Practising circles: Studying institutional change and circular economy practices

Abstract

Recent international and national policy initiatives promulgate the Circular Economy (CE) as the new central pathway towards sustainable modes of production and consumption. A growing number of commentators criticize the approach, despite its success in triggering discussions about product design (longevity, reparability) and about options for sharing goods and services. The criticism centers on the mere technological fix orientation of the CE approach and its ecological modernist idea of gradually adapting the current production system to material resource constraints - while leaving aside socio-political aspects of consumption as well as the possible need for sufficiencyoriented lifestyles. This paper argues for a broader understanding of CE and for the use of an institutional perspective inspired through practice theory, and presents a framework to assess the transformative potential of CE, encompassing its alternative/dissenting articulations in the noncorporate sector.