Dear Colleagues,

Today, both businesses and consumers confront unparalleled challenges in the realm of sustainability. As a result, achieving sustainable development necessitates revolutionary shifts in the behaviors of businesses and consumers alike. The notion of a circular economy introduces a fresh paradigm for the design, manufacturing, consumption, and disposal of goods. This approach is oriented towards addressing global concerns like climate change, the decline of biodiversity, waste, pollution, and inequality. The circular economy model offers an innovative pathway characterized by the fusion of technological breakthroughs and the harmonization of natural ecosystems, business operations, daily life, and waste management. By harnessing pioneering technologies, businesses can expedite and enhance the transition towards an all-encompassing circular economy, while concurrently empowering consumers to adopt more responsible roles. Noteworthy enterprises such as Patagonia, Adidas, Nike, and Levi's have already harnessed these cutting-edge technologies to engineer their supply chains in a manner that eliminates waste and pollution. This approach keeps products and materials in a state of usability, generating positive impacts on the economy, the environment, and society at large. Simultaneously, a prominent movement rooted in consumer environmentalism has been steadily gaining momentum. Consumers are now asserting their demand for businesses to assume accountability and for products to be sustainable.

Although the number of studies focusing on circular economy and the impact of technological innovation on business and consumer sustainability have been increasing in recent years, our knowledge on these topics is still far from satisfactory, given the rapid developments in the field. The purpose of this Special Issue is to facilitate an in-depth discussion on the circular economy and technological innovation as a path toward sustainability, and provide a forum for researchers in this area to disseminate research findings that can shed light on these critical issues. While the Special Issue is open to empirical research articles that offer theoretical and practical contributions to the areas of interest based on varied research methods, viz., qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, conceptual articles are also welcome.

We solicit both original research articles and reviews for submission to the Special Issue. Research topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Circular economy;
• Technological innovation toward sustainability;
• Sustainable production and consumption;
• Sustainable supply chain management;
• Waste management;
• Recycling and upcycling;
• Consumer environmentalism;
• Lifecycle assessment;
• Sharing economy;
• Collaborative consumption.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Ting Chi
Dr. Xingqiu Lou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• circular economy
• technological innovation
• sustainable supply chain
• sustainable materials
• collaborative consumption
• sustainable consumption
• recycling
• upcycling
• waste management
• LCA