Circular economy value chain collaborations - exploring the ‘why,’ ‘where’, ‘who’ and ‘how’

This paper explores collaboration in Circular Economy Value Chains (CEVCs). The aim is to establish an analytical framework for better understanding how collaboration helps value chains (VC) to work in line with circular economy (CE) principles. In the transition from a linear economy to a CE, economic actors have to cooperate together in new ways. In a linear economy most actors involved in the VC are specialised and have only limited interaction, which means they cannot create circular systems autonomously. In contrast, in a CE companies and other actors need to collaborate to identify, develop, implement and operate circular strategies. However, currently, CE is in its early stages of development. In order to transition to more circular industrial systems there is a need to better understand how to create CEVCs. To this end, this paper presents the preliminary results of an analysis of CE cases contained in the CIRCLE LAB knowledge hub: focusing on 46 cases in the domain of textile and fashion. We identify the key characteristics of collaborative efforts aimed at creating CEVCs. This paper is structured as follows. First, the current state of the CEVC literature is described. Next, the methodology for the data gathering and analysis is explained. This is followed by a presentation of the resulting insights and an explanation through means of illustrative case examples. A discussion outlining the implications and uses of the framework, as well as further work conclude this paper.