The circular economy: an accelerating or decelerating transition?

The rise of the circular economy is a quest for different stakeholders that are looking for ways to represent their interests while dealing with the transition dynamics. Incumbent parties and interesting newcomers are trying to determine their positions, in a multitude of visionary ideas and innovative new practices.

Examples are the Agreement on Resources the Dutch government plans to close in cooperation with the industry, the Dutch Association of Municipalities, and diverse non-governmental organizations, and the various experiments that implement  the core principles of the circular economy (as described in our op-ed on duurzaamgebouwd.nl).

In our new essay, we lay bare these change dynamics by using a transitions perspective, in order to trace how different stakeholders are impacting the transition. By studying the case of the circular smartphone, we aimed to discover if these parties are decelerating of accelerating the transition towards a circular economy. In our essay (in Dutch) you read everything about the case, our research, results and recommendations.

Authors

Marleen Lodder, Charlie Spork, Chris Roorda

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Download PDF (NL)

Date
November 17, 2016