Original title: A typology of circular economy discourses: Navigating the diverse visions of a contested paradigm
The circular economyAn approach to organising economic activity around cycles of resources rather than a simple pattern of use and disposal. is the idea of organising society so resources are used in cycles rather than wasted. But people disagree about what that should involve and who should benefit. The researchers reviewed earlier writing and traced 72 related ideas from the Global North and South. They grouped circular visions by how they approach social, technological, political and ecological questions. The result is a way to compare competing ideas about possible futures.
Imagine a family trying to agree on how to make the household less wasteful. One person wants to repair and reuse things, while another focuses on buying new efficient appliances. The hard part is that they may use the same goal but disagree about what matters, who benefits, and what should change. In this paper, the different household plans stand for circular economy visions, and the sorting guide stands for the typology that helps compare them.
Governments and companies use the circular economy to guide choices about sustainability, but different groups mean different things by it. This typology helps people compare those visions and notice the social, political and ecological questions they may leave out.
The abstract describes a conceptual typology developed through a critical literature review. It does not report testing the typology in practice, measuring its effects on policy or sustainability, or establishing which circular vision works best.
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A typology of circular economy discourses: Navigating the diverse visions of a contested paradigm — Martin Calisto Friant, Walter J.V. Vermeulen, Roberta Salomone — Resources Conservation and Recycling — doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.104917
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.