Circular Disruption : Concepts, Enablers and Ways Ahead

The circular economy concept is widely celebrated among scholars and practitioners as an allegedly viable pathway towards sustainability. However, limited progress has been made thus far in implementing this concept. Indeed, scholarly research has oftentimes focused on barriers to circular economy implementation, but less about how to lead and practically implement the change to circular economy. The aim of this special issue is to shift the scholarly discourse towards investigating how circular economy implementation may work. Accordingly, we propose and develop the term 'circular disruption' throughout the nine papers that constitute this special issue. Circular disruption is about radically and rapidly reconfiguring the current socio-technical system towards a more sustainable model. Whereas a variety of stakeholders are likely needed for circular disruption to happen, the papers in the special issue at hand particularly explore the role of policymakers and businesses (incumbents, start-ups) as enablers. Furthermore, we explore digitization as possibly one of the most under-estimated ways ahead regarding sustainability. This special issue may contribute to provoking a fruitful debate on further accelerating the transition towards a circular economy