Managing, Measuring, and Reporting Circular Economy Performances: Opportunities and Challenges

Dear Colleagues,

Many reports claim that the planet is on the verge of a catastrophic collapse. The repercussions (and the side-effects) of the business activities conducted by companies in modern economies and around the world include problems such as resource scarcity and overexploitation, climate change, pollution, starvation, and poverty.

Calls for more responsible resource management are being made in this context, while also highlighting the need for organizations globally to better conceptualize the opportunities presented by sustainability and, as a result, to incorporate sustainable strategies into their internal decision-making systems. At the same time, stakeholders throughout the world are pressuring businesses to enhance the amount of transparency in their reporting and disclosure of their strategies, activities, and the consequences that follow in terms of their effects on the economy, society, and the environment.

Following this, the situation has been the subject of a spirited debate at several levels (such as political, intellectual, and operational), which has caused the formation of numerous proposals and numerous improvements in the areas of sustainability assessment, management, and reporting. In general, organizations are being increasingly pushed to adopt more responsible behavior with the ultimate goal of conserving resources, minimizing the effects and side-effects of their actions, and, if and when possible, finding and implementing solutions that are profitable for their shareholders. To put it another way, corporate organizations are said to be focusing more and more on the broad subject of sustainability as a crucial component of their business model, so as to increase performance over time.

The emphasis of this Special Issue is primarily on the idea of the circular economy (hereafter CE), the operational principles it entails, and the tools that might be used to foster awareness and understanding within management teams, with the ultimate goal of assisting decision-making and influencing the development of future strategies.

A CE can be conceptualized broadly as an economic system where goods and services are traded in closed-loop cycles, notwithstanding varied definitions. As emphasized by its label, a CE is a system in contrast with the linear-oriented system that has traditionally characterized our production processes (so-called “linear economy”). In fact, a CE is thought of as an economy that is designed to preserve as much value as possible of goods, parts, and resources, thereby lowering or eliminating waste.

Although this approach can generate an array of short- and long-term benefits, its ultimate goal and strength are to create a system that allows for longer life of resources and a decrease in the waste generated by our activities through an integrative approach of a few core principles based on the functioning of circularity expressed by the concept of a “feedback loop” (or “closed-loop”). The identification of the aforementioned approaches, frameworks, and feedback loops has undoubtedly given organizations from various industries across the world the chance not only to investigate their operations and eventually rethink their processes, but also to engage in a discussion—internally within the team of owners/managers and/or externally, with their stakeholders—relying on a more established set of CE-related concepts and measures. This is fundamental for companies and managers operating in various geographical areas of the world and in different industries, and previous research has witnessed the increasing relevance of CE in this regard.

The extant literature does, however, also highlight the fact that there are still a number of research gaps, such as the challenges associated with fully implementing CE principles within organizations, particularly those that are small and/or family-owned.

Building on these considerations, this Special Issue aims to provide the opportunity for authors to contribute original and unpublished articles that focus on the concept of circular economy and the opportunities it provides, specifically looking at the processes and tools needed to measure, report, and manage circular economy-related domains and systems.

With this backdrop, we invite contributions across a range of themes including the following topics:

• The concept of CE.
• The frameworks and approaches used to represent and manage CE.
• The data and the indicators needed and used to measure CE.
• The reporting options and tools at organizations’ disposal to disclose CE-related data and information.
• Case studies about CE in real business settings.
• Simulation models used to investigate CE opportunities.
• Drawbacks, challenges and barriers of CE initiatives.
• CE in different industries or settings.
• CE in small and medium enterprises.
• Circular economy and firms’ value chain processes.
• Circular business model innovation.
• Impact of digital transformation on CE.
• CE and emerging economies.
• Role of environmental accounting in fostering CE.
• Management accounting systems and CE.

Qualitative as well as quantitative methodological approaches will be welcome in addressing the topics mentioned above.

Prof. Dr. Federico Barnabè
Prof. Dr. Maria Cleofe Giorgino
Prof. Dr. Sergio Paternostro
Guest Editors

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• circular economy
• corporate and sustainability reporting
• performance measurement and management
• value creation