How to turn circular economy into an asset? On the role of stakeholders’ partnerships
How to turn circular economy into an asset? On the role of stakeholders’ partnerships
CHIARA DE BERNARDI - MARCO FREYObjectives. The Earth’s capacity to sustain humankind is reaching a tipping point. Circular economy, described as a promising approach to achieve sustainability without losing competitiveness, enables value creation, delivery and capture, essential elements for a viable business strategy. Even if research on CE has grown in recent years, few scholars have approached it with a comprehensive perspective considering its economic, environmental and social sides. Although scholars have demonstrated that CE is not possible without collaboration of stakeholders, they have also noticed that there is still a lack of collaboration research. The focus of this research is to explore the role of stakeholders’ partnerships for CE, with a focus on values creation, in all its forms. We investigate our research question through a qualitative exploratory case study. The chosen organization is KME Italy, a company which manufactures semi-finished products made of copper and copper alloys. KME has, in challenged itself to, not only implement circular economy practices, but also become a circular economy business model. With this study, providing further evidence of the strategic role of partnerships and of the social dimension of circular economy, we aim to both contribute to the current circular economy debate and to provide practical implications for managers.
#Circular Economy #partnerships #stakeholders #value creation