & Schuster, New York Goulding C (2002) Grounded theory: a practical guide for management, business and market researchers. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA

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Raviv S (2015) The cost of pure water. https://mosaicscience.com/story/ghana-­water/, April 13 Scheinberg A, Savain R (2015) Valuing informal integration: inclusive recycling in North Africa and the Middle East. GIZ and SWEEP-Net, Eschborn, 164 pages Simpson A, Slutskaya N, Hughes J, Simpson R (2014) The use of ethnography to explore meanings that refuse collectors attach to their work. Qual Res Org Manag Int J 9(3):183–200 Soral P, Pati SP, Singh SK, Cooke FL (2022) Coping with dirty work: a meta-synthesis from a resource perspective. Hum Resour Manag Rev. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2021.100861 Stacey CL (2005) Finding dignity in dirty work: the constraints and rewards of low-wage home care labour. Sociol Health Illn 27(6):831–854 Stoler J (2017a) From curiosity to commodity: a review of the evolution of sachet drinking water in West Africa: sachet drinking water in West Africa. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Water 4(3):e1206. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1206 Stoler J (2017b) From curiosity to commodity: a review of the evolution of sachet drinking water in West Africa. Wires 4:3. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1206 Stoler J, Weeks JR, Fink G (2012) Sachet drinking water in Ghana’s Accra-Tema metropolitan area: past, present, and future. J Water Sanitat Hyg Dev 2:223–240. https://doi.org/10.2166/ washdev.2012.104 Thiel D (2007) Class in construction: London building workers, dirty work and physical cultures. Br J Sociol 58(2):227–251 Ugorji C, van der Ven C (2021) Trade and the circular economy: a deep dive into plastics action in Ghana. Global Plastic Action Partnership, Accra Vallas SP, Cummins ER (2015) Personal branding and identity norms in the popular business press: Enterprise culture in an age of precarity. Organ Stud 36(3):293–319 Velenturf APM, Purnell P (2021) Principles for a sustainable circular economy. Sustain Product Consum 27(July):1437–1457 Vergara V, Jammi R (2022) Towards a circular economy: addressing the waste management threat (April 7). https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/blog/towards-­circular-­ economy-­addressing-­waste-­management-­threat WHO/UNICEF (2017) Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG baselines. WHO, Geneva. Accessed 15 Mar 2018. Available online:http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/launchversion-­report-­jmp-­water-­sanitation-­hygiene.pdf Wittmer J (2021) “We live and we do this work”: women waste pickers’ experiences of wellbeing in Ahmedabad, India. World Dev 140(105253):1–11 Zulfiqar G, Prasad A (2022) How is social inequality maintained in the global south? Critiquing the concept of dirty work. Hum Relat 75(11):2160–2186. https://doi. org/10.1177/00187267221097937

Chapter 11

Improving Gender Equality with Social Entrepreneurship and Circular Economy: A Mexican Case Nadiezdha Crespo-Rosas and Laura Franco-García

Abstract  The existing gender inequalities in personal development and economic opportunities are more evident by the day, hence bringing the attention of different entities (e.g., governments, international organisations, academics, entrepreneurs, civil society, etc.) to act. The United Nations has set clear targets to close the gender gap, referred as Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5). Considering this situation, innovative entrepreneurship forms, modern economic theories and the integration of gender views into product development can contribute to reducing the gender gap. Thus, this research aims to understand how social entrepreneurship (SE) can contribute to achieving gender equality (GE) whilst applying circular economy (CE) principles. Furthermore, it focuses on the enabling conditions for SE activities that apply CE principles during the product conceptualisation with effects on gender equality (GE). This research examined three relationships: (i) SE nexus GE, (ii) CE and GE connection and (iii) SE and CE nexus during the product conceptualisation stage. The research objective was approached through a literature review of academic and grey documentation, followed by revisiting a case study priory developed by the principal author in Mexico. The case study was assessed with a diagnostic tool (women and social enterprises) developed by Acumen, a non-profit impact investment fund. The analysis identified that leadership, value capture and proposition, and building relationships outside the internal business activities contribute to closing the gender gap whilst developing new circular-social businesses. Due to the limitations of this study, further research is recommended to verify their particular effects on reducing the gender gap.

N. Crespo-Rosas (*) Alumna of University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] L. Franco-García CSTM Governance and Technology for Sustainability, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_11

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Keywords  Social entrepreneurship · Social implications · Circular economy · Gender equality · Product conceptualisation · Mexico

11.1 Introduction It is widely recognised that women suffer more significant inequalities and discrimination in many aspects globally. For instance, in economic development, the International Labour Organization (2015) reported that women are more likely to be employed in low-paid jobs, mostly low skilled, with higher insecurity and risk of exploitation – even more critically in the informal sector – and limited social mobility. International bodies like the United Nations (UN) and other nongovernmental organisations have campaigned for gender equality (GE) for a long time to tackle these inequalities. By GE we mean equality across all genders in all aspects of life including education, health, nutrition, access to economic assets and resources, political opportunity and freedom from coercion and violence (Gender Development Network 2013, p.9). This study will refer to the case of women whilst acknowledging that equality is a human right to any gender. GE is of such importance that it has made one firm step to the top list of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), referred to as SDG5. According to the OECD (2011) and the World Bank (2011), as cited in International Labour Organization (2015) and discussed in Revenga and Shetty (2012), investing in female entrepreneurial projects means investing in crucial development aspects, e.g. education, health and nutrition, economy, policymaking and social changes, environmental protection and culture. Notably, economic growth influences GE directly through markets and formal institutions, which respond to household decision-making. Economic growth includes better childcare options, access to credit and productive resources, like land, and reduces institutional biases against women and control over household resources. As the need to achieve GE is growing, its promoters see in social entrepreneurship (SE) a way to achieve equality at different levels of society, with greater emphasis on community and local levels (UN Women 2020). We attribute SE to the innovative, social value-creating activity that can occur within or across the non-­ profit, business, or government sectors, as suggested by Austin et al. (2006), given the broader spectrum of its applications. The main goal of SE is to address and meet social challenges and needs, prioritising social impact rather than private profit maximisation whilst reaching the most vulnerable groups and contributing to inclusive and sustainable growth (OECD 2021, p.2). On the other hand, social entrepreneur enthusiasts, scholars, organisations and private and public entities have explored how a circular economy (CE) contributes to SE (Stratan 2017; Danciu et al. 2019; Smitskikh et al. 2020; Staicu 2021; Lekan et al. 2021). CE refers to the economic model that focuses on recovering and reusing products, components and materials for as long as possible within a system (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2015). Even further, the OECD (2020) pointed out in the 2020 Global Forum on

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Environment the vital need to analyse the social implications of CE beyond the environmental and business (entrepreneurial) aspects. In particular, the OECD indicated the lack of evidence presenting what is the women’s role in such transformations and, on the other way around, how those transformations influence GE. Similarly, Murray et al. (2015) highlighted the importance of including GE in the CE discussion; otherwise, it will be unclear how this economic ideology leads to social equality. The gap between GE in relation to CE (OECD 2020) and the purpose of SE to alleviate social issues whilst developing business opportunities (OECD 2021) inspired this research. In this line of thought, we started by exploring some of the relationships between SE, GE and CE. Recent research has identified and expanded the knowledge (i.e. frameworks, approaches, tools, methods, design strategies, etc.) about CE principles influencing new product development (Pinheiro et  al. 2018; Aguiar et al. 2021; Diaz et al. 2021). Those studies framed our focus on the (circular) product development by, at the same time, proposing the inclusion of SE and GE’s values during the product conceptualisation phase of the product development. For the purpose of this research, the product conceptualisation follows the definition provided by Patil et al. (2017), which consists of analysing the market research results and the decision to launch a profitable product. Moreover, the product conceptualisation phase allows an early representation of the product in question and represents a field where it might be possible to explore/integrate SE, GE and CE values. All those elements were considered in this research and are illustrated in Fig. 11.1; their nexus became the analytical framework of the storytelling bags case study. Given the discussed grounds, this book chapter aims to promote to SDG5 by analysing how SE contributes to achieving GE whilst applying CE principles. More precisely, this research focuses on the enabling conditions for SE activities that apply CE principles during the product conceptualisation with effects on GE. The research question is broken down in three sub-questions. The first considers the contribution of SE to GE. The second discusses how the CE has played a role in closing the gender gap. Finally, the last sub-question outlines how these two elements, SE and CE, can support each other at the product conceptualisation phase and possible effects on GE. It is our understanding that the relationships between these constructs have not jointly been addressed before. Thus, an existing opportunity appears to expand the knowledge of SE, GE and CE.

Fig. 11.1  Relationships between central concepts

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11.2 Methodology This study is a desk research work that combines a literature review followed by a qualitative case study. This later was an existing case of action research, which was revisited by using a new analysis framework. Moreover, the three sub-questions were answered through desk research. Existing literature sheds light upon the relationships between GE, SE and CE elements, as discussed by other researchers (Grant and Booth 2009). Additionally, the last sub-question, SE and CE support product conceptualisation and the effects on GE, was answered by revisiting the mentioned case study, which dates from 2014 in Mexico. The gathered qualitative data from the Mexican case was analysed through a diagnostic tool (see Table 11.1). Reviewing the case study through the diagnostic tool was necessary as its elements and set-up nurture the idea that there might be an additional relationship between the core elements of this research. The literature review process (see Fig. 11.2) focused on analysing academic and grey literature searched on the Scopus database, Google Scholar, and other web sources (e.g. online interviews, blogs, webinars, news, etc.). We explored 163 documents, from which 56 papers were thoroughly reviewed and assessed. The documentation search was done by using the Boolean operators (and/or) and the following keywords combined: social entrepreneurship, social enterprises, social impact, social entrepreneurs, gender equality, gender gap, women/female entrepreneurs, women in entrepreneurship, circular economy, circular principles, circularity principles, circular business models, circular entrepreneurship, product development (phases), new product development, product design and product conceptualisation. The period used for the literature review was 2011–2021, as the study of the SE, CE and GE seemed to gain significant knowledge development over this period. Further, only English-written studies were considered. To thoroughly examined a study, it needed to fulfil at least one of the two selection criteria. The first criterion is if the study proposes a relationship in at least two of the central three concepts (SE, CE and GE), either in the executive summary, abstract or conclusion. The second criterion is if the study discusses qualitative data from reports or field projects related to the core themes (SE, CE and GE). Figure 11.2 depicts the literature review process which is frequently used for social research (Padilla-Rivera et  al. 2020; Aguiar et  al. 2021; Diaz et  al. 2021). The analysis method was by indexing the documents by title, then coding and mapping the keywords, key findings and themes, which allowed for building relationships in the data. The qualitative case study was revisited using a diagnostic tool. The reviewed case study was initially conducted in 2014 in Mexico (Crespo-Rosas 2014). A new examination of such a study was made using a diagnostic tool developed by Acumen, ICRW, and Cartier Charitable Foundation (2015).1 The Mexican case study focuses on women (adults and elders) living in poverty conditions who created a support  Founded in 2001, Acumen is an American-based non-profit impact investment fund. They invest in social entrepreneurial projects worldwide and in different sectors. Their goal is to develop a global community of emerging leaders with the knowledge, skills and determination to create a more inclusive world (Acumen et al. 2015, p.3). 1

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Table 11.1  Tools considered for evaluating the case study Tools Sustainable Development Goals Compass (GRI, UN Global Compact, and WBCSD 2018) in combination with SDG Impact Assessment Tool (Gothenburg Centre for Sustainable Development and SDSN Northern Europe 2020) and Business Reporting on the SDGs (GRI and UN Global Compact 2017) OECD Toolkit for Mainstreaming and Implementing Gender Equality (2015)

GEM Framework: Gender Equality Mainstreaming for Business Growth and Impact (2018)

Circular Design Toolkit (Circulab 2021)

Tool’s objective Guidelines for enterprises in order to help them to align their business strategies and impacts to the SDGs

Dismissed reason The guidelines are useful in research and education, equally in development projects; however, it does not suffice the scope this research tries to achieve

It focuses on strengthening governance and accountability for gender equality as a means to improving the gender-­ responsiveness of public policy (OECD 2015, p.4) A practical manual and toolkit for assessing gender equality and identifying, implementing and measuring gender equality mainstreaming strategies within companies (MEDA 2018, p.2.) Support practitioners desiring to apply and implement projects or models based on a thorough system thinking and cooperation

Addresses to institutional entities (e.g. national statistics offices, councils, assemblies, political parties, civil society organisations, etc.) Intended for investors and technical assistance providers and focuses on up-and-running businesses

The toolkit lacks to address SE and GE, focuses on CE, product/ services impacts and business models

group through their entrepreneurial activities. The product developed, sustainable ecological bags, resulted from a co-creation process.2, 3 The storytelling bags, product name, was unique because every item has a piece of cultural heritage which the elders chose with the purpose of preserving local stories. Also, each item included handmade illustrations. The participants were 20 elder members (62% women and 38% men, average age was 75), eight adult women (average age 42), and seven university students. Each participant had a crucial role during the product conceptualisation and production phases. For instance, young women took leadership roles  The co-creation process is an instrument by the Product Co-Creation Centre (PC3), a project from the University of Twente since 2012. Its goal is to co-create innovative products and business models that aim to improve the economic conditions of individuals at the bottom of the pyramid through social entrepreneurial activities (Crespo-Rosas 2014). 3  Co-creation is an enactment of interactional creation across interactive system-environments (afforded by interactive platforms), entailing agencing engagements and structuring organizations (Ramaswamy and Ozcan 2018, p.200). 2

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Step 1: Identification n = 163

Definition of keywords and combinations Category 1 Social Entrepreneurship or social Enterprises or Social Entrepreneurs or Social Impact

Category 2 Gender Equality or Gender Gap or Women/Female Entrepreneurs or Women in Entrepreneurship

Category 3 Circular Economy or Circular Principles or Circularity Principles or Circular Business Models or Circular Entrepreneurship

Category 4 Product Development (phases) or New Product Development or Product Design or Product Conceptualisation

Documents excluded (n = 21)

Step 2: Screening n = 142

• Document type: Journal articles, conference papers, books, book chapters, reports, webinars, interviews and magazine articles • Year of publication: 2011-2021 • Language: English • Removal duplicates

Documents excluded (n = 53)

Step 3: Eligibility n = 89

Fulfil at least one of the two selection criteria: • Document describes or proposes a relationship in at least two out of the three central concepts (SE, CE, and GE): Category 1

and

Category 2

Category 1

and

Category 3

Category 2

and

Category 3

• Document discusses qualitative data from reports or field projects related to the core themes

Documents excluded (n = 6)

Step 4: Full reading n = 83 Documents excluded (n = 27)

Step 5: Documents for detailed analysis n = 56 Fig. 11.2  Literature review process

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after the product conceptualisation phase and early development to manage the project. The university students created the business model and acted as intermediaries to facilitate the resources needed for the co-creation process. The research work done by Crespo-Rosas (2014) came as a follow-up research with the intention to identify social factors (i.e. culture homogeneity, clear vision, proactive personality and gender inclusion) that complemented the economic factors first established in Lansink’s (2013) work. There are many guidelines, frameworks and toolkits that have been developed by institutions and academics which address GE. An existing tool guide was used to perform the assessment. Selecting the Acumen diagnostic tool was preferred over other assessment tools. Alternative assessment tools considered for revisiting the case study at hand focused on objectives and scopes that, to some extent, fail to include the nexus between the concepts discussed in this research. Table  11.1 addresses the objectives and reasons for dismissing other tools. The Acumen diagnostic tool helps identify areas to incorporate gender into business model innovations and activities. It allows a better understanding of the business and social impacts. Further, it provides a glimpse of where the CE principles can be more tangible. In other words, this tool offers the possibility to bring together SE, CE and GE concepts into product conceptualisation phase. Table 11.2 describes the five areas where social enterprises can integrate gender and its corresponding characteristics. For this research, only four categories from the tool were selected to analyse the storytelling bags case. We excluded the equitable systems and structures because the case study does not provide enough information to be assessed against this element. The complete description of the diagnostic tool will not be described here due to its extensive level of explanation. This study will limit to summarising the main components and outcome of the evaluation of the Mexican case against the tool. A comprehensive description of the diagnostic tool can be found on Acumen’s website under the Women and Social Enterprises report. Table 11.2  Diagnostic tool elements Element Product/service design

Production, manufacturing and processing Sales and after-sales service

Description Focuses on the extent to which a product/service considers the desires and engages women in the design process, as designers and consumers Brings the attention to incorporating women and men at all levels of the production process

Outlines the need to hire women as sales agents. Also, it focuses on creating access points and payment options for women and men to purchase the product/service Marketing strategies and Contributes to having a better understanding of customers’ needs and messages how a product/service creates value to them Equitable systems and Discusses the need to create an environment where female and male structuresa employees can develop themselves and help grow the company Adapted from Acumen et al. (2015) a Element excluded from the analysis of the storytelling bags case

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11.3 Findings This section attempts to answer each sub-question. The arguments are based on the literature review for sub-questions one and two. Answering the third sub-question was a combination of literature review and the evaluation of the Mexican case study with the Acumen’s diagnostic tool.

11.3.1 Social Entrepreneurship Contribution to Achieve Gender Equality To answer how social enterprises contribute to achieving GE, we reviewed available literature on SE. We looked at evidence suggesting an improvement of social and economic levels due to SE. Also, we explored the role of women in SE, the motivations that drive women to conduct social entrepreneurial activity. Further, we examined the elements that female social entrepreneurs need to succeed, the challenges and, finally, the critiques made to the perception of women in SE. These points seem relevant to have a broader understanding of the world of social enterprises from the perspective of female social entrepreneurs. Social enterprises have alleviated different societal and economic problems. The OECD and European Commission (2016b) provided evidence that social enterprises contribute to solving society’s problems, such as reducing poverty, job generation, sustainable development, reducing social exclusion and helping close the gender gap. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2020) report argues that entrepreneurship means building conditions to improve social development (including GE) and economic growth. Remarkably, creating the right set-up to promote SE amongst women is needed even when there exist indications that female social entrepreneurs have worked towards achieving GE through SE (Gender Development Network 2013; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2020, 2021; Nakamura and Horimoto 2020; UN Women 2020). To a large extent, it can be noted that GE has improved due to work carried out by female social entrepreneurs. Nicolás and Rubio (2016) found evidence that female social entrepreneurs actively persuade more equitable societies, thus closing the gender gap. Maguirre et al. (2016) shared similar conclusions. Their research noted that female social enterprises tend to induce more GE at their workplace. Different elements can cause this. For example, social enterprises provide job stability, encourage the participation of members in democratic structures and reduce cultural stereotypes about women. Furthermore, women have developed more social enterprises in education, social, legal and community services and environmental protection (Huysentruyt 2014). The development of those sectors has led to tackling social inequalities, promoting education, changing social and cultural stigmas about women, changing legislation and promoting employment (Kimbu and Ngoasong 2016). It is evident that women-led social enterprises have been the seed

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of cultural and institutional change in those sectors and require further embraced and embedded support. To understand the support needed by those female entrepreneurs, we closely analysed their characteristics and needs. In this line of thoughts, it was found that women who have developed social entrepreneurial ventures share similar characteristics, some of them were mentioned by Bansal et al. (2019, p.15), who stated that women in SE are characterised by a high degree of agreeableness, openness, emotional stability and conscientiousness. Also, women focus more on altruist or volunteering activities, seek to protect others and are eager to pursue social values (Hechavarria et al. 2012; Nicolás and Rubio 2016) compared to their counterparts. Other evidence has shown similar motivations amongst women who have decided to go into SE. For instance, women who belong to a social organisation are more inclined to collaborate or lead social enterprises (Urbano Pulido et  al. 2014). Furthermore, women have reported that life-­ changing events (Nakamura and Horimoto 2020) make them want to create a social change and overcome the job scarcity faced in their communities (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2020). Similar views are found in Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016), where women pointed out their desire to improve their communities, help their families, leave poverty and develop business skills to help them become financially independent. It can be said that women who create social ventures respond to provide solutions to societal problems. Nonetheless, the achievement of such a goal brings challenges. Every entrepreneurial activity faces difficulties and limiting factors that prevent enterprises from scaling up their ventures. Although SE is a process where entrepreneurs identify and exploit social opportunities and use management methods to overcome social, financial and market challenges (Urbano Pulido et al. 2014), entrepreneurs still confront barriers. The barriers are aggravated for female social entrepreneurs, as they have to deal with common entrepreneurial obstacles (e.g. access to finance opportunities to expand businesses), cope with traditional sociocultural perceptions about the role of women in business (Bansal et al. 2019) and discrimination (Kimbu and Ngoasong 2016). Most of the challenges can be summarised in three groups: scalability of products/services, making a profit and satisfying more than local needs (OECD and European Commission 2016a). Other parallel challenges described in Bansal et al. (2019) are the low-capacity social entrepreneurs have to either innovate within the available socio-economic resources or create a suitable demand. For some others, the challenge lies in the ability to keep competitive value propositions. In some cases, social enterprises encounter difficulties either at the product/service creation or development phases. This situation is possible as enterprises might lack the expertise, access to suitable technologies or resources to consolidate the desired products/services. Female social entrepreneurs experienced the factors described previously and even higher barriers. The International Labour Organization (2015), Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016), Bansal et  al. (2019) and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2021) listed a series of conflicts female social entrepreneurs face, for instance, lack of information, poor support to motivate women to combine household and business activities; in some cases, women reported high bureaucracy and complex legislation

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(Kimbu and Ngoasong 2016). Nakamura and Horimoto (2020) added that the current social perception of the third sector (composed of social enterprises and not-­ for-­profit organisations) also negatively affects the development of ventures and women who have developed careers in this sector. Despite the numerous challenges female social entrepreneurs are forced to contend with, some elements and conditions can enable SE.  Maguirre et  al. (2016) suggested the need for gender-focused policies and access to microcredits with low interests to encourage more social entrepreneurial activity and help to close the gender gap. Huysentruyt (2014) resembles those suggestions and urged policymakers to empower women through further research and development in SE. The OECD and European Commission (2016a) delineate three strategies to help social enterprises scale and prosper. The first, scalation through replication, refers to replicate the existing operational business model whilst allowing local ownership. Second, building strategic partnerships can bring valuable benefits to stakeholders. The benefits of creating alliances can improve reputation, access to infrastructure (when this is shared), access to resources or entry to new markets generating more value. At this point, it is essential to highlight intermediaries’ role in building partnerships that lead to shared knowledge, which is the last strategy. Hossain (2016) suggested that intermediaries help form connections between the different types and levels of SE. Intermediaries can play different roles as initiators of new projects, interaction with policymakers and other agencies, lobbying, the institutionalization of learning, provision of tools, raising resources and funding, setting standards, sharing information (Maier et al., 2014, as cited in Hossain 2016, p.14). The last strategy is important because it allows, generally, social enterprises to complement current processes and improve business practices or performance. Other advantages are coming out from strategies two and three. For instance, they facilitate networking with industry peers, increase the interaction resulting in potential business opportunities and make it possible to access information, resources or capital from third parties (Bullough et  al. 2021). The UN Global Compact and Rockefeller Foundation (2012) report underlines the significance of networks, not only for the benefit of entrepreneurs but also for investors. Private investors participating in entrepreneurial networks take advantage of product diversification and build resilience. Further, investors can help to shape social enterprises through their expertise. An important consideration for social enterprises to succeed in changing society is through public policies. In the particular case of female social entrepreneurs, Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016) emphasise the need to establish childcare centres to support women responsible for household and business activities and to create educational programs where women can learn and develop business skills, which relates to strategy three of OECD and European Commission (2016b) report. Up to this point, the need and benefits of government aid and other supporting tools have been discussed to create suitable conditions for social enterprises to thrive. Nonetheless, some scholars have argued that SE enthusiasts who focus on these aspects only issue temporary band-aids and bypass the real problems. According to Clark Muntean and Ozkazanc-Pan (2016), the current social entrepreneurial theory describes the benefits of microcredits or other forms of aid (e.g.

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government, international organisations and not-for-profit). Focusing on these forms of assistance only allows keeping the cycle of low income, low wage, low job status and low occupation expectations amongst women. Scholars have focused only on the effects of social enterprises in kinder and gentler (Clark Muntean and Ozkazanc-­Pan 2016, p.18) industries, thus neglecting the work conducted in more competitive industries. Fundamental issues have been left aside, such as the role of women in society, the current perception of women as real social entrepreneurs, not only as social heroes (a perception frequently given in developing nations), being aid seen as a solution to poverty or the actions taken to close the gender gap. Clark Muntean and Ozkazanc-Pan (2016) urged to change the perception about women from an early age, change gender biases through education, thus reducing structural and institutional barriers, and genuinely empowering women to control resources, not only giving them access. Failing to change individuals’ attitudes and views about women will limit the ability and self-belief that women can build large, successful, profitable and impactful social ventures.

11.3.2 Circular Economy Contribution to Achieve Gender Equality To understand the contributions of CE in GE, we examine and highlight the importance of addressing GE in CE. Similar to answering sub-question one, a literature review was conducted to answer sub-question two. Some circularity examples about advances in GE in developing countries through CE strategies are provided and briefly discussed. The interest in the social impacts of CE has grown reasonably in the last years, giving room for further exploration. Padilla-Rivera et  al. (2020) noticed that the concerns around the social implications of the CE became more apparent after the year 2015, when environmental regulation increased, and a few studies have had the opportunity to explore them fully. According to Pla-Julián and Guevara (2019), Geissdoerfer et al. (2020), Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020), Pitkänen et al. (2020), there is no significant evidence from circularity studies that have explicitly addressed the social impacts. These researchers argued that the circularity discourse has focused on the economic effects and technological advances. The only social aspect that circular studies have examined is job creation; thus, many social areas remain unanalysed. For instance, it is essential in addressing gender gaps, improving labour practices and working conditions, reducing poverty, increasing food security or changing people’s attitudes towards sharing/accessing rather than owning. The latter point leads to a continuous consumption and production cycle, which further uses new inputs exhausting existing resources and damaging ecological systems. The OECD (2020) issuing notes from the Mainstream Gender and Empowering Women for Environmental Sustainability forum suggested that a form to address CE’s social impacts is by targeting gender roles as the key to the transition to a

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CE. Currently, the linear economic model affects more to the poorest of the poorest, which in many cases are women, consequently extending the gender gap. Antikainen and Valkokari (2016) claimed that transitioning to circular business models4 will shift customers’ positions from buyers to users, in other words, from individuals who own to individuals who share items. Thus, circular models need to focus on service offerings rather than products. According to Pla-Julián and Guevara (2019), the effects of a transition to circular business models could contribute to achieving GE, generate gendered innovation, increase women’s participation and overall make advancements in achieving sustainable development goals. The OECD (2020) calls for further research on better understanding on how CE strategies integrate women, promote economic opportunities and support the transition to circular economies through a gender lens. Conversely, circularity enthusiasts endorse CE deployment and the contributions made to sustainable development and social improvements. For example, in an interview with Kimberley Chan, Global Lead of Circular Economy at DSM, the company representative pointed out the benefits of CE to women. According to the Women in Food and Agriculture (WFA 2019) interview with Chan, women possess specific characteristics, such as influential power within their households, protecting attitudes towards their family members, showing clear signs of responsible consumption behaviour and being more receptive to circular conducts. All of them seem to be suitable preconditions to enable circularity practices. Similar views are shared by ReSociety (2021), a German initiative that invites society to rethink our world for a more sustainable future. This group describes two social enterprises’ experiences, one in India and another in Sweden, about how circular business models have reduced poverty and changed people’s attitudes to GE. Female participants in both social enterprises have felt more empowered and improve their livelihoods. In another interview with Maja Lalic, a Serbian architect and expert in GE and climate change, she indicated that women could become essential elements to introduce circularity models because female entrepreneurs can balance profitability and social responsibility at an organizational and business level (UN Women 2019). The interviewee stresses the need to facilitate microcredits to female entrepreneurs to increase the number of female circularity spin-offs and scale them up to the next level. The advancements of GE through circularity cases in developing countries have been primarily on waste management from the collection, transport, treatment until disposal. The analysis of Padilla-Rivera et al. (2020) confirms that the social impacts of some CE are mainly found on waste management practices to reduce waste streams by infrastructure creation and strength. These findings resonate with the views of Chan’s interview (WFA 2019) and other cases exposed by the Circular Economy Network (2021).5 Also, the GA Circular and Ocean Conservancy (2019)  Circular business models refer to business models that involve cycling, extending, intensifying, and/or dematerialising resources and energy loops to reduce the resource inputs into and the waste and emission leakage out of an organisational system (Geissdoerfer et al. 2020, p.7). 5  Circular Economy Network website www.circulareconomynetwork.co 4

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and UNEP-IETC and GRID-Arendal (2019) reports about waste management have claimed GE advances due to circularity principles. In a webinar of the Circular Economy Network (2021), speakers from developing countries pointed out that introducing CE strategies have improved waste management businesses. Indirectly such methods introduced in recycling businesses in South African provinces, like in Western Cape and Gauteng, have helped close the gender gap. The application of CE theory is possible due to the cooperation with local governments and the private sector. They contribute with financial resources to create more jobs and build cooperatives. According to the webinar speakers, Nondumiso Sibiya, Loretta Waterboer and Mandlenkosi Nkosi, although men dominate the waste management sector, the increasing involvement of women in this sector has become more visible. There is still progress to be made in providing better training capacities to workers and changing the societal stigmas about women’s participation in waste collection.

11.3.3 Social Entrepreneurship, Circular Economy and Product Conceptualisation Answering the sub-question of how SE and CE are conducive to the product conceptualisation phase has proven challenging. There has not been sufficient evidence in the literature that discusses the topic, except for CE principles applied in (new) product development. Thus, exploring existing literature was combined with revisiting the storytelling bags case study. 11.3.3.1 Literature Review Findings In Henriksson et  al. (2019) study, the researchers claimed that CE research has focused on industrial cases. This statement triggers the explorative study to identify potential, influential effects of CE in SE. As mentioned before, researchers agreed that CE had ignored the social impacts. Hobson and Lynch (2016) went a step further and stress that addressing social impacts in CE means discussing consumption patterns and ways to change them. Similar views are shared in Pla-Julián and Guevara (2019), where the authors claimed that society’s current consumption behaviour leads to chaos and uncertainty in the production-consumption systems. On the other hand, Henriksson et al. (2019) warn that changing consumption patterns is complicated because desires and identity formation affect how individuals consume. In a more positive tone, Hao et  al. (2020) argued that it is possible to modify consumer behaviour and incline it towards significant participation in CE for sustainable development. Hence, influencing consumers’ behaviour seems to be critical for understanding how CE can be further deployed. In this line of thought, different factors can lead to certain decisions that help to shift individuals’ perceptions and contribute to CE (Hao et al. 2020). Those factors are the following:

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1. Subjective norm refers to the social pressure individuals feel leading them to behave in a specific manner. 2. Willingness to pay a premium price for environmentally friendly products/ services. 3. Perceived economic benefits. 4. An anticipated positive emotion from adopting a particular behaviour. These factors are enabled through public policy, for instance, by distributing the information and popularising the knowledge about CE’s positive effects, strengthening the public emotion to protect the environment and reducing the participatory barrier on CE. Further, Hao et al. (2020) noticed that these factors positively affect the transition to CE.  For instance, study participants support the government’s efforts to introduce and incentivise CE at various levels. Also, they show a higher willingness or actively searching for circular developed (or greener) products and preference to purchase them over traditionally manufactured ones. Being environmentally conscious is one of the links between CE and SE. According to Henriksson et al. (2019), CE and SE enrich each other at sustainable and economic development because social entrepreneurs can translate CE ideas into reality whilst enabling an impact. The question to follow will be which business elements social entrepreneurs need to consider to succeed in a circular business model. Next to changing consumer behaviour, it is also important to consider innovative business models to analyse the social impacts of CE (Henriksson et  al. 2019). Stratan (2017) suggested various business model elements that could integrate CE principles. First, to have a clear definition of a social and environmental vision, followed by a value proposition that brings new offerings to the market. Then, considering strategy alignment and acceleration of change through leadership involvement. Next, reflect on a possible form to be financially sustainable, which, as discussed in the first sub-question, is a current challenge for social entrepreneurs. Also, it is necessary to consider the stakeholders’ perspective (internal and external relations) and examine which internal processes could apply circularity principles and how to measure them. The final element is the resources necessary to trigger social impacts, such as networks, skills, information and technology. According to Stratan (2017), these elements are relevant to SE because the CE principles are applicable as long as there is an efficient use of resources, a motivation to achieve sustainability, innovative thinking to reduce environmental impacts and increase value to society. 11.3.3.2 Diagnosis Results of Storytelling Bags Case Study The arguments above have illustrated general components that can be applied in social enterprises considering using CE principles. Now it is appropriate to present the analysis outcome of the case study and describe, at least, one of the many relationships of SE and CE. The case discusses, to a large extent, a product conceptualisation phase. Therefore, it provides enough grounds to complement the answer to the current sub-question and integrate gender impacts on the research. Integrating

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SE and CE principles in the product conceptualisation phase is possibly more convenient than in other business development phases, as suggested from the work of Crespo-Rosas (2014). A similar argument is given in the Value for Women and Root Capital (2021) report, where authors accentuated the relevance to incorporate gender and social lenses in the early stages of a business, as in product conceptualisation, because it creates a better business performance in the long term. The overall outcome illustrates that the storytelling bags case presents subtle elements of CE that contribute to an SE project, such as using sustainable materials for the product’s design, production and manufacturing, like substitutes for plastic bags (i.e. cotton) and plant-based paint. The social impact of using these materials was to increase the awareness of the environmental implications of using other inputs. The participation in an ecological community project encouraged women to take leadership roles and men to perform non-traditional functions (e.g. sewing). Although the project could not report sales given its early development stages, the sales preparation phase to define where and how to sell led female participants to feel empowered and satisfied. Further, the marketing and advertising strategies were thought to capture the implications of the product purchase, for instance, employment opportunities, gender equality, environmental consciousness and cultural preservation. The product design category produced three outcomes, given the predetermined options of the diagnostic tool: 1. Meeting women’s needs and preferences is a priority during design and concept development processes. 2. The project participants actively sought female consumers’ input, making their desires evident in the final design. 3. The product could improve women’s lives by increasing their access to resources but likely not shifting broader gender norms. During the product conceptualisation phase, women reported being more empowered, having higher self-confidence, a sense of voice and more substantial decision-making power. There are some business implications from these responses: for example, market access; attract more female customers, thus increasing the possibilities of sales and customer satisfaction; influence consumer behaviour towards greener products; and develop innovative ways to access resources. Four social implications were retrieved from this category: 1. Increasing social cohesion by enabling an environment where individuals could share life experiences and preserve relevant cultural aspects. 2. Learn new skills (e.g. drawing and sewing). 3. Increase knowledge sharing and communication between participants. 4. Develop a sense of commitment towards a collaborative community project. Identically, three results were concluded from the production, manufacturing and processing category. Considering that the project was in the early stages, it was unlikely to employ women or men formally. However, both participated in positions throughout the production, manufacturing and processing. The participation was

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roughly equal numbers of women and men in lower-skilled jobs, but more women were in higher-skilled jobs (e.g. management). The project was set up in such a manner that female and male participants contribute in roles that challenge gender norms and stereotypes. The implication at a business level could be that involving women and men during the production, manufacturing and processing stages could contribute to a gender-equitable project with a ripple effect on other project-related areas. Also, engaging gender-diverse participation could increase the project productivity and quality as more varied ideas are integrated into the production process. Another business implication is the development of leaders and leadership styles such as charismatic, production processes focused and balanced. Possible social effects are increasing knowledge sharing and communication between participants and empowering women to assume non-traditional roles. From the sales and after-sales service and marketing strategies and messages categories, only one aspect of each classification was examined due to the early stage of the storytelling bags case. For the sales category, it was difficult to solidify a sales team; however, the women involved were keen on the sales tasks given their market knowledge. A possible business effect would be that the project could build solid customer loyalty by engaging female sales representatives and providing customer support that considers women customers’ preferences. Whilst a social effect would be to hire women as sales agents, they often experience empowerment through enhanced self-confidence and increase voice. These behaviours were expressed by the participants as mentioned above. For the marketing category, the product had the objective to be promoted and advertised in places where both women and men could have access. The business implication is that a tailored marketing approach and messages accessible and relevant for women and men can contribute to a broader customer base. The social implications are that the product’s sustainable components can help influence purchasing decision power, and marketing messages have the potential to challenge gender norms (Table 11.3).

11.4 Discussion This section discusses the three main topics of this research that contribute to answering the original research question, the enabling conditions for SE activities that apply CE principles during the product conceptualisation with effects on GE. It is important to note that this study is of conceptual and theoretical nature. Therefore, there is a need to conduct further empirical research to verify the relevance of the outputs of this analysis. Based on the previous arguments in Sect. 11.3, it can be noted that SE contributes to some extent to achieving GE. Social entrepreneurs, particularly women, perceive a solid need for societal changes; hence, it generates social enterprises with common social values and goals. The benefits are shared with all stakeholders connected with social enterprises, regardless of gender. The conditions to close the gender gap should come from modifying conventional sociocultural images about

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Table 11.3  Diagnosis results summary Assessment element Results Product design and conceptualisation Meeting women’s Incorporation of needs and preferences specific needs, during the design and desires and concept development preferences of women in product process design Include female Inclusion of input consumers’ input in from women final design consumers/users during design and creation The product has the Potential for potential to shift broad product to social norms related to fundamentally women. Examples: improve or transform the social Access to resources and well-being, status, and/or economic status of women in empowerment, self-confidence, sense society of voice and decision-­ making power

Production, manufacturing, processing Not possible to Representation of women and men in formally employ formal wage labour women or men due to the early stage of the positions in project. However, production, manufacturing and women and men participated in the processing production, manufacturing and processing tasks Participation in Engage both women and men in low-skill activities was somewhat equal lower- and higher-skilled jobs amongst women and men. Women took over higher-skilled jobs (e.g. management) The project was set up Employ/train women and men for in such a form that roles regardless of women and men whether the role is participated in roles that challenged gender considered traditionally female norms and stereotypes or traditionally male

Business implication

Social implication

Market access Given the incorporation of manufacturers’ feedback, it is expected (1) to engage female customers leading to increase sales and customer satisfaction and (2) influencing consumers’ purchasing behaviour towards environmentally friendly products Innovative ways to access resources (e.g. develop painting materials out of plants) (Crespo-Rosas 2014).

Increasing social cohesion enables a comfortable environment where individuals share life experiences (Crespo-Rosas 2014) Learn new skills (e.g. drawing), especially outside of traditional gender assigned (e.g. men learning to sew) (Crespo-Rosas 2014) Develop a sense of community project Increase in knowledge sharing and communication between participants (Crespo-Rosas 2014)

Engaging a gender-diverse participation could increase productivity and quality as more varied ideas are integrated into the production process Involving all participants at all production, manufacturing and processing levels contributes to a more gender-equitable project Development of leaders and leadership styles (e.g. charismatic, production processes focused and balanced) (Crespo-Rosas 2014)

Increase in knowledge sharing and communication between participants (Crespo-Rosas 2014) Empowering women to take non-­ traditional roles (e.g. leadership positions)

(continued)

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Table 11.3 (continued) Assessment element Results Sales and after-sales service Employ women in Note that the project was in its early stages; sales and/or thus, securing a sales after-sales service team was impossible. However, the women involved were keen on the sales tasks, given their market knowledge Marketing strategies and messages The product is Promotion and purposefully promoted advertising and advertised in placement and places where women methods and men have access

Business implication

Social implication

Engaging female sales agents and providing customer support that considers female customers’ preferences, thus forming a solid customer loyalty

Women engaged as sales agents often experience empowerment through enhanced self-confidence and increased voice

Tailoring marketing approaches and messages that are accessible and relevant for women and men can contribute to a broader customer base

The sustainable components of the product help to influence customer purchasing decision power Marketing messages are used to challenge gender norms

female entrepreneurs, developing gender-focused policies and facilitating access to financing options to start businesses. However, keeping in mind that enabling economic aid should be a means to an end. Moreover, entrepreneurial studies should be encouraged to gather data and elaborate on potential solutions contributing to further social entrepreneurial activity embedding gender equity. Concerning the reported connections between CE and GE, it seems that the contributions of CE to achieve gender equality have not been fully documented. This was largely the motivation of the scholars who present their work in this book, i.e. to show a growing interest in exploring the social impacts of circularity. Nonetheless, there exist some isolated cases which indicate that circularity approaches have influenced gender equality positively. There is a need to have a better understanding of the social consequences beyond the waste management sector, reasonably, in sectors where high-skilled jobs are more demanded, example information technology. Pitkänen et  al. (2020) urged researchers to conduct quantitative and comparative studies, exploring regional implications, as qualitative and isolated cases currently exist. Referring to the third sub-question, SE and CE in product conceptualisation are closely interconnected in various forms, such as environmental actions with social impacts integrated into the product/service design. Henriksson et  al. (2019) and WFA (2019) suggested that social entrepreneurs have taken different environmental problems and tackle them with CE principles. In a business environment, it is essential to raise awareness between SE and CE practitioners about those opportunities.

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Although SE and CE share common objectives, they can help close the gender gap through these activities. The research findings showed that early consideration and implementation of gender-related actions are predominant for setting solid bases for a social venture. They create a stable and positive cohesion reflected at productivity and organisational levels and ultimately produce social and economic changes. To answer the research question, it is then necessary to integrate female stakeholders (employees, managers, customers, etc.) from the conceptualisation phase of product development throughout sales, marketing and the continuous product/service cycle improvement stages. In other words, develop businesses with social and gender lenses whilst using methods such as CE helps to close the gender gap. Based on our analysis, to achieve such an objective, there is a need to integrate three elements: thoughtful leadership, accurate understanding of the value captured and offered and develop meaningful external relationships. Leaders can influence and shift the views significantly about gender, thus having the power to improve and help close the gender gap. Some questions to ask here are to what extent leadership is affecting gender equality positively or the characteristics a leader needs to manifest to work towards equality, such as being proactive or caring for societal needs. At a business level, leaders could move towards innovative business models that capture customer value through a product/service that goes beyond the customer needs and reflects social impact. Determining the value offered and captured is the entrance key to integrate circularity elements, methods and strategies (Cullen and De Angelis 2021; Mentink 2014) in any enterprise. Cullen and De Angelis (2021) argued that there is a need to research further on how small enterprises capture and create value in circular business models. Offering meaningful products/services means understanding consumer behaviour and learning to shape it so that customers find more attractive products/services with circularity principles developed by social entrepreneurs, as shown in the storytelling bags case. The social value (impact) should become an additional driver for entrepreneurs to embark on social/ circular enterprises. Adopting this posture of constant innovation and value capturing comes along with building up external relations. As mentioned throughout this chapter, collaboration with external agents to the core business opens the possibility to access different resources and benefit from them (e.g. business opportunities, networking platforms or knowledge exchange).

11.5 Conclusions The primary objective of this research was to understand some of the mechanisms and approaches to overcome the existing gender gap and respond to the current demand from international organisations to identify the social impacts of CE through targeting gender. Even further, we explored how social entrepreneurial activities contribute to achieving gender equality whilst applying CE principles. Consequently, this research examined three relationships, SE and GE, CE and GE and SE, GE, and product conceptualisation.

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Regarding the first relation, evidence has shown that SE has reduced social and economic problems; to some extent, it is the outcome of work conducted by female social entrepreneurs. Women are turning to SE as a course of action to solve societal problems such as gender inequality. Policymakers play a significant role to eradicate the challenges faced by female social entrepreneurs (e.g. discrimination towards women or balancing household and business activities). The CE and GE nexus needs to be further explored at an academic and business level as there is limited evidence of the effects of CE over GE. At the time of this research, only isolated cases, mostly around waste management, have substantially reduced the gender gap using circularity principles (Circular Economy Network 2021; GA Circular and Ocean Conservancy 2019; UNEP-IETC and GRID-Arendal 2019). The last relation highlights that circularity principles can influence consumer behaviour, thus indirectly leading to social actions. Also, that innovative business models can be developed by social entrepreneurs who integrate the pillars of circularity into businesses. Three conditions need to be considered from the elements studied: leadership, value capture and proposition, and building external relationships. These indicators here discussed undoubtedly need to be further explored, tested and validated. Nonetheless, they give reason to elaborate theoretical and empirical frameworks that contribute to closing the gender gap under the views of CE and SE.

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Chapter 12

Strategies for Social Inclusion in Circular Economy Roberta Souza-Piao, Ticiana Braga de Vincenzi, and Marly Monteiro de Carvalho

Abstract  In this chapter, the aim is to answer how circular practices could embrace social inclusion and address the SDGs. A framework is proposed for analysing the priority stakeholders included in circular economy practices, their engagement based on circular justice literature and upgrading reached by them. Upgrading is understood as improvements or incremental innovation in terms of product and process, which is called economic upgrading, and also, environmental and social upgrading. Empirically, two case studies are proposed to elucidate the concepts. The first case is a waste management company specialized in electronic and electrical equipment. The second is nongovernmental organization from the fashion sector. The outcomes demonstrate that workers are the main stakeholders affected by circular practices with social inclusion. In both cases, there are indications of economic and social upgrading of workers. In terms of circular justice, the main result is the engagement of organization in recognition of rights. There is no evidence of distributional justice in both cases. Finally, the main SDGs addressed are no poverty (SDG 1), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) and reduced inequalities (SDG 10). Keywords  Circular justice · Circular practices · Sustainable development goals · Sustainable development · Gender · Collaboration

12.1 Introduction Circular economy has its roots in some schools of thought as industrial ecology and industrial symbiosis (Friant et al. 2020; de Abreu and Ceglia 2018; Saavedra et al. 2018). Both approaches highlight the importance of seeing waste as a resource as an R. Souza-Piao (*) · T. B. de Vincenzi · M. M. de Carvalho Production Engineering Department, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_12

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input to another production and also take a systemic perspective for designing production processes (Ellen MacArthur Foundation – EMF 2014). In this sense, circular economy is based on the concepts of restoration (make something well again) and to regenerative (make it better) systems of production and consumption (Morseletto 2020; EMF 2014). For UNEP (2016), the aim is to design out waste, return nutrients and recycle durables, using renewable energy to power the economy. In this sense, the literature highlights that circular economy could be a key player to transition to a sustainable system. However, it is still under consideration the social challenges for this transformation. As stated by Friant et al. (2020), the approach is poorly addressing the challenges related to production and consumption based on convenience and ownership. For promoting the implementation of circular practices and embrace, social inclusion is essential to consider the local challenges and the relations among agents (Schröder et al. 2020; Sodhi 2015; Gimenez and Tachizawa 2012). According to the Report on the World Social Situation from the United Nations, social inclusion is understood ‘as the process of improving the terms of participation in society for people who are disadvantaged on the basis of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, and economic and migration status’ (UN DESA 2016, p. 1). Previous studies highlight the social side of circular economy proposing frameworks (Schröder et  al. 2020; Kirchherr 2021) and distinct strategies of social inclusion (Padilla-­Rivera et al. 2020; Tang 2018; Diener and Tillman 2016). The former proposes a framework that combines circular economy and human development and pointed out some social dimensions unexplored in circular economy literature as poverty reduction, health, gender, education and working conditions, social inequality and CE cooperation in developing countries (Schröder et  al. 2020). PadillaRivera et al. (2020) conducted a literature review where social dimension is classified according to thematic areas proposed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). They are labour practices and decent work, human rights, society and product responsibility. There is also the analysis proposed by Kirchherr (2021), who argues that social impacts of circular economy need to be addressed as circular justice, which refers to agents involved in transition from linear to circular system, considering how fair is this process for distinct stakeholders (Kirchherr 2021). There is also a literature about upgrading for analysing the effects on stakeholders. Upgrading is understood as improvements or incremental innovation in terms of product and process, which is called economic upgrading (Gereffi 1999; Humphrey and Schmitz 2002), and also functional, environmental and social upgrading (Barrientos et al. 2011; Posthuma and Rossi 2017; Piao et al. 2019). About circular economy and sustainable development goals, previous studies indicated that transition to circular production leads to SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities), SDG 12 (sustainable production/consumption), SDG 13 (climate change) and SDG 15 (life on land). However, SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities) are considered gaps, and all of them are closely related to the human side of this transition to more sustainable development (Schroeder et al. 2019; Schröder 2020).

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Taking this discussion in consideration, in this chapter, we propose to answer how could circular practices embrace social inclusion and address the SDGs? The empirical part is composed of Brazilian case studies. The first case is a waste management company specialized in electronic and electrical equipment. The second is nongovernmental organization specialized in fashion recycling. There are indications that electronics and fashion industries adopt circular strategies with greater added value, such as design, remanufacturing and upcycling (Mishra et al. 2020; Bressanelli et al. 2021; Clube and Tennant 2022). Furthermore, they indicate the adoption of circularity strategies that lead to social inclusion. In the case of textiles, participation of sewing cooperatives in product remanufacturing and retailoring. For electronics, hiring young people from less favourable regions who are trained to carry out the correct disassembly and remanufacturing of post consume electronic devices (Mishra et al. 2020; Bressanelli et al. 2021). The analyses of the cases indicate that the main SDGs addressed are SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities). The chapter is structured in four sections. After the introduction, a literature review about circular economy and social inclusion is presented. The concept of upgrading is also detailed. The concept of upgrading is also detailed, followed by the section presenting the methods. Then, the results, discussion and conclusions are presented.

12.2 Literature Review Previous literature about circular economy highlights that there is a scarcity of studies about CE under the perspective of social inclusion (Homrich et al. 2018; Murray et al. 2017; Sauvé et al. 2016). Geissdoerfer et al. (2017) pointed out the need of better integrating social aspects in CE concepts, and social changes have to be at the core of CE transitions. In this sense, Kirchherr et al. (2017) argue that CE aims to contribute to sustainable development. However, comparing sustainable development and circular economy, only 38% of the literature about circular system addressed sustainable development or sustainability. And most studies are focused on end-of-pipe strategies for getting economic and environmental benefits (Velenturf and Purnell 2021). According to Preston et al. (2019), circular economy activities incorporate different activities that can be classified as creating loops, slowing loops and narrowing flows. Creating loops refer to circular strategies focused on extending the product life as adding loops as repair, reuse, remanufacture and recycle. Slowing loops are focused on extending the product life changing the design and the manufacturing of products. This could be beneficial for decreasing the demand for new products. Narrowing flows refers to change to more efficient ways to use the product, as adopting models of sharing product and product-as-a-service. It also considers the loops; the butterfly framework proposed by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation

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details the main circular practices considered the value chain from extraction to inputs to dispose. They are maintain/repair, reuse/redistribute, r­emanufacturing/ refurbish and recycle/recover which implies to extract raw material from end product and to use again. The inner cycles, from the butterfly framework, are able to aggregate more value. Circular practices as reuse and remanufacturing are able to aggregate more value than recycling (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017). Schröder (2020) classifies the SDGs from the perspective of gaps and requirements to transition to circular systems. In terms of gaps, the main ones are SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities). The SDG requirements are quality education (SDG 4), peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG 16) and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17). Under this view, the author highlighted the ‘lack of alternative employment opportunities for low skilled workers’ (Schröder 2020, p. 11). Moreover, the bibliometric analysis about sustainable development goals conducted by Belmonte-Ureña et al. (2021) also highlighted that SDGs 1 and 5 are among the ones with low relevance in terms of research contributions. Pla-Julián and Guevara (2019) and Skawińska and Zalewski (2018) argue about circular economy as a model to promote value creation and also sustainable development. For Pla-Julián and Guevara (2019), circular frameworks need to strengthen social dimension. The authors highlighted the social dimension considering production and consumption sides, considering workers and households’ roles in the transition to sustainable development. The transition to circular economy would increase job opportunities in some sectors as product repair, materials reprocessing, recycling, new product service system and digitalization. However, some jobs should be eliminated as ones related to extractive industries and sectors highly automated as textiles (Schröder 2020). Regarding partnerships, previous studies pointed out the importance of collaboration for addressing sustainable goals (Niesten et al. 2017; Husted and de Sousa-­ Filho 2017; Schneider et al. 2017; Vock et al. 2013; Gauthier and Gilomen 2016). However, the design of this organizational form is still not clear since there are different alternatives for conducting collaboration. According to Vazquez-Brust et al. (2020), there are some elements to consider for analysing collaboration. These are hierarchy, level of formalization and centralization. The SDG addressed and the features of partners are also important. For Schröder (2020) and Williams and Doyon (2019), there are three types of justice to be considered in the transition to a circular system. They are distributive justice, which refers to costs and benefits of transition, regarding resources as waste, products, materials and jobs gained and lost. Secondly, there is the procedural justice, which is related to inclusion and exclusion of stakeholders, their capabilities and participation in the decision-making process. The third one is recognition of rights, that refers to range of rights, participatory processes and institutions to guarantee these rights. Apart from that, Kirchherr (2021) introduces the concept of circular justice. For the author, there are three types of justice. The first one is recognitional justice, which refers to ‘recognize the full breadth of communities impacted by a circular

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economy’ (p. 2); procedural justice, which is related to ‘fairly incorporate in particular marginalized communities into relevant decision-making processes’ (p. 2); and finally, distributional justice, which refers to ‘equitably distribute the benefits and costs of a circular economy’ (p. 2). According to Schröder (2020), the transition from linear to circular production system has to encompass some priority stakeholders. As examples, the author mentioned the engagement of communities in the extraction phase of value chain in order to transfer skills and promote a dialogue and new employment opportunities to higher-value economic activities. In the design and manufacturing phase, the focus is on the development of workers’ skills in the labour-intensive sector. In the final phase of the product, it could be adopted actions to improve working conditions as occupational health and safety. As an example, it is worth mentioning collectors and waste pickers working in waste management. Finally, regarding consumers, the main actions would be to (a) ensure access to basic services for low-income groups and (b) promote actions to change the mindset about reuse, repair and sharing of assets. As argued before, for analysing the effects on key stakeholders, we propose the literature of upgrading from global value chain approach (Humphrey and Schmitz 2002; Gereffi 1999). Upgrading refers to improvements/incremental innovation conducted by producers that supply markets located in developed countries. The main types of upgrading are product, process and functional. They are known as economic upgrading (Gereffi and Fernandez-Stark 2016). There are also environmental (De Marchi and Di Maria 2019) and social upgrading (Barrientos et al. 2011). Economic upgrading refers to improvements in product specifications as packing and inputs and also related to gains obtained from them (Humphrey and Schmitz 2002). Process upgrading is about how to make the product and improvements related to the process, as productivity gains (Dammert and Mohan 2015; Piao et al. 2019). Functional upgrading refers mainly to new skills that agents can learn from the other functions along the chain, as market accesses a new market upstream and downstream on the chain. Social upgrading is most related to work conditions and gains. The main indicators are working hours, increase in salary, freedom of association, safety and health of workers (Barrientos et  al. 2011; Rossi 2013; Posthuma and Rossi 2017). Environmental upgrading is related to a production system which leads to mitigate or avoid environmental damage (De Marchi et al. 2013). As indicators, the literature highlights protection of natural environment, water management and energy management (Della Santa Navarrete et al. 2020; Achabou et al. 2017). Based on the literature review presented, Table 12.1 detailed the main dimensions and references of concepts presented. For answering our research question, we proposed a framework relating the priority stakeholders to engagement and upgrading in circular practices along the value chain. Considering the stakeholders, we identified their engagement in circular practices using the concepts of recognition of rights, procedural and distributional

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Table 12.1  Conceptual background Upgrading Economic

Dimensions and details Product (price, revenue)

References Humphrey and Schmitz (2002) Process (productivity, quality) Dammert and Mohan (2015), Piao et al. (2019) Functional (market access, financing, loan) Dammert and Mohan (2015), Piao et al. (2019) Social Labour rights; workers safety Barrientos et al. (2011), Rossi (2013), Posthuma and Rossi (2017) Environmental Protection of natural environment, water and energy Della Santa management Navarrete et al. (2020), Achabou et al. (2017) Circular justice and Circular justice: (a) recognitional justice (refers to Kirchherr justice in the ‘recognize the full breadth of communities impacted (2021); transition from linear by a circular economy’, p. 2), (b) procedural justice Schröder to circular (is related to ‘fairly incorporate in particular (2020); marginalized communities into relevant decision-­ Williams and making processes’, p. 2), (c) distributional justice Doyon (2019) (refers to ‘equitably distribute the benefits and costs of a circular economy’, p. 2) Three types of justice: (a) distributive justice (refers to costs and benefits of transition, regarding resources as waste, products, materials and jobs gained and lost), (b) procedural justice (related to inclusion and exclusion of stakeholders, their capabilities and participation in the decision-making process), (c) recognition of rights (refers to range of rights, participatory processes, and institutions for guarantee these rights) Examples of priorities Engaging communities in the extraction of inputs Schröder and stakeholders need stage of chains (2020) to transition from Developing skills of workers in the design and linear to circular in manufacturing stage of chains distinct stages of value Improving working conditions in the end-of-first-­ chains life stage of chains Understanding and prioritizing consumer needs on distribution and use stage of chains

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justice. Finally, there are indications about the upgrading reached by these stakeholders as economic, environmental and social.

12.3 Research Methods A qualitative exploratory study was conducted using literature review supported by secondary data and interviews to generate case studies (Prendeville and Bocken 2017) on the strategies for social inclusion in circular economy along the value chain. The literature review aimed to provide an overview of the scientific development of social inclusion and circular economy from the perspective of upgrading literature, focusing on previously published studies (Bertassini et al. 2021). We also collected secondary data about organizations that are detailed in Table 12.2. The interviews were conducted in June–July 2019 as part of a study in innovation for circular economy practices in Brazil, with a focus on stakeholder relationships on organizations that share a commitment to sustainability. All interviewees were briefed on the academic nature of the research and assured confidentiality and anonymity, with the use of pseudonyms. Interviews lasted between 60 and 120 min and were transcribed verbatim in Portuguese. The transcription of the first case has 27 pages, and the second case has 29 pages. Table 12.3 details the interviews. To preserve the confidentiality of the organizations, the electronic waste management firm will be designated here as Comp_A, and the nongovernmental organization (NGO) as Inst_B. Based on the conceptual framework (Fig. 12.1), we conducted a coding process using NVivo 12 software. At least two authors analysed each interview. The codes are detailed in Table 12.4. Table 12.2  Secondary data sources Reports: Chatham House/ Royal Institute of International Affairs, Ellen Macarthur Foundation Reports about Circular Economy) Information about the cases: newspapers, business magazines, organizations websites Source: Elaborated by authors Table 12.3  Organizations interviewed in 2019 Organizations Interviewees Comp_A Owner/CEO Socioenvironmental supervisor (I1) Inst_B General manager (I2) Source: Elaborated by authors

Characteristics of the organizations Waste management company, specialized in electronic and electrical equipment, 23 employees NGO – Sustainable fashion, 18 employees

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Fig. 12.1  Conceptual framework. (Source: Elaborated by authors based on Schröder 2020) Table 12.4  Concepts and codes Dimensions Circular practices Design Repair Reuse Remanufacturing Recycle Priority stakeholders Workers Communities Consumers Engagement Recognition of rights Procedural justice Distributional justice Upgrading Economic Environmental Social

Code Des_ Rep_ Reu_ Rem_ Recy_ Work_ Comm_ Cons_ Rec_rights Proc_just Distr_just Eco_ Env_ Soc_

12.4 Results 12.4.1 First Case: Comp_A Comp_A was created in 2012 aiming to recycle and give the right destination to electronic waste. In addition to recycling, the company remanufactures and works on repairing and the commercialization of remanufactured products in market niches with lower price. In remanufacturing, the company selects components of the final product that can be used in the production of new ones.

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The company was created from the experience gained through a laboratory located at the Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo. In this lab, the founder had the opportunity to learn from the experience in Europe and the USA about electronic recycling. The company also has a partnership with a nongovernmental organization to create a link between discard and donation of electronics for promoting digital inclusion and less environmental impact. According to I1, the most difficult component to recovery from the computer is plastic because plastic is usually blended with tags and metal screws. For the interviewee, this is a design problem. About 70% of materials collected by Comp_A become raw material. For example, most of the plastics become strings used by 3D printers. In this process, a plastic which price is 0.50 reais per kilo become 80.00 reais per kilo as string. The other 30% is analysed by Comp_A for remanufacturing, or components are sold individually. If the product is remanufactured it is sold to ONGs, BCorps, and in the own store of Comp_A. Comp_A collected electronic equipment all over Brazil. Most of this collection is conducted by a Coca-Cola distributor. The Coca-Cola distributors make the deliveries all over Brazil, and usually trucks return empty. So, Coca-Cola distributor was hired by Comp_A to return with electronic waste. The Comp_A hires a logistics company to transport e-waste only in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro cities. According to I1, the cost of e-waste transport is the highest, even higher than the workforce. In 2020, the Comp_A production capacity was 100 ton per month. But according to I1, this capacity could increase. The main constraint is related to discard volume. In the words of I1, there is very high supply disruption. Large customers discard twice a year, or once a year. For managing seasonality, Comp_A keeps a storage of inputs. According to I1, the Comp_A produce 1 thousand equipment per month, 12 thousand per year. However, the production capacity could reach from 20 to 30 thousand per year. About 40% of Comp_A clients are B2C, 20% B2B, and 40% B2G. For increasing the government share and consumer shares, Comp_A supports the creation of Brazilian Association of Recycling and Innovation (ABRIN in Portuguese). The ABRIN works with the government and consumers supporting the actions for promoting the right destination of e-waste. One example is to support federal technical schools to train students to disassemble electronics correctly in order to get all components in a good condition. The association also supports waste pickers’ cooperatives for collecting e-waste and getting them in better conditions for disassembling. In the words of I1, On an old TV it is possible to get from twelve to fifteen reais of material. Collector cooperatives earned three, four, five reais for TV, high values compared to other materials they work with. In this process, the consumer discarded it right and one hundred and twenty-six thousand students learned about electronic waste. The Comp X understands that B2C is a model that works, and that this action is proofing. According to I1, this kind of initiative is a good practice that it could be disseminated through the ecosystem. In the words of I1, there are waste pickers who know they cannot open electronic waste, and they are no longer selling to intermediates. They are already starting to sell to the Comp X, which collects and generates more revenue for them. Most of the competitors of Comp X are informal intermediaries who do not address all legal and labour legislation.

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Comp_A is a BCorp-certified company. According to I1, most of the clients are BCorp companies and ONGs. Comp_A also develops philanthropic actions. Comp_A supports the training of students in getting technical degree. This work is developed in partnership with the Poli/USP lab. In addition, there is a project conducted with the support ‘Centre for the visually impaired’ (CADEVI) for training and promoting inclusion in the workforce of visually impaired people. About 300 people are trained per year. In addition, Comp_A also supports a program Voluntários do Sertão that conduct medical consultancies, about 46,000 per year, where 300 volunteer physicians are involved. In 2019, 1200 eye cataract surgeries were conducted with notebooks and machines supplied by Comp_A. According to the Sustainability Report published by Comp_A in 2020, the company recycled about 1300 tons of electronic equipment since 2013. This material originated 1.2 tons of inputs destined for final manufacturing, and 23,000 equipment were refurbished. The process conducted by Comp_A avoided the emission of more than 2000 tons of carbon, which is similar to planting 175,000 trees. It also avoids the emission of 15,000 tons of toxic metal in the environment. Comp_A supported more than 80 social projects focused on digital inclusion, with more than 1600 refurbished equipment destined for these social projects.

12.4.2 CaseInst_B Inst_B is an institute from the third sector which has worked since 2005 on transition to sustainability of production and consumption in the fashion market. According to I2, the main objective is to contribute to a more ethical fashion market, use of resources and processes that causes less environmental impact and social inclusion. From the social perspective, Inst_B supports production groups in vulnerable situation, as sewing cooperatives and groups that work with handcrafts such as crocheting, knitting and embroidery. The work of Inst_B in these groups is conducted in two ways. In the first alternative, Inst_B conducts a technical consultancy for identifying the technical level of workers. These are four groups already in the market. As stated by I2, ‘the main objective is to identify the points for improvement, as process, and also provide financial technical assistance. This process lasts from 4 to 6  months, and it is supported by a large company that hires Inst_B’. Secondly, Inst_B is hired by large and small companies that detain important fashion brands and design for developing a product including the sewing cooperatives already known by Inst_B. Inst_B, in the process of creation a new product, has to plan the type of fabric, parts of the process that could include the distinct groups as part of Inst_B network. At the same time, as stated by I2, ‘Inst_B is constantly working to capture demands from the fashion market’.

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These groups in vulnerable situation have two profiles. One was composed mainly of women from the vulnerable regions of São Paulo City. The other profile is mental healthcare groups. These groups are part of a municipality program aiming to train and include the group in the society. These groups are organized as ‘Oficinas de Trabalho’ (workshops). One of the main challenges of these groups is to access the market, as trade and negotiation activities. Then, Inst_B supports these groups in the market access and also in transferring skills and conducting training about craft techniques demanded in some processes. Some of these groups follow the economic model called solidarity economy.1 Not all groups are formal. Inst_B works as an intermediary between groups and large companies/brands. The large retailer hires Inst_B for developing a new product or refurbishing an old collection. So, Inst_B is responsible for providing a new design and for identifying in its networks the groups with skill to develop the activity. Inst_B received the payment, and it is responsible for distributing the payments to the groups who work in the process. In this relationship with large retailers and brands, Inst_B transfers knowledge about the conditions of these groups (as suppliers) related to the process and their diversification. As stated by I2 …Maybe I work a lot more with brand education. Not even if it’s non-strategic, but like I have to explain how things work, because we can’t lower the price. There are also obstacles related to time delivery. Most of the companies adopted mass production system, and they are not prepared to face the constraints of an artisanal process as provided by groups from Inst_B. According to Activities Report 2020, the Institute works with 13 groups in total. The total revenue generated for the groups in 2020 was 276.870,17 reais, which represents an increase of 275% compared to that in 2019. In particular, Inst_B promoted a campaign for producing face masks during Covid-19 pandemic for donating to the groups and also for outer communities in São Paulo city. About 23 communities attended, and 16,063 face masks were donated. Part of face masks were sold and it benefited 56 seamstresses, generating a direct revenue of 150,292.73 Brazilian reais. According to the 2020 Report, the main SDGs addressed by the institution are SDGs 8, 10, and 12.

 Solidarity economy is based on self-management with more egalitarian working relationships, a way of creating job opportunities for poor people. There are small production groups with no employers and employees. Everyone works together, the decisions are taken jointly and members share the profits equally. This model of production also shrinks environmental footprint, promotes responsible consumption, taking into account the whole supply chain under fair trade basis (Nóbrega 2013). According to International Labour Organization (ILO), Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) is a concept designating enterprises and organizations, in particular cooperatives, mutual benefit societies, associations, foundations and social enterprises, which have the specific feature of producing goods, services and knowledge while pursuing both economic and social aims and fostering solidarity. 1

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12.5 Discussion This section is organized based on the concepts and codes detailed in Table 12.4. First, we present the discussion for each case, followed by a comparison between the results obtained in both.

12.5.1 Case Comp_A Comp_A conducted CE practices as rep_, rem_ and recy_ electronics equipment’s considering social inclusion. As posted by Preston et al. (2019), Comp_A works by extending the use cycle of electronic equipment and creating loops through additional life cycles. Considering social inclusion perspective, the priority stakeholder is workers, providing training main strategies are donations and training. According to Schröder (2020), the transition to circular system implies creating alternative employment opportunities for low-skilled workers, mainly located in developing countries. In this sense, Comp_A, as stated by Schröder (2020), is promoting the development of workers’ capabilities engaged in the rep_ and rem_ of electronics equipment and supporting different institutions in training students for working with electronics. According to Velenturf and Purnell (2021), most of the circular practices are focused on end-of-pipe stages of value chain. Differently, Comp_A has strategies also focused on rem_ stage, which allows more value capture. In the recy_ practice, Comp_A also supports waste pickers’ cooperatives in the collection and disassembling of e-waste. The training of waste pickers could allow cooperative to capture more value in their activities. Besides, as stated by Schröder (2020) and Wang et al. (2018), the training improves the workers’ safety and occupational health and promotes digital inclusion. It also addresses one of the main challenges regarding transition to circular economy, that is, creating alternative employment opportunities for low-skilled workers. So, as stated by Schröder (2020), social inclusion could be promoted in different stages of the value chain. In these terms, the circular practices of Comp_A address SDGs 1, 2, 8, 12 and 10. SDGs 1 and 2 are considered the main gaps in terms of transition to circular systems as stated by Schröder (2020). Taking the concept of circular justice, according to Kirchherr (2021) and Schröder (2020), it is possible to identify the engagement promoted by Comp_A with their stakeholders as workers and communities in rem_ and recy_ stages. Considering rec_rights, there are evidences of recognizing the communities impacted by a circular economy and promoted the training to the younger population from these communities. However, there are no evidences to support proc_ and dist_ justices. In terms of upgrading, the effects identified in the case are eco_, in particular, the increase of revenue for cooperative of waste pickers and vulnerable groups who are trained in technical assistance. The process of waste pickers’ cooperatives refers to e-waste which also improves the technical skill for working with this kind of waste.

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The case also indicates soc_ upgrading as providing workers’ safety and occupational health and promoting digital inclusion. Regarding env_l upgrading, reduction of carbon emissions is the main highlight. At the end, we argue about the importance of partnerships/collaboration that Comp_A conducted in all their circular practices and social inclusion strategies. Even the origin of Comp_A is based on the knowledge obtained from a collaboration with a research group developed in the university. In addition, Comp_A has been developing new partnerships as the ones with ABRIN and NGOs for promoting circular practices and social inclusion strategies. As stated by Schröder (2020), the transition to circular system requires the engagement of diverse stakeholders as consumers, workers and communities. It is also essential the engagement for promoting the so-called social justice. In these terms, partnerships are important and could be analysed more in deep for promoting a sustainable transition. Then, we argue that Comp_A is addressing SDG 17 ‘partnerships for the goals’.

12.5.2 Case Inst_B The Inst_B conducted CE practices as recy_, rem_ for producing new clothes from old ones though Des_ considering social inclusion. In the case of Inst_B, two vulnerable groups are included: women and population with mental health issues. Most women groups are located in the outer communities of Sao Paulo City. Inst_B has partnerships with 13 groups that work with textile waste and craft techniques and hire them for conducting a particular project to upcycle post-consumer clothes. The groups also work with fabric waste that are usually sent to landfills, designing and producing new products. Inst_B works with these groups transferring knowledge about new techniques and improving the group’s capabilities, even providing financial assistance. As stated by Preston et al. (2019), circular practices could include the creation of loops for extending product life cycle as conducted by Inst_B with fabrics and old clothes to become new ones. It is also important to slow the loops since Inst_B proposes the creation of new products from the design stage that allows to choose specific components, including fabric waste. Since the organization is proposing to design circular products, the value aggregated might be superior compared to recycling post-consumer products. In terms of stakeholders, Inst_B provides training to workers and communities, as vulnerable groups. According to Schröder (2020) in the design and manufacturing stages, the focus of social inclusion is on the development of workers’ skills in the labour-intensive sector as fashion market. Besides, Inst_B also creates new employment opportunities, mainly for women addressing SDG 5 (gender equality). Despite the importance of Inst_B for reducing the quantity of textile fabrics discarded in landfills, and for extending life cycle of clothes, the institution do not have formal environmental indicators. In terms of envir_ upgrading, we argue about the effects of Inst_B activities on the protection of natural environment, water and energy management as stated by Della Santa Navarrete et al. (2020) and Achabou

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et al. (2017). However, Inst_B only provides evidences of soc_ upgrading as the training to sewing groups. Social upgrading is evident as training and transference of knowledge to sewing groups as they are prepared to be hired for new activities by large retailers. Also dimensions as health of workers, and safety, are considered soc_ upgrading as stated by Rossi (2013) and Posthuma and Rossi (2017). The Inst_B also promotes eco_ upgrading when sewing groups are allowed to have market access and to increase their gains. Besides, the groups acquire new capabilities allowing them get productivity gains, as stated by Dammert and Mohan (2015) as process upgrading. In terms of engagement of workers on circular practices, according to Kirchherr (2021) and Schröder (2020), Inst_B recognizes and promotes the inclusion of distinct worker groups, as women from vulnerable regions known as proc_just and rec_rights. Inst_B also provides rec_rights in promoting the work of vulnerable communities to large retailers in the fashion industry and brand owners. The institution makes large retailers more aware about the reality of these groups of suppliers and presents circular production systems that promote social inclusion, in contrast to mass production and fast fashion. Finally, Inst_B is conducting circular practices that address SDGs 1, 2, 5 and 8. SDGs 1, 2 and 5 are considered the main gaps in terms of transition to circular systems as stated by Schröder (2020). Considering the analysis presented, Table 12.5 details the concepts and codes for each case. Table 12.5  Concepts and codes for each case Dimensions Circular practices Design Repair Reuse Remanufacturing Recycle Priority stakeholders Workers Communities Consumers Engagement Recognition of rights Procedural justice Distributional justice Upgrading Economic (product and process) Environmental Social SDGs addressed

Case Comp_A

√

Case Inst_B √

√ √

√ √

√

√

√

√ √

√ √ √ 1, 2, 8, 10, 12 and 17

√ √ 1,2, 5, 8, 10 and 12

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12.6 Conclusion The objective of this chapter was to answer how circular practices could embrace social inclusion and address the SDGs. For answering our research question, we proposed a framework relating the priority stakeholders to engagement and upgrading in circular practices along the value chain. Taking the priority stakeholders, we identified their engagement in circular practices using the concepts of recognition of rights and procedural and distributional justice. Finally, there are indications about the upgrading reached by these stakeholders as economic, environmental and social. Empirically, we proposed two case studies. The first case is a waste management company specialized in electronic and electrical equipment. The second is nongovernmental organization from the fashion sector. The results indicate that the main stakeholders affected by circular practices with social inclusion are workers. In both cases, there are indications of economic and social upgrading of workers. The main evidences refer to the increase of revenue, training and job creation. Only the case of Comp_A demonstrated clearly the environmental upgrading through the reduction of carbon emissions. The other highlight is the social upgrading conducted by Inst_B referring to inclusion of sewing cooperatives, composed mainly by women, and mental health care groups as suppliers of large retailers in retailoring process. The change in mindset from mass production/fast fashion to craft production supplied by these groups is also essential. So, Inst_B pointed out how difficult it is to change this dominated pattern based on fast fashion. From the perspective of circular practices, Inst_B is promoting circular practices that might provide more changes of value creation since it is promoting redesign of products aiming to slowing loops. In terms of engagement, we identified recognition of rights in both cases. Both organizations recognized in their circular activities the communities impacted. In the first case, waste pickers’ cooperatives and vulnerable groups are trained in technical assistance. In the second case, the organization recognizes and promotes the inclusion of distinct worker groups, such as women from vulnerable regions and mental healthcare groups. Regarding procedural justice, the second case details that creation of new products was conducted with the participation of clients, as large retailers, but mainly workers. Most times, workers need some training to learn some techniques and the group is able to take decisions about that and participate in the process of creating new circular products. Finally, there are no evidences of distributional justice in both cases. Finally, the social SDGs addressed by both cases are 1, 5, 10 and 17. SDG 5 (gender equality) is addressed in particular by Inst_B, and SDGs 10 (equality) and 17 (partnerships for the goals) are addressed by Comp_A. Partnerships are still a ‘black box’ in the literature as pointed out by Vazquez-Brust et al. (2020). So, future research could analyse the features of these partnerships in order to increase social inclusion in circular practices.

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The study presents limitations related to qualitative research. The case study method does not allow statistical generalization. The study was also conducted from the perspective of the main organization responsible for the circular practices understood as a driver. So, new studies discussing the phenomenon from the perspective of workers, communities and consumers would contribute to understanding the transition to sustainable systems taking social inclusion as a key component. However, in theoretical terms, the study contributes to the literature of operations management shedding light on how circular economy could address social inclusion. In the framework proposed, different agents and concepts were combined, such as circular justice, circular economy literature and upgrading. Acknowledgements  Grants #2019/21292-6 São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).

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Chapter 13

Circular Economy and Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 17: The Case of the PlastiCity Ecosystem Virginie Litaudon, Yara M. C. Ciliacus, and Peter Brughmans

Abstract  Plastic pollution is one of the most severe environmental and human health threats. Based on a linear model, our current economic system uses plastics as a primary resource to make products such as plastic bags and bottles. However, these products are not recycled into secondary resources. Instead, they are thrown away when they become unusable. In contrast, the circular economy considers plastic waste as an opportunity to create social, economic and environmental value. This model uses plastic waste as a raw material to produce new items. This research demonstrates that the circular economy contributes to Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 17 using the results of action and observatory research within the PlastiCity project. As part of PlastiCity, partners developed new products made from recycled plastic such as recycled face shields. This chapter describes our efforts in developing a business case for recycled face shields and deploying the PlastiCity ecosystem to improve collaboration and partnerships. This study suggests that the development of an ecosystem can facilitate collaboration between stakeholders in the plastic value chain and hence contribute to implementing circular business models. This research also demonstrates how the circular economy can respond rapidly to health-related societal challenges, such as the unavailability of personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Keywords  PlastiCity · Plastic · Pollution · Waste

V. Litaudon (*) Portsmouth Business School, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom e-mail: [email protected] Y. M. C. Ciliacus Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital, Rotterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] P. Brughmans Sustainable Material Management, Van Werven, Lanaken, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_13

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13.1 Introduction To meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is an immediate need to transition to the Circular Economy (CE). The CE is a ‘system that is restorative by design with a core strategic focus on reframing and reorganising material, information and energy flow to achieve greater resource efficiency by the reuse, remanufacture and recycling of materials’ (Perey et al. 2018: 631). Notably, the CE contributes to achieving SDG 3, which aims to ‘ensure healthy lives and promote well–being for all at all ages’ (Health – United Nations Sustainable Development n.d.). Between 2016 and 2020, worldwide plastic output rose from 335 million tonnes to 367 million tonnes annually (PlasticsEurope 2021). Due to its characteristics, plastic is used in various industries such as packaging, construction, transportation, electronics and agriculture (Geyer et al. 2017). Plastic is mass-produced, mainly used for single-use packaging and readily discarded owing to its low cost (Jambeck et al. 2015). The global plastic leakage into the ocean is estimated to be between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons (Jambeck et al. 2015), and only 9% of plastic waste has been recycled worldwide (Geyer et al. 2017). Due to the chemicals in plastic and plastic pollution, plastic is harmful to the environment and human health (United Nations Environment Programme 2021). The COVID-19 epidemic increased plastic waste, especially single-use plastics, and worsened the plastic waste problem (Patrício Silva et al. 2021). The CE offers opportunities to reduce plastic pollution by limiting its use and enhancing its recycling. To do so, public and private actors are designing and implementing new Circular Business Models (CBMs) and circular activities. However, implementing CE and CBMs requires the collaboration and partnership of a wide range of actors from different sectors (Hofmann 2019; Lüdeke-Freund et  al. 2019; Rosa et  al. 2019). Hahladakis and Lacovidou (2019) emphasised that communication and collaboration among stakeholders of the plastic value chain are essential to closing the plastic loop. In the transition to a CE for plastics, they demonstrate the relevance of data, information and expertise exchange between stakeholders (Hahladakis and Lacovidou 2019). Nevertheless, the literature on plastic CE highlights a lack of collaboration (Hsu et al. 2022). The CE also contributes to SDG 17, which encourages partnerships at different levels (local, regional and international) to implement the SDGs (THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development n.d.). Governments fund collaborative projects such as the PlastiCity project, a partnership funded by the European Interreg 2 Seas Programme to create the transition towards a CE.  The PlastiCity project aims to tackle plastic pollution and increase European recycling rates. To do so, PlastiCity partners are developing new circular value chains using recycled plastics from untapped plastic waste. The first product made from recycled plastic and developed by PlastiCity partners was face shields. Partners have also produced ear buddies made from recycled plastic. These products were developed in response to an urgent need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, a

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need that the conventional and global supply chain could not meet. Therefore, the PlastiCity project improved human health as per the SDG 3 goals. Moreover, PlastiCity partners have implemented regional ecosystems to enhance collaboration and new partnerships to create new circular value chains. The purpose is to generate business and employment opportunities in the circular economy (100–400 jobs). The ecosystems developed are entrepreneurial as an entrepreneurial ecosystem seeks to establish new societal values to foster innovations and generate opportunities (Stam 2015). They are ‘a set of interdependent actors and factors coordinated in such a way that they enable productive entrepreneurship within a particular territory’ (Stam 2015; Stam and Spigel 2018). Additionally, the project aims to enhance cross-border collaboration within the Interreg 2 Seas region. By collaborating and partnering at the European level and promoting multi-­stakeholders’ collaboration, the project contributes to SDG 17. This chapter aims to present our work on creating a recycled face shield business case and implementing the PlastiCity ecosystem to enhance collaboration and partnerships. This study argues that developing an ecosystem can facilitate the collaboration between the stakeholders of the plastic value chain and, therefore, contribute to implementing circular activities. This research also shows how the CE can provide a quick response to social issues related to health, such as the lack of PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this chapter contributes to both the literature on ecosystems and CBMs. It adds to the lack of empirical studies regarding ecosystems (Adner 2017) and collaboration without a focal firm managing the system (Brown et al. 2021). In the next section, we will discuss the literature review of the CE and CBMs, the collaboration and ecosystems. Then, we will review the theoretical background and describe the research context and method. Finally, we will present the case study and discussion and conclusion.

13.2 Literature Review This section will first review the literature on CE and CBMs. Then, we will review the literature on collaboration and ecosystems.

13.2.1 Circular Economy and Circular Business Models The CE has emerged from the limits of sustainability in creating the rupture with the traditional linear model based on the ‘take–make–consume and dispose’ logic. The CE is an economic system where value is created by reusing products and their components in multiple cycles based on closing and slowing resource loops while achieving sustainability throughout the product life cycle from resource extraction to the end of life. The circular economy activities are based on resource loops, i.e.

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Fig. 13.1  Resource cycles of the CE based on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2012) and Ludeke-Freund et al.’s work (2019)

slowing and closing the loops (Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019) (Fig. 13.1). The aim of activities based on slowing the loop, such as repair and maintenance, reuse and redistribution, and refurbishment and remanufacturing, is to extend a product’s life cycle and the use of resources (Bocken et  al. 2016; Lüdeke-Freund et  al. 2019). Recycling, cascading and repurposing and biochemical feedstock extraction are activities aiming to close the loop between post-use and production (Bocken et al. 2016; Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019). To apply the CE, companies have implemented CBMs, which aim at reconciling economic growth while preserving the environment and the biosphere limits (Perey et al. 2018; Zucchella and Previtali 2019). The CBM is considered to be a practical tool with the potential to contribute to implementing the CE at a systemic level (Fehrer and Wieland 2020; Frishammar and Parida 2019; Zucchella and Previtali 2019). For instance, the CBM is often defined as the concrete application of the CE (Chiappetta Jabbour et al. 2020; Esposito et al. 2018; Giampietro and Funtowicz 2020; Khan et  al. 2020) and in opposition to a traditional business model (BM) (Hofmann and Jaeger-Erben 2020). Compared to a linear and traditional BM, a circular one intends to retain and prolong the value of a product and its components by using resources in multiple cycles and reducing waste and consumption (Hofmann 2019; Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019; Salvador et al. 2020). In a CBM, ‘value creation is based on utilising economic value retained in products after use in the production of new offerings’ (Linder and Williander 2017: 183). Waste is no longer considered a burden but a resource with an intrinsic value (Perey et al. 2018). Based on the resource cycles of the CE, scholars have developed a diversity of CBM taxonomy with different terminologies (Bocken et al. 2016; Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019; Vermunt et  al. 2019). There are two main categories of CBMs, those based on

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CBM Repair & Maintenance

Lüdeke-Freund et al., 2019

Reuse & Redistribuon

Refurbishment & Remanufacturing

Slowing the loop Definions CBM Extending the use of a product already owned by Recycling the customer via maintenance services. Offering to the customer used products cheaper or free via the sharing economy. Products can be Cascading & Repurposing new or familiar to the customer.

Closing the loop Definions Access to greener products and recyclable inputs. Access to use products, components, materials or waste as producon and recyclable inputs.

Access to refurbished product as new. Offering cheaper used product or green products.

Biomass conversion and composng provide producon inputs (green and organic inputs)

Biochemical feedstock extracon

Delivering a service rather than owning a product Access and performance (Product-Service System). The retailer or Extended resource value manufacturer manage the service and charge the model at a product level customers per unit of service.

Bocken et al., 2016

Extended product value model

Classic long-life model

Encourage sufficiency

Vermunt et al., 2019

Product-as-a-service Product life extension

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Exploing the residual value of products via remanufacturing and repairing. The company Industrial symbiosis at a implements a take-back system or create process and collaboraons with other partners (e.g. collecon manufacturing level points).

Exploing the residual value of resources considered as “waste” in a linear economy. The company implements a take-back system or create collaboraons with other partners. Waste of a company becomes feedstock of another or new value is created with former waste stream. This soluon is based on collaboraon of geographically closed businesses.

Offering long-lasng products with high quality and high-level of maintenance and repair services. Companies capture value via a “premium” price. Similar to the classic long-life model except that the value is created with a “non-consumerism” approach. The company owns the product and offers a service to customers. Exploing the residual value of used products.

Resource recovery Circular supplies

Converng residual value into new form of value. Replacing virgin materials by renewable, recyclable or biodegradable materials.

Fig. 13.2  The main CBMs and their definitions based on Bocken et al. (2016), Lüdeke-Freund et al. (2019), and Vermunt et al. (2019)

slowing the loop and those based on closing the loop (Bocken et al. 2016; Lüdeke-­ Freund et al. 2019; Vermunt et al. 2019). The different CBMs and their definitions are represented in the table below (Fig. 13.2). Nonetheless, CBMs continue to adhere to the classic idea of a BM in that they are firm-centric, profit-driven and based on a linear value chain (Fehrer and Wieland 2020; Murray et al. 2017; Zucchella and Previtali 2019). Environmental and social benefits are regarded as ‘by-products’ (Fehrer and Wieland 2020). Researchers consider that a CBM should go beyond the traditional dimensions of value creation, delivery and capture and instead should describe the value co-creation and resource integration of a wide range of actors (Fehrer and Wieland 2020). A CBM should be analysed with an ecosystem view and an open supply network perspective (Centobelli et al. 2020; Perey et al. 2018; Zucchella and Previtali 2019). Researchers consider that moving from a traditional BM to a CBM must include an ecosystem assessment (Frishammar and Parida 2019; Parida et al. 2019). Therefore, there is a need to include more strenuously the value network at the heart of the CBM (Perey et al. 2018; Zucchella and Previtali 2019), as it is considered a critical factor in the implementation of a successful CBM (Hofmann 2019; Salvador et al. 2020; Vermunt et al. 2019). The CE requires a change in how companies do business from being firm-centric to network-centric, which includes a more systemic boundary analysis of the business model (Pieroni et  al. 2019). Scholars insist on the importance of including collaboration and partnerships as part of the CBM (Hofmann 2019; Zucchella and Previtali 2019) and not only stakeholders involved in the value chain but also in the other spheres of the society such as research institutions (Hofmann 2019; Lüdeke-Freund et al. 2019; Rosa et al. 2019).

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13.2.2 Collaboration and Ecosystem Literature Collaboration is a process where people or organisations work together to achieve a common goal (Bedwell et al. 2012; Dietrich et al. 2010). It also refers to voluntarily helping other partners achieve their personal goals (Castañer and Oliveira 2020). Collaboration is considered a way to solve complex challenges such as environmental and social issues (Emerson et al. 2012; Larsen et al. 2021; Savage et al. 2010; Wood and Gray 1991) and responds to complexity and uncertainty (Larsen et al. 2021; Savage et al. 2010; Walker et al. 2017). Indeed, multidisciplinary and cross-­ sectoral collaboration is required to create new solutions to address complex sustainability challenges (Bocken and Geradts 2020), as such challenges cannot be managed in isolation (Hopkinson et al. 2018). For instance, multi-actor collaboration (customers, suppliers, competitors, research institutions) is key to implementing circular activities such as reverse logistics (Cricelli et  al. 2021). Knowledge exchange and access to information by collaborating with various actors such as business associations or private companies enable the adoption of circular activities (Triguero et  al. 2022). Organisations must collaborate (Calicchio Berardi and Peregrino de Brito 2021). Nevertheless, moving towards a CE is a complex task and necessitates reorganising the supply chain and a multi-level collaboration (Calicchio Berardi and Peregrino de Brito 2021; Meath et al. 2022; Sudusinghe and Seuring 2022). There is increased attention in the academic and corporate world to the sustainability-­oriented collaborative supply chain (Chauhan et al. 2022; Chen et al. 2017). Indeed, supply chain collaboration increases sustainability performance (Chauhan et al. 2022; Sudusinghe and Seuring 2022) and enables companies to create new values (Fontoura and Coelho 2022). Moreover, supply chain collaboration contributes to the achievement of SDGs (Chauhan et  al. 2022). However, supply chain collaboration needs to involve various actors such as governments, NGOs and entrepreneurs to create a sustainable performance (Sudusinghe and Seuring 2022). The increased interactions lead to more complexity and risks (Brown et al. 2020; Sudusinghe and Seuring 2022). Therefore, to handle complexity, researchers suggest a network approach (Sudusinghe and Seuring 2022), adopting a systemic approach (Brown et al. 2020, 2021) and having an ecosystem orchestrator (Zucchella and Previtali 2019). As collaboration is crucial to implementing circular activities, researchers look at ecosystems (Asgari and Asgari 2021; Kapsalis et al. 2019; Parida et al. 2019). The origins of ecosystems are in natural systems in biology (Aarikka-Stenroos et  al. 2021; Moore 1998; Tansley 1935). Then, Moore introduced the concept of ecosystems to the field of business management and defined it as communities of customers, suppliers, lead producers and other stakeholders collaborating to produce goods and services (Moore 1998). He believed that ‘we should also include in the business ecosystem those who provide financing, as well as relevant trade associations, standards bodies, labour unions, governmental and quasi-governmental institutions, and other interested parties’ (Moore 1998, p. 168). Similar to natural ecosystems, business ecosystems do not require outside intervention for adapting and co-evolving (Mitleton-kelly 2003; Moore 1998).

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The focal point of a business ecosystem is the firm (Adner 2017; Autio 2022; Hou and Shi 2021; Jacobides et  al. 2018; Lingens et  al. 2021; Moore 1998). Researchers consider ecosystems as structures or ecosystems as co-evolution (or affiliation) (Adner 2017; Hou and Shi 2021). The first considers that the ecosystem starts with a value proposition and then the focal firm gathers the relevant stakeholders (Adner 2017). In contrast, the latter focuses on gathering actors to create interactions leading to new values and innovations (Adner 2017). Nonetheless, the ecosystem concept is used in various contexts. For instance, in the literature, we can find the concept of the business, innovation, entrepreneurial, and platform ecosystem (Gomes et al. 2021). Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE) differ from business and innovative ecosystems due to the focal point and outcomes (Cavallo et al. 2019). The focal point is the entrepreneur (Cavallo et al. 2019; Stam 2015) and is defined as ‘a set of interdependent actors and factors coordinated in such a way that they enable productive entrepreneurship within a particular territory’ (Stam 2015; Stam and Spigel 2018). Entrepreneurship is the outcome (Stam 2015). EE aims to create new societal values to enhance innovations and create opportunities (Stam 2015).

13.3 Theoretical Framework Entrepreneurial ecosystems are complex systems containing a variety of entities and involve non-linear interactions (Cavallo et al. 2019). ‘Etymologically, the term “ecosystem” is composed of the Greek words “οιχος” – “eco”, which means “home” and “συστημα” – “system”, which means “complex” and so it evokes a sense of both hospitality and acceptance and of complexity’ (Cavallo et al. 2019: 1295). The complexity theory looks at comprehending complex systems, such as ecosystems. The term ‘complex’ comes from the word ‘complexus’ in Latin, which means ‘surrounding, encompassing’ or ‘what is woven together’ (Morin 1988, 2007). Every system or organisation is naturally complex (Morin 2007; Kimball 2013). ‘Complex behaviour arises from the inter-relationship, interaction, and inter-connectivity of elements within a system and between a system and its environment’ (Mitleton-­ kelly 2003: 26). A complex system consists of many linkages between interdependent pieces, and it is simultaneously characterised by unity and variety (Morin 2007). The whole of a complex system cannot be understood by simply looking at its components, but both the whole and its parts need to be mutually comprehended (Morin 2007). One of the main characteristics of a complex system is self-­ organisation, meaning that new emergence happens without a central (internal or external) controller (Anderson 1999). Self-organisation will naturally happen via individual interactions (Anderson 1999). The self-organisation will lead to new emergence (Mitleton-kelly 2003). New emergence results from interactions and relationships (Kimball 2013). The agents of a complex system ‘scan the environment and adapt accordingly (organic), using schema to interpret reality and context, and trigger decisions and actions (cognitive), while competing and cooperating with other agents for resources and information (organismic)’ (Dooley 1997). A complex

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system adapts and co-evolves (Mitleton-kelly 2003). Organisations depend on their environment to draw resources (Morin 1988, 2007). Combined with the literature on ecosystems and CBM, the complexity theory can help better understand the emergence and governance of the PlastiCity ecosystem, detailed in Sect. 13.5.

13.4 Research Context This study was realised within the European project, PlastiCity. The Interreg 2 Seas Program is funding the PlastiCity project, whose goal is to create, demonstrate and put into practice replicable ideas and solutions that can boost plastic recycling rates in urban settings throughout the Interreg 2 Seas region. More precisely, PlastiCity aims to increase the plastic recycling rate from 20–30% to 50% in the 2 Seas region. Interreg 2 Seas region is the coastal area of the Southern North Sea and the Channel area (England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands). The project focuses on ‘lost plastics’, which are the vast quantities of recyclable plastic waste created by businesses that are discarded. PlastiCity partners are developing and implementing new circular products using recycled plastics from lost plastics to increase the recycling rates of these plastics. The project involves 13 partners from public and private institutions in the 2 Seas region. PlastiCity partners implemented regional ecosystems to facilitate the creation of CBMs. In particular, partners have developed face shields and ear buddies made from recycled plastics to respond to the medical needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The PlastiCity partners produced 100 face shields made entirely of recycled PET type of plastics for the Haga Hospital in the Hague to cope with the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). Face shields were the first brand-new item created with recycled plastic as part of the PlastiCity project.

13.5 Research Method The case study presented in this chapter is based on a longitudinal, participatory study of a single case study (Yin 2018). The data collection was done through fieldwork. The method incorporates aspects of ethnography and participatory action research (Saunders et al. 2019). ‘To collect data, I was a participant-observation” (Yin 2018). “Action research is enquiry with people, rather than research on people’ (Altrichter et al. 2002: 130). It is an ongoing and iterative process involving observation and reflection (Altrichter et al. 2002). The action researcher influences the outcomes, which are the actionable insights generated from the research activities (Coghlan and Shani 2005). The researcher’s self-reflections and values will significantly shape the research (Coghlan and Shani 2005; Kemmis et al. 2014). The action and observation research involved working closely with PlastiCity partners in developing a business case and a PlastiCity ecosystem. The studied empirical case

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focuses on a working group within the PlastiCity project that worked on defining a business case about face shields made from recycled plastic in the Hague. The working group aimed to develop a feasible CBM for face shields. It involved an intern of the city of the Hague, a business consultant of Van Werven and myself. It also included other partners of PlastiCity during presentation and partner meetings. From October 2020 to August 2021, the group met regularly. They met in total 26 times, one of which was in person. The group uploaded their meeting minutes to a Google Drive folder to enable communication and sharing. A research diary was also continuously kept, including the researcher’s thoughts. Following discussions on the face shield business case, the group developed an ecosystem to help PlastiCity partners to create new partnerships and circular values in their regions. The group’s work was then shared and presented to a PlastiCity annual meeting. Moreover, we interviewed some actors in the ecosystem and the face shield supply chain. We interviewed ten companies. The interviews and meetings with some ecosystem actors gave us more insights into the face shield supply chain and the Hague ecosystem. The interviews were exploratory. The aim was to better understand the face shield’s production process and create potential synergies between the actors. The questions focused on the different phases of the face shield life cycle (input material, production, assembling, logistic, end users and end of life). The actors interviewed are listed in the table below (Table 13.1).

13.6 Case Study 13.6.1 The Recycled Face Shield Business Case In this section, we present and discuss the development of a local CBM in PlastiCity. The working group focused on developing a local CBM for face shields made from recycled plastic. The primary objective was to develop a local and circular value Table 13.1  List of interviews Date 27-11-2020 10-12-2020 16-12-2020 18-12-2020 12-01-2021 01-02-2021 02-02-2021 02-02-2021 19-02-2021 19-02-2021 24-02-2021 05-05-2021

Company Reprintable CiorC KunststofPlus Lang Leve Plastic Reprintable Ghent University CiorC Umincorp Pavo Suitup shop (Qbix) CuRe DSF Extrusion

Actor type Manufacturer/assembler Plastic feedstock producer Manufacturer/assembler Manufacturer/assembler/social company Manufacturer/assembler Knowledge institution Plastic feedstock producer Plastic feedstock producer Wholesaler Wholesaler Plastic feedstock producer Manufacturer/assembler

Interview type Online meeting Online meeting Phone call Online meeting Phone call Online meeting Online meeting Online meeting Phone call Phone call Online meeting Phone call

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Initial supply chain

Adveo

Buying visor part from Pro Office

Waste collection by waste collection companies

Production filament by CiorC

3D printing holder part by Reprintable

Delivering by electrical resource bike by Reprintable

Mono-streams in hospitals by facility services

Medical blister

Assembling

Recycling

Waste collection

Using the shields in the Haga Hospital

Waste processing Reuse/Repair

Fig. 13.3  Recycled face shield initial supply chain. (Source: own)

chain in the Hague and to scale up the production of recycled face shields by extending from the initial production of 100 recycled face shields. The initial step consisted of understanding the face shield’s present supply chain and gathering as much information as possible. Therefore, we contacted and interviewed Reprintable, a 3D printing company, and CiorC, a recycled granulates and pellets manufacturer in the Hague. These interviews allowed us to understand better the production of recycled face shields, which allowed us to draw the initial supply chain (Fig. 13.3). The face shield holder was 3D printed by Reprintable, who used an open-sourced model and bought the recycled filaments from CiorC. The filament is made from recycled plastic (PET). The company recycles PET trays and small plastic packaging from hospitals (medical blisters) to produce the filaments. The Makers4All Foundation designed the open-sourced model. The visor for the face shield was composed of a transparent plastic sheet, bought online from Pro Office. Nevertheless, we encountered issues and challenges while designing the initial supply chain. Firstly, we could not get more information (composition and origins) about the transparent sheets for the visor. Secondly, 3D printing was not lucrative enough despite its attractiveness. Therefore, the 3D printing company was not interested in continuing to produce it. 3D printing can be an idea of a new process for the Circular Economy but not always a good business opportunity as it is too slow not big scale => need to look at another process such as injection moulding but more difficult to find as not as new or attractive than 3D printing (04/12/2020, field notes, meeting with Peter and Yara). Additionally, there was a lack of communication and transparency regarding the end of life of the face shield after it had been used by hospital personnel. Knowing what happened with the face shields once the hospital’s employees used them was challenging. The initial supply chain was straightforward and limited. The aim was to respond to an immediate need from the hospital during the pandemic. It responded to urgent demands for PPE that the traditional global supply chain could not meet.

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After identifying the initial supply chain limits, we worked on developing a local and circular supply chain for recycled face shields. We aimed to move from a linear to a local and circular loop. We first looked at the value proposition focused on environmental and social values. The environmental benefit of the face shield is that it is created of recycled plastic from lost plastics, hence avoiding the use of virgin plastic. Another environmental benefit is that most of the supply chain, including production, is local, reducing CO2 emissions. By being manufactured locally, its production enhances local employment. Additionally, it promotes employment in social companies such as Lang Leve Plastic, which is more labour-intensive due to the hand moulding injection technique. The face shield design comes from the Makers4All Foundation. The designs for the Makers4All are not for profitable purposes. Nevertheless, the social aspect of the recycled face shield business model was often limited. Problem of the BM: not social value included. We talked in the past about unemployed people but it was for the 3D but now injection is more considered as cheaper (23/03/2021, field notes, meeting with Yara and Peter). The discussions around social values were limited to creating new employment and collaborating with social companies. We focused primarily on the local aspect of the new CBM to see if the local and economically feasible production of recycled face shields was achievable. Additionally, we looked at the customers of face shields. We prepared a survey for end users to better understand their perceptions and use of face shields. Discussion about customer segments – suggestion of ideas about doing a survey for users at the hospital but also other potential customers: to have a better understanding of their perception and what is more important – evaluate the value proposition and will help define the marketing narrative and communication – create a competitive advantage and position ourself compare to competitors (10/11/2020, field notes, meeting with Yara). The survey questions focused on protection, comfort, usage and maintenance of the face shield and communication while wearing the face shield. We planned to ask about the user consciousness regarding the importance of the face shield being made locally and from recycled plastic. We wanted to determine which factor was the most important: the affordability of the face shield (economic value), its eco-friendliness (environmental value) or the local production (social value). While designing the CBM, we considered that producing the face shield locally was the added social benefit. Other social aspects did not occur to us during our discussions. We focused mainly on finding local companies and creating matches between the ecosystem actors that we did not consider other social aspects other than the local production. The lack of discussion on social inclusion may be due to a lack of knowledge about it and how to incorporate it in the CBM design and a failure to recognise the significance of social inclusion in CBM design. The focus was primarily on the technical, economic and environmental aspects of designing a local and circular supply chain. We intended to discuss the survey with the Haga Hospital and distribute it to face shield users. However, we had difficulties in collaboration. The hospital was no longer willing to collaborate and communicate with the city of Hague about the face

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shield business case. Therefore, we could not distribute the survey. Problem also is the hospital is not cooperating anymore, did not want to do the waste flow analysis anymore and so do not want to distribute the survey and we do not even know who used the initial face shields. Lack of cooperation (23/03/2021, field notes, meeting with Yara). We then asked the city of Hague to distribute it in their public and private companies’ network. However, the contact list was not up to date and consequently could not share the survey. Nevertheless, the Haga Hospital employees contributed to the face shield design by testing the first three prototypes and approving the final design. Regarding the demand, the Haga Hospital was the initial purchaser of the face shields; the end users were likely healthcare staff. In addition, there was a requirement for 2500 face shields from Leiden University Medical Centre and an unidentified demand from a consulting firm. Additionally, we analysed potential markets for recycled face shields after the Covid-19 pandemic. There could be potential. For instance, recycled face shields could be used in healthcare, chemical, construction, manufacturing, oil and gas (Global Face Shields Market Size | Industry Report, 2020–2027 n.d.). However, the cost of manufacturing recycled face shields was insufficiently competitive. The consumer may not have been willing to pay more than double the price of a traditional face shield created from virgin plastic, as indicated by Ciorc: There is a limit to what people are willing to pay. They understand that sustainability is more expensive, but people don’t want to pay five times as much as current (virgin plastic) products. Nowadays, there is more willingness to pay a premium for sustainability. The premium depends on the type of plastic and the type of application (Ciorc interview). Then, we worked on understanding the production process of the face shields by adopting a life cycle perspective. We looked at the product life cycle stages (input materials, design strategy, manufacture, logistic, use and end of life). To get a clear picture of the production process, we assessed the Hague ecosystem and contacted relevant actors in the plastic value chain. For instance, we contacted manufacturers, plastic feedstock producers, wholesalers and distributors. For this case study, we identified the following actors: recyclers, plastic feedstock producers, designers, logistic companies, manufacturers, wholesalers, competitors, nature and communities, knowledge institutions, social institutions, non-governmental organisations, government representatives, consumers and waste management companies. We could then map the face shield ecosystem (Fig. 13.4). By understanding and connecting with actors of the local ecosystem, we were able to discuss the production of the face shield and find a more suitable process: hand injection moulding. A social company, Lang Leve Plastic, suggested this process and producing the face shield holders. Using injection moulding was considered more profitable than 3D printing. We also found a waste stream: medical blisters in local hospitals. The electric CargoBike agreed to operate the collection of plastic waste. However, it was impossible to find a local company producing recycled sheets for the visor part of the face shield. Despite extending our search at the country level, we could not find a company in the Netherlands producing such items. We considered extending to the European level, but this option was not in

Governement Representatives

Social institutions & companies

Fig. 13.4  Face shield ecosystem. (Source: own)

Erasmus University Rotterdam University of Portsmouth Ghent University

ROC Mondriaan Lang Leve Plastic

Non-Governemental Organisations

The City of The Hague PlastiCity

Retailers: e.g., bol.com, amazon, drugstore, etc.

Competitors

Pro Office Pavo Qbix

Wholesalers

Manufacturers Assemblers

Hub ZKD

Reprintable KunststofPlus Lang Leve Plastic Vink Kunststoffen BV Batelaan Kunststoffen BV DSF Extrusion BV Piant

CargoBike: Marcel Kleizen Distributors Logistic Companies

Makers4All Design students

Van Werven Plastic Recycling Amsterdam Umnicorp CuRe CiorC Morssinkhof Group QCPolymers

Designers

Plastic Feedstock Producers

Nature & communities

Ecosystem BC Face Shields

Recyclers

Knowledge Institutions

Waste Management Companies

Waste Owners Consumers

Haga Hospital Consultation bureau Leiden University Medical Centre End-users, Business, Organisations, Institutions

Suez, Veolia

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accord with the initial idea of developing a local circular value chain in the Hague. We then looked for support by discussing with an expert at the University of Ghent to learn more about producing recycled visors for the face shield. The expert explained that finding a clean waste stream that could be made transparent was challenging. He suggested checking the PET bottle stream. Find a very pure waste stream to make it transparent. PET bottle stream can be interesting, if you can purify and process it you might be able to make a visor out of it. For example, those beer casks. Bottle-to-bottle PET recycling companies might be interested in those streams. PET has a higher melting point than PP or PE.  Thus, it’s not easy to recycle PET transparently because of the crystallisation, the difficult transparency, and the high melting rate (University of Ghent, interview). As it was difficult to focus on a single value proposition due to the difficulty of obtaining transparent film, we considered examining alternative options. P: more than one case, looking for more solutions. 1 solution for FS => limiting yourself, being more open (20/05/2021, field notes, meeting with Peter and Yara). Finding local input materials was feasible due to the access to a large quantity of plastic waste. However, recycling and closing the loop at a local level was more challenging, especially when looking at a clean waste stream. Recycling locally and only a limited amount of face shields was not feasible. After defining the production process and assessing and mapping the ecosystem, we analysed the economic performance of producing a recycled face shield in the Hague and considered a life cycle assessment. Based on the collaborative work done to analyse the face shield business case and the literature review on CBM, we defined the main elements of a CBM (Fig.  13.5) that helped us design a new CBM for recycled face shields. It includes the ecosystem, the evaluation of the value proposition and the customer and market analysis, the production process, the value delivery, the performance analysis and outcomes of the CBM. Furthermore, to overcome the challenge of local recycling, The City of the Hague (PlastiCity partner) is implementing a recycling hub in a business area of the Hague (Zichtenburg, Kerketuinen Dekkershoek, ZKD). This hub aims to collect, process and recycle plastic waste and manufacture new products such as recycled face shields. The CargoBike collects plastic waste from various local businesses. The local company, Lang Leve Plastic, can directly use the hand injection moulding machine in the hub. The hub supply chain is represented in the figure below (Fig. 13.6). The recycled face shield is the first product to be potentially produced in the hub. However, this new supply chain aims to help local companies create value from their plastic waste and increase plastic recycling rates. To sum up, designing a local circular value chain was challenging due to a lack of information and relevant actors. To create synergies between local actors, we had to map the local ecosystem. The mapping allowed us to create synergies between relevant stakeholders such as the hand injection moulding social company and the CargoBike company. We aimed to develop a more local and circular business model that could sustain over time and scale up the production of recycled face shields. Consequently, it could reduce reliance on the worldwide supply of PPE. However, it was restricted due to a lack of supply (e.g. recycled visor sheets). Therefore,

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Fig. 13.5  CBM elements. (Source: own)

Fig. 13.6  The hub supply chain. (Source: own)

making more recycled face shields produced entirely from local materials was challenging. The business case was then limited to the initial production of 100 face shields delivered to the Haga Hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic. This production was an agile response to an urgent need from healthcare personnel. It shows

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that the CE can contribute to filling the failure of the global supply chain that could not meet the urgent demand for PPE. Nevertheless, to overcome the limits encountered when implementing a local and CBM, we developed the PlastiCity ecosystem. The following section will review and detail the PlastiCity ecosystem.

13.6.2 The PlastiCity Ecosystem The main challenge we faced when designing and implementing a local CBM for the recycled face shields was finding the relevant actors and creating synergies and collaborations between the actors of the plastic value chain. Therefore, following the work done to develop a local circular value chain for the recycled face shields, we designed a regional and PlastiCity ecosystem. First, we identified the actors of the plastic value chain by adopting a systemic perspective. We included all potential actors that are either part of the plastic value chain or could be impacted by new circular activities emerging from interactions and collaborations. These actors represent the ecosystem actors (Fig. 13.7). In PlastiCity, partners are developing two places for the plastic value chain actors to meet and connect: a physical one and a digital one. The physical one is a recycling hub: a facility allowing companies to create recycled products from plastic waste. It will also serve as a venue for creating showcases and providing education about plastic recycling to businesses and other organisations. The recycling hub will raise awareness among citizens and businesses and ease coordination and

Fig. 13.7  Ecosystem actors. (Source: own)

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collaboration among businesses. The hub is where businesses may bring their waste to be recycled locally and have easy access to recyclates to produce new plastic items made from recycled materials. We discussed how the hub might be a location that fosters job creation and new social economy opportunities. Recycling hub: social inclusion, social economy: Physical aspect of the urban platform which is a digital one. […] Recycling hub aims to give citizen awareness (08/01/2021, field notes, meetings with Peter and Yara). The digital one is an urban platform aiming to create collaborations between the ecosystem actors. It will also facilitate the product life cycle and supply chain data management. Nevertheless, an ecosystem coordinator is required to foster collaborations and facilitate the implementation of partnerships. During our meetings, we discussed the challenges of knowing the local actors and facilitating communication and collaboration between various actors. Lots of players, how do we manage it? Digital plus real platform = connect everyone. […] Coordinator: searching within your ecosystem. We are already doing it. He doesn’t need to be the specialist, can be both, cannot carry it all, is difficult to find, and cannot succeed if there is no front runner. How are we in relation between each other? (20/01/2021, field notes, meeting with Yara and Peter). Therefore, we defined the role of the ecosystem coordinator. A coordinator’s primary responsibility is to locate actors inside the city and facilitate collaboration between them, beginning with Plasticity partners. The coordinator could support partner knowledge sharing. It is essential to match existing partners and understand what is already accessible in each location and inside the project. The coordinator will have a more comprehensive view of the situation and be able to determine whether or not assistance from outside sources is required and contribute to locating such assistance. He/she will coordinate the Urban Platform’s participants and attract new actors to participate. The coordinator will research and map all the different types of businesses in the city and generate prospective matches. The aim is to create links and partnerships between the ecosystem’s actors and to enhance trust. While working on the recycled face shield business case, we lacked knowledge of the technical parts of producing recycled materials. Therefore, we considered that experts should accompany the ecosystem coordinator. To create matches, the coordinator will seek assistance from the knowledge team, and empowered with this information, he or she will be able to approach firms. A knowledge team includes at least one representative from the academic, public and private sectors. The objective is to ease the knowledge exchange between the ecosystem coordinator and the knowledge team. The knowledgeable team will assist the coordinator in creating matches and determining their feasibility. In PlastiCity, the knowledge is already accessible. Indeed, the project comprises both public and private institutions with plastics-related expertise. The knowledge team advises about new solutions, opportunities and risks. It adds to the inquiry and research necessary to establish new relationships and collaborations between the ecosystem’s actors. During our research, Yara was the local ecosystem coordinator in collaboration with the city of Hague. At the same time, Peter and other PlastiCity partners, such as the University of Ghent, were part of the knowledge team. The knowledge team helped us

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Fig. 13.8  PlastiCity ecosystem. (Source: own)

understand the challenges of producing recycled transparent visors. It also gave support to implementing the local ecosystem. Each city partner of the project (Southend-on-Sea, Douai, Hague and Ghent) builds its regional ecosystem but collaborates with other cities involved in the Plasticity project, in which cities share information and resources. Each project partner has a function inside the ecosystem. The urban platform, the recycling hub, the coordinator and the knowledge team are interconnected. Each plays a unique role in achieving the same objective: creating local value chains and collaborations among the ecosystem’s actors. The PlastiCity ecosystem is represented in the figure below (Fig. 13.8). One of the initial phases in developing the CBM for the recycled face shields was an assessment of the ecosystem. We contacted the supply chain stakeholders to determine their involvement in the plastic value chain and to facilitate matches. This initial stage enabled us to understand better the requirements and obstacles involved in establishing a local and circular value chain in The Hague. Plasticity’s corporate, governmental and academic partners contributed to the ecosystem’s assessment by evaluating the risks and searching for solutions. The ecosystem analysis helped us better appreciate and describe the face shield business case’s production process. By implementing this ecosystem in each region of PlastiCity, partners could create synergies and matches between ecosystem actors to develop new local circular value chains. The PlastiCity ecosystem is self-organised as new emergencies will arise from local interactions and ecosystem actors are free to be part of the ecosystem. The PlastiCity ecosystem aims at sustained over time. By implementing such

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Fig. 13.9  The emergence of the PlastiCity ecosystem

an ecosystem, local actors could be more resilient to the failures of the global supply chain since they would have access to local resources and quickly respond to urgent needs. Therefore, it can prevent future shortages similar to those we had during the Covid-19 outbreak. To sum up, the case study shows how we moved from designing an ecosystem as a structure to an ecosystem as co-evolve and self-organised. We first aimed to develop and scale up one value proposition (creating recycled face shields). Therefore, we focused on relevant actors. Then, we assessed the ecosystem more widely by adopting a systemic approach. This step and the challenges encountered while designing the recycled face shield business case have triggered the creation of a self-organised ecosystem. The aim was to create a space for ecosystem actors to interact and collaborate. Such interactions will then lead to unpredictable emergencies such as developing new circular activities and CBM and partnerships. The initial ecosystem was focused only on developing one new value proposition based on the recycled face shields and, therefore, was limited. The business case for the recycled face shield represented a swift reaction to a pressing need. In contrast, the PlastiCity ecosystem is a long-term model that can contribute to building resilience and reducing reliance on global supply networks. The PlastiCity ecosystem allowed PlastiCity partners and ecosystem actors to develop more than one new business case. The PlastiCity project helped stakeholders of the plastic value chain to engage and create synergies and new partnerships. The model representing the case study is detailed in the schema below (Fig. 13.9).

13.7 Discussion and Conclusion The case study detailed above is a concrete example of implementing an entrepreneurial ecosystem to create new circular values for society. Additionally, it is an example of an ecosystem which is network-centric instead of firm-centric. PlastiCity partners initiated the new value proposition in the Hague in collaboration with the local hospital. It also illustrated the challenges in developing local CBM, how we moved from a linear to a circular value chain and how assessing the ecosystem has contributed to this transition. This case study contributes to the literature on CBM and ecosystems. Indeed, we agree that assessing the ecosystem is a critical step in implementing circular activities and CBM (Frishammar and Parida 2019; Parida et al. 2019).

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Moreover, this case illustrates an ecosystem as a structure (Adner 2017; Hou and Shi 2021) as we started with a new value proposition (recycled face shields) and looked for the relevant stakeholders to develop it. The initial objective was to respond to an urgent need for PPE from healthcare personnel during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, such an approach was limited, especially when we could not find the relevant actors and did not enable PlastiCity partners and external stakeholders to develop more than one business case. Therefore, to overcome the challenges, we developed an ecosystem as co-evolution (Adner 2017; Hou and Shi 2021). We developed a PlastiCity ecosystem by integrating as many actors as possible. The PlastiCity ecosystem aims to generate new interactions and collaborations that will lead to innovations and societal values. The PlastiCity ecosystem enables the creation of a multitude of new values simultaneously. Therefore, in the long-term, local actors could more easily access local resources and adapt to uncertain environments, preventing access to global supplies. Moreover, we show that the focal point of an entrepreneurial ecosystem does not always need to be the entrepreneur. In the PlastiCity ecosystem, there is no focal firm to manage it. By developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem, PlastiCity partners aimed to facilitate the collaboration between ecosystem actors to create multiple new local value chains. The partners aim to develop a self-organised ecosystem that will sustain after the PlastiCity project. In the PlastiCity ecosystem, actors participate voluntarily, and new circular activities (new objectives) will arise when actors interact. Connexions are continuous: new ones are created while old ones disappear, which also confirms the self-organisation concept of Complexity theory. The final goal was to develop new opportunities to create value from plastic waste and create local business opportunities and employment. Consequently, such an objective will help prevent plastic from entering the ocean, preventing environmental and health problems. It will also help to prevent the use of virgin plastic. Therefore, it will contribute to SDG 3 by ensuring and protecting human health. Moreover, PlastiCity partners in the Hague quickly responded to an urgent need from medical professionals. Consequently, by helping to provide face shields during the Covid-19 pandemic, the business case contributed to ensuring healthy lives, which is the SDG 3 goal (Health – United Nations Sustainable Development n.d.). In the literature, ecosystems are described in terms of a central company and the creation of economic values (Cavallo et al. 2019). However, the case study reveals a more network-centric and self-organised ecosystem that aims to generate new relationships and produce new circular values. The PlastiCity ecosystem aims to create primarily environmental and social values. The case study confirms the need to include various stakeholders in designing and implementing a CBM (Fehrer and Wieland 2020; Frishammar and Parida 2019; Jabbour et al. 2019; Parida et al. 2019; Zucchella and Previtali 2019). Moreover, this case emphasises the need for an ecosystem coordinator to facilitate the collaboration between ecosystem actors. The ecosystem coordinator is similar to the concept of an ecosystem orchestrator defined in the literature (Parida et al. 2019; Zucchella and Previtali 2019). Nevertheless, in this study, the coordinator is not necessarily a large company (Parida et  al. 2019) or an ‘innovation champion’ (Zucchella and

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Previtali 2019: 282). In our case, the coordinator was a PlastiCity partner, and he/ she was accompanied by a knowledge team to support the creation of synergies and collaborations among the ecosystem’s actors. The coordinator can either be from the public or private sector. The main characteristic of the coordinator is that he/she facilitates collaboration. According to complexity theory, no one stakeholder is in charge of controlling the behaviour of other stakeholders (Anderson 1999). The coordinator facilitates collaboration (Pollack 2007) and, therefore, self-organisation. It also highlights the elements of an ecosystem. The PlastiCity ecosystem includes physical and digital places to facilitate the exchange of data, information and resources between ecosystem actors such as urban platforms and hubs. Without a place to exchange and a coordinator, it was challenging to encourage interactions and partnerships among ecosystem actors, especially in an ecosystem as co-­ evolution, where the emphasis is on increased interactions (Adner 2017). Developing such an ecosystem will facilitate the collaboration and partnerships among ecosystem actors, contributing to SDG 17. Indeed, as SDG 17 states, SDGs cannot be achieved without partnerships at various levels (global, regional, national and local) (Global Partnerships – United Nations Sustainable Development n.d.). Encouraging multi-stakeholders’ partnerships via ecosystem implementation contributes to SDG 17 targets, particularly 17.16 and 17.17 (Global Partnerships  – United Nations Sustainable Development n.d.). Acknowledgements  We thank and acknowledge the Interreg 2 Seas programme, PlastiCity, which is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund under subsidy contract 2S05-021.

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Chapter 14

Wrap-Up: Equitable Circular Economy, Nesting the Social Dimension in the Circular Economy Diego Vazquez-Brust and Lucila M. de Souza Campos

Abstract  This chapter provides the closing remarks for a book that intended to put together a conceptual and empirical perspective of the research that brings to the fore the social dimension of the circular economy (CE). All the chapters reflect on the relations of CE practices with social UN SDGs. Authors and perspectives from different countries and locations and typically in collaboration with numerous authors per chapter were provided an opportunity for knowledge sharing and capacity building across different regions of the world. This final chapter offers a discussion of the book’s contributions, insights and linkages between chapters. It presents a framework where the implementation of CE practices mediates the relation between the progress towards UN SDG goals related to sustainable governance— UN SDG 16 (Institutions), UN SDG 17 (Partnerships)—and progress towards the ‘social’ UN SDGs 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10. Implications of CE are discussed in more detail for the SDGs featured more prominently in the book—SDG 2 (no hunger) and SDG 10 (no inequality). The chapter also assesses the limitations of using the UN SDGs to systematise exploration of social aspects of CE and the potential of CE for more radical and disruptive ways of social circularity, emphasising that identity, equity, justice and social inclusion are themes strongly affecting the implementation of CE.  The chapter concludes with recommendations for a future research agenda around the concept of equitable CE, a CE that maintains environmental protection as its core mission but is purposefully socially inclusive, just and fair and brings to the fore the interdependencies between human and ecological dimensions of sustainable development.

D. Vazquez-Brust Faculty of Business and Law, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK e-mail: [email protected] L. M. de Souza Campos (*) Department of Production Engineering, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. M. de Souza Campos, D. A. Vázquez-Brust (eds.), The Social Dimensions of the Circular Economy, Greening of Industry Networks Studies 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25436-9_14

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Keywords  Circular economy · CE framework · Social dimension

14.1 Discussion of the Content of the Book This book brings together conceptual and empirical research looking at the social dimension of the circular economy. There are authors and perspectives from different countries and locations and typically in collaboration with numerous authors per chapter. All the chapters explore CE practices and reflect on the contribution towards UN SDGs. The book has six chapters focusing on CE practices applied to flows of technical materials and four chapters focused on the less explored CE practices for organic or biological flows. Concern for the social implications of the circular economy has gained increased academic attention in the last 5 years. At this time, we are seeing a number of social impacts (positive and negative) become realities as various developing countries have focused their policies more directly on implementing circular economy solutions not only in manufacturing but also increasingly in farming. Currently, there is a lack of literature that brings the relationship between the circular economy and the social domain to the forefront in a single compendium of writings. This book, therefore, integrates, side by side, various efforts to garner social benefits of the circular economy occurring in different regions of the world and most notably in Africa and Brazil. This text provides an opportunity for knowledge sharing and capacity building across these regions of the world and among them and the Global North. No book can exhaustively cover all the issues that need to be addressed to understand the relations between social and environmental in the CE, although it is hoped that this volume provides a comprehensive outlook. Altogether these chapters provide powerful support for the potential of the circular economy to address social challenges without losing its focus on environmental protection, with particular relevance for developing countries. The ‘social’ SDGs that are more mentioned as being positively impacted by CE practices are SDG 10 (reduced inequalities) and SDG 2 (zero hunger). In second place, it is SDG 1 (no poverty) and SDG 5 (gender equality). The third tier includes SDG 4 (quality education) and SDG 3 (good health and well-­ being). These SDGs are the less mentioned, and the way impacts are described suggests an indirect effect of CE. In terms of environmental impacts, it is clear that circular practices contribute to progress in SDG 12 (sustainable production and consumption), but several chapters also mention explicitly SDG 6. Positive effects are also found in terms of economic impacts for SDG 8 (decent work) and SDG 9 (innovation). On the other hand, most chapters identify collaboration and partnerships as essential for the circular economy (Chaps. 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13), while Chap. 8 concludes that robust institutions are also a requirement for a successful transition to a CE. In terms of UN SDGs, the implication is that the lack of progress towards SDG 16 (strong institutions) and SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals) would hinder transitions towards a circular economy and affect the potential of the CE to

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Fig. 14.1  Relations between the CE and the ‘social’ UN SDGs

deliver on its social benefits potential. The chapters variously suggest that collaboration and institutions are either enablers of CE, mediators between CE and social impacts or moderators that can enhance or diminish the positive effect of CE in the social domain. Further research is then needed to clarify the relations between SDG 16 and SDG 17 and between these two UN SDGs, circular economy practices and other UN SDG goals. Figure 14.1, seen below, summarises the relations identified between social SDGs and circular economy.

14.2 Implications for Post-pandemic Recovery This support for the social impact of the CE is particularly timely, as this book will hopefully be published as the world leaves the grip of a devastating pandemic that has cost millions of lives. On the one hand, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only showcased the close interdependencies between social and environmental issues discussed in this book, specifically between health and sustainability (mentioned in Chap. 13 in the book), but also awakened environmental awareness, appreciation for nature, leadership by example and willingness to collaborate for the common good (aspects explored as part of a socially aware circular business model in Chap. 9). On the other hand, the tectonic changes made by policymakers for managing the safety of citizens during COVID-19 have exacerbated social exclusion, particularly for those in the informal economy or in vulnerable groups (such as the Ghanaian waste pickers in Chap. 9 or the Namibian artisanal miners in Chap. 10). The economic and social damage caused will linger for years, and swift action will be needed to address the inequalities before marginalisation becomes entrenched.

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The aggregated findings of the book in terms of the potential social impacts of circularity practices make a powerful case for more research and development to advance circularity in mining and manufacturing as a pathway to accelerate recovery. Chapters 2 and 3 conceptualise frameworks to identify explanatory factors leading to social impact, while Chaps. 6, 7, 9 and 12 articulate frameworks and strategies contributing to a positive impact of CE in the achievement of social inclusion and reduced inequality. Chapters 10 and 11 highlight how CE practices can contribute to reducing gender inequality. An analysis of the relation between circular practices and the informal economy is key to unlocking social impacts in developing countries. The book provides examples of top-down and bottom-up circular strategies. Cases from Brazil (Chaps. 7 and 12) exemplify a top-down intended solution, where CE practices are presented as opportunities for disadvantaged communities to exit the informal economy. Government regulations there promote and support the formalisation of cooperatives of gathering waste pickers previously working in the informal economy. Chapter 7 provides valuable guidance on success factors for such policies, suggesting that in many regions only marginal progress has been achieved because such factors were ignored. Chapter 10 provides a counterpoint looking at the informal circular economy of plastic waste in Ghana, suggesting that contrary to expectations of the literature, in precarity bottom-up circularity involving disenfranchised migrant women contributes to reducing gender inequality. The mechanisms at play include freedom from gendered patriarchal structures and identity work, where women emancipate from the social stigma of dirty work and reinvent themselves as circular entrepreneurs providing community service. Chapter 11 also identifies a positive relation between circular entrepreneurship and the reduction of gender inequality, and in this case, enhanced by the use of human-centered product design techniques.

14.3 Inequality The focus on inclusion and inequality in the chapters is very much welcome and needed. If a transition towards a circular economy escalates, countries would be inevitably impacted in the distribution of wealth and resources. As discussed by Oyevaar et al. (2017), long-wave innovation theorists have suggested that the cycles of techno-economic paradigms are closely connected to the dynamics of inequality in society. One such consequence of changing paradigms is the rapid loss of jobs during periods of structural adjustment, and this will happen in older mature industries that cannot change their linear model or in jobs in the informal economy of waste. The redistributive paradigms of the old linear economy may not operate effectively in the new structural configuration (Barrientos et al. 2016), and there is not enough research that explores the political and institutional implications of linear systems. Inequality will be reduced only when new circular employment opportunities exceed the loss of linear jobs (e.g. job losses if there is no more need to extract natural resources) and new circular institutions. In circular global chains, the

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destruction of jobs and the creation of jobs may happen in different regions, even different countries, hampering traditional forms of redistribution and exacerbating geographical inequalities. Theories in global value chains (discussed in Chap. 12) support an increase in inequality if preventive measures are not taken. Ponte (2022) claims that environmental upgrading will increase gaps between the poorest and the rest, the former having reduced opportunities as they lack the varied knowledge required by circular economy chains or the means to achieve it. Growing global supply chain power asymmetries have already led to squeezing workers’ rights in developing country suppliers and trade-offs between environmental and social upgrading (Anner 2022). As mentioned, Brazil is an example of a country that anticipated the impact that circularity could have on inequality and accordingly tried to prevent it with new institutions built around formalisation. An analysis of the impacts of these policies (Chaps. 7 and 12) and practice-based circular business models that are built for the social needs of communities and disadvantaged groups (Chaps. 3 and 9) provides inroads to a wider discussion and research agenda on the topic.

14.4 Sustainable Farming Advocates of green growth policies have been making a persuasive case for green recovery with investment for developing innovative, inclusive and resilient sustainable business models, creating green jobs through new products and services that support the regeneration of the economy, now in alignment with the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Hepburn et al. (2020) surveyed 231 economic exports from G20 countries, including central bank and finance ministry officials, on the relative performance of 25 major types of COVID-19 recovery packages across four dimensions: speed of implementation, economic multiplier, climate impact potential and overall desirability. They identified that policies supporting the agricultural sector were among the most desirable for low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), especially when combined with policies promoting clean R&D— the development and diffusion of technologies and products that have environmental benefits—in the agricultural sectors and related food industries (Hepburn et al. 2020). Furthermore, large-scale production of agricultural products that are part of global supply chains has been found to have a negative social impact including corruption, child labour, slavery, violation of human and reproductive rights, omission of the rights of indigenous people and food insecurity (Martignoni et  al. 2022). Thus, the wicked challenge faced by green agriculture and global food supply chains is how to manage the tensions and trade-offs between economic, environmental and social upgrading (Napolitano et al. 2020). In many developing countries, investment in renewable energies and sustainable agriculture, especially small-scale farming, is seen as a priority to accelerate recovery and ensure that it is long-lasting and socially inclusive (Hepburn et al. 2020).

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However, there is not enough direction on how to integrate social concerns (Zapata et al. 2010). For this situation, this book has provided an array of tools and frameworks. Circular business models for family farmers are explored in Chap. 4, circular food markets are discussed in Chap. 6, south–south collaborations for sustainable farming and education are discussed in Chap. 4, and circular waste collection and management systems that provide employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups have been discussed in Chap. 7, and they can be keystones in a policy portfolio for a recovery led by the farming sector that protects the environment, and it is also socially inclusive.

14.5 An Agenda for the Social Domain on CE Research and Practice Commitment to green growth and circular economy is seen from the USA’s massive climate change investment to the EU, UK, Japan and China’s renewed and strengthened commitment to a green economy. However, Chap. 13 suggests that integration of the social dimension in circular business models and projects does not come so naturally in a developed world context, which may explain the ‘social gaps’ in CE literature that mainly originates in western policy and academic circles. Generational change means that new policymakers and policy influencers have embedded sustainability values, challenging taken-for-granted notions of economic development first. The next decade will have a level of global consensus and support for sustainability previously unseen, but as policymakers and firms start moving from signalling concern to taking actions to implement sustainability, the challenges will multiply, and the need for research-based solutions will grow exponentially. Providing these solutions will require not only success stories and templates for intervention (which this book provides in Chap. 2). It will also require a high-level theoretical understanding of the interdependencies and tensions between different aspects of sustainability, with those previously less explored more crucial to the agenda. More specifically, an understanding of interdependencies between social and environmental challenges will be essential for the advancement of agile, actionable policy-oriented research and innovation that is grounded on the complexities of operational practices. Some inroads are presented here in Chap. 1, but this is an area where much more research is needed. In particular, we call for more case-based, process-­driven theoretical development and the use of mixed methods research. The chapters also showcase that the experience of those countries and companies attempting to localise the targets of the UN SDGs shows that there are no one-size-­ fits-all solutions. Responses to sustainability challenges are highly contingent on local ecosystems, institutions and culture. We call for prominent researchers across the world to concentrate their efforts on these areas of rapidly increasing relevance, creating a growing need for research specialising and excelling in innovative solutions for problems old and new. Similarly, regulators and politicians struggling to

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cope with these modern crises are in desperate need of informed and creative solutions. An overview of key factors for social CE discussed in the chapters leads us to propose that a CE research portfolio for the next generation of challenges will need to encompass research in social and environmental aspects of sustainability as well as in innovation, responsibility, inclusion and environmental justice, all the aspects that need to be considered together when researching the contribution of CE to new sustainability solutions. Perhaps as important, the book confirms that CE research agenda needs to be strongly practice-oriented, with academic institutions actively orchestrating projects looking at partnerships co-creating knowledge and innovation to deliver socially sustainable circular economy outcomes through innovations in processes, outputs and organisational forms. CE research has always cut across business functions, placing CE researchers in an ideal position to develop interventions that will speak to managers across the organisation, thus addressing translation problems that are one of the major internal obstacles to corporate sustainability. All these factors combine to give socially aware CE research a position of advantage to address and even anticipate sustainability research needs and afford scholars in the field a unique opportunity to play a prominent role in sustainability and deliver innovative research on a global stage through the coordinated efforts of researchers, NGOs, policymakers and practitioners. The chapters in this book showcase the importance of having a strategy for developing well-structured and well-­ coordinated interdisciplinary collaborations with partners within and beyond the university while supporting established and new researchers in the development of their careers in a challenging academic climate. Now is the time for a social turn in circular economy research. The return to normal after the pandemic’s disruption offers a great opportunity to bring together a critical mass of researchers across different disciplines working on current key issues related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. A core takeaway from the chapters in the book is that beyond the strong potential of CE to advance specific social SDG objectives, identity, equity, justice and social inclusion are themes affecting the implementation of CE that is not so readily identified as priorities for practitioners in the CE literature. In Chap. 1, we mention more critical views of the CE, where the abovementioned aspects are discussed and the CE is found wanting and flawed (Bauwens 2021). These views are calling for a more radical social turn and reinvention of the CE that seeks to change the eco-centric focus on CE for a wider human-centric focus on a circular society. Such arguments have been articulated more strongly by western researchers and are not featured in the chapters of this book. At their core, there is a debate on growth and post-growth which is not our current focus (for further information on these aspects, refer to Vazquez-Brust et  al. (2012) and Yakovleva et  al. (2019) in the Springer GINS series). We propose the label equitable circular economy to name a CE that maintains environmental protection as its core mission but is purposefully socially inclusive, just and fair and brings to the fore the interdependencies between human and ecological dimensions of sustainable development.

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14.6 Greening of Industrial Studies This book is part of the Springer series titled ‘Greening of Industry Networks Studies (GINS)’. This series aims to improve our understanding of how shifts in industrial regimes, trade and technology are not only creating significant environmental and social impacts and inequities around the world but also introducing opportunities for sustainable economic growth. The series aims to develop knowledge and practice to accelerate a paradigm change towards a sustainable society across disciplines. The series has been an integral part of the Greening of Network strategy, and it will continue playing a central role in GIN-4D (Greening of Industry Network Fourth Decade) strategy.

14.7 Conclusion This chapter provided a basic framework to analyse the relations between the CE and the social UN SDGs. It then provided a more detailed comment on CE and inequality and CE and farming, the two aspects related to UN SDG 2 and UN SDG 10, the SDGs that are featured more prominently in the book. The interest in agendas that bridge the divide between social policy and research and environmental policy and research has been gaining global traction since the UN Agenda 2030 emphasised the interlinked nature of environmental, social and economic issues in sustainability challenges, warning that environmental solutions that are not equitable and socially inclusive will have a fatal shortcoming in terms of implementation and scalability. Crucially, a convergence of technological, organisational and social innovation is required to catalyse equitable sustainability transitions, but these strands of innovation are rarely addressed together in sustainability research and policy. The CE with its widespread appeal to a wide range of stakeholders and disciplines could lead to such a convergence. To this end, such a difficult balancing act needs to be achieved. On the one hand, it needs to embed equity, justice and inclusion. On the other hand, it needs to maintain at its core a radical transformative agenda for environmental protection and address the tensions that affect such an agenda. In a nutshell, eco-centric while socially progressive, we termed it equitable circular economy. In many ways, a socially progressive CE agenda is a newborn, and this book is an initial attempt to understand how we can nurture and support it in its evolution. Acknowledgements  We wish to thank the various contributors to this book for their time and effort spent on the very important issues facing the environment and humankind. Special thanks to the scholars that contributed to blind peer reviews of the chapters. We also thank the publisher for their effort in making the book occur and the Greening of Industry Network for their continued support.

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