1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Catalysts for a Sustainable Circular Economy
This groundbreaking handbook leads the way in accelerating the transition to a sustainable circular economy by introducing the concept of a catalyst as a positive and enhancing driving force for sustainability. Catalysts create and maintain favourable conditions for complex systemic sustainability transition changes, and a discussion and understanding of catalysts is required to move from a linear economy to a sustainable and circular economy.
With contributions from leading experts from around the globe, this volume presents theoretical insights, contextualised case studies, and participatory methodologies, which identify different catalysts, including technology, innovation, business models, management and organisation, regulation, sustainability policy, product design, and culture. The authors then show how these catalysts accelerate sustainability transitions. As a unique value to the reader, the book brings together public policy and private business perspectives to address the circular economy as a systemic change. Its theoretical and practical perspectives are coupled with real-world case studies from Finland, Italy, China, India, Nigeria, and others to provide tangible insights on catalysing the circular economy across organisational, hierarchical, and disciplinary boundaries.
With its broad interdisciplinary and geographically diverse scope, this handbook will be a valuable tool for researchers, academics, and policy-makers in the fields of circular economy, sustainability transitions, environmental studies, business, and the social sciences more broadly.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
1. Introduction: Circular economy catalysts in sustainability transition
Hanna Lehtimäki, Leena Aarikka-Stenroos, Ari Jokinen, Pekka Jokinen, Juha Kotilainen
Part I: Contextualized understanding of catalysts
2. Catalysts for urban circularity: reasoning by analogy approach
Ari Jokinen, Pekka Jokinen, Leena Aarikka-Stenroos, Marika Kokko, Johanna Kujala, Hanna Lehtimäki, Jere Nieminen
3. ‘ReCreating’ the construction sector for circularity: Catalysing the reuse of prefabricated concrete elements
Satu Huuhka, Leena Aarikka-Stenroos, Jukka Lahdensivu, Paul Jonker-Hoffrén, Viktoria Arnold, Erik Stenberg, Rijk Blok, Kjartan Gudmundsson, Patrick Teuffel, Angelika Mettke
4. Catalysing the textile industry toward circular economy: An ecosystem approach
Olga Dziubaniuk, Leena Aarikka-Stenroos, Eeva-Leena Pohls
5. A review of circular economy in Nigeria: From rhetoric to enterprise development
Muhammed Akanji, Nathaniel Amoah, Oreva Theresa Akpoveso, Oreva Atanya, Chris Ogbechie
6. Catalysts for transition to circular economy solutions in the bio-waste management sector in India
Bhavesh Sarna, Rahul Singh, Pankaj Singh Rawat
7. Plastic waste and a circular economy in China: Current situation and future possibilities
Jouni Havukainen, Mariam Abdulkareem, Yayong Yang, Mi Yan, Mika Horttanainen
8. The role of institutional environment in catalysing circular entrepreneurship: A cross-country comparison of Finland and Italy
Beatrice Re, Kaisa Henttonen, Ville-Veikko Piispanen, Hanna Lehtimäki
Part II: Types of catalysts
9. Regulatory catalysts for circular economy
Topi Turunen, Eleanor Reyes Mateo, Joonas Alaranta
10. Mission-oriented policy as a catalyst for transition to a circular economy
Lina Dagiliene, Jurgita Bruneckiene, Viktorija Varaniute, Justina Banioniene
11. Information as a catalyst for the circular economy
Nina Tura, Matias Ståhle, Tuomas Ahola, Jyri Hanski, Pasi Valkokari
12. Design as a catalyst for the circular economy
Lykke Margot Ricard, Sofie Bach Hybel, Sergio Jofre
13. Circular economy and finance: Either a straightforward relation or a virtuous loop?
Claudio Zara and Luca Bellardini
14. Core competences and core resources as catalysts for the design of circular business models
Davide Chiaroni and Andrea Urbinati
15. Artificial intelligence as a catalyst in the circular economy transition
Kang Li
16. Gamification as a catalyst to the circular economy
Georgina Guillen Mandujano, Marc Riar, Benedikt Morschheuser, Juho Hamari
Part III: Methodological approaches for catalysing
17. Mid-range transition arenas as catalysts in a circular economy
Tatu Marttila, Jani Lukkarinen, Sampsa Hyysalo, David Lazarevic, Helena Valve
18. Design thinking tools to catalyse sustainable circular innovation
Nancy Bocken, Brian Baldassarre, Duygu Keskin, JC Diehl
19. Scenario method for catalysing circularity and lowering emissions in the construction sector/real estate, Nigeria
Olumide Ayanrinde and Jeffrey Mahachi
20. Digital affordances for a circular economy transition: A multiple case study of digital technology-enabled circular business models
Outi Blackburn, Paavo Ritala, Joona Keränen
21. Accelerating the adoption of circular economy: An extended diffusion model for understanding consumer perceptions of circular economy products
Jennifer D. Russell and Okechukwu Okorie
22. Co-creation art to catalyse competencies for a sustainability transition
Juha Suonpää and Peter Sramek
23. Utopias as catalysts for a sustainable circular economy
Marileena Mäkelä and Maili Marjamaa
Part IV: Conceptual understanding of catalysing
24. Toward a typology of circular economy agency
Satu Teerikangas, Tiina Onkila, Katariina Koistinen, Antero Hirvensalo, Angelina Korsunova, Marileena Mäkelä, Milla Sarja, Mira Valkjärvi, Noelia Reynolds
25. Roles of virtual intermediaries in the transition to a circular economy
Magnus Moglia, Christian Andi Nygaard, Olamide Shittu, Tmnit H. Halefom, Sean Trewick
26. The assembling of circular consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach
Elina Närvänen, Christian Fuentes, Nina Mesiranta
27. Catalysing a circular transition in Brixton
Joanna Williams and Josefine Hintz
28 ‘Regime-niche’ actors as catalysts in the transition to a circular economy
Rachel Greer
29. Catalysts in a sustainable circular economy: Directions for future research
Hanna Lehtimäki, Leena Aarikka-Stenroos, Ari Jokinen, Pekka Jokinen, Juha Kotilainen
Biography
Hanna Lehtimäki is a professor of innovation management in the business school and a director of research for the Center for Sustainable Circular Economy at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research examines circular economy with theoretical frameworks on strategic management, organisation theory, leadership, and entrepreneurship. She and her research team advance transdisciplinary social sciences research and societal impact in sustainable circular economy transition.
Leena Aarikka-Stenroos is a professor of industrial management and a director of the Research Centre for Managing Circular Economy, ManCE at Tampere University in Finland. Her research on circular economy is positioned in the multidiciplinary crossroads of innovation, technological development, and business including business-to-business marketing and ecosystems. She holds leader and specialist positions to advance ecological sustainability.
Ari Jokinen is a senior research fellow in environmental policy at Tampere University in Finland. He holds a PhD in administrative sciences and is an adjunct professor in natural resources policy at the University of Eastern Finland. His research interests include sustainability policy, focusing on urban transformations, circular economy, biodiversity, and the politics of nature.
Pekka Jokinen is a professor of environmental policy at Tampere University, Finland. His research focuses on environmental governance, social change, and sustainabilities, and his current work concerns climate policy and urban circular economy. Jokinen has written on a wide range of issues in environmental politics and policy.
“For the last 50 years, we have come to realise that there are not only natural resource limits to our economic growth but that our extraction methods are – indisputably – responsible for global warming, ever-increasing levels of pollution, and dire health effects. However, despite all this data, we have been reluctant to act. In the last few years, circular economy initiatives and regulations have emerged as viable remedies to these calamities, but a deeper look often reveals a lack of a true systemic circular transition. This book is closing an urgent gap because it helps us understand the actual catalyzers of circularity and in so doing, once activated, long-term, sustainable change can finally take place.”
Gordana Kierans, EntrepreneurCircle.World, Croatia
“An impressive array of experts masterfully help us to understand and expand the role of catalysts to help transition from linear to circular business models across industries, regions, and approaches. This handbook is both guidebook and playbook, and provides both sides of the telescope – informative zoom-ins, as well as insightful zoom-outs to help us take the necessary next steps to begin the transition in earnest.”
Alon Rozen, Dean and Professor of Innovation, École des Ponts Business School, France
