European Manufacturers Towards the Circular Economy: Barriers That Hinder the Effective Implementation

Introduction

The current linear production and consumption model is increasingly proving to be unsuitable to ensure both a healthy environment and, clearly, the health of the entire humanity (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Gusmerotti et al., 2019; Kirchherr et al., 2017; Schröder et al, 2020). The consequences triggered by this model are evident to everybody: starting from global warming, this is the cause of glacial melting, the rise of ocean levels, widespread fires, strange atmospheric events, the loss of animal and plant species, and so on (EMAF, 2019). Therefore, the question arises: how did we get to this point?

The origins can be mainly traced back to the growing and unstoppable human activities arisen since the Industrial Revolution, and which have given rise to an intensive use of raw materials to meet the growing needs of society (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Brem and Puente-Díaz, 2020). This model is so deeply rooted in societal mindset that has completely changed the consumers lifestyles and habits, defining in 4 simple phases – take, make, use, dispose – what should have been the normal life cycle of a product intended to prematurely become waste (EMAF, 2015). This has inevitably led to a decrease of the intrinsic value of raw materials, as well as a perpetual dependence on mining activities which feed the production sector. In turn, this is strongly dependent on fossil fuels, the main driver of the linear economy and at the same time the main source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) (UNEP, 2019).

It is evident that a linear production and consumption approach is increasingly amplifying the gap between intensive human activities and the (in)capacity of natural capital to regenerate itself at the same pace (Zucchella and Previtali, 2019). It is crucial today to intervene in order to counteract the further potential serious implications to ensure enough resources, food, space for a constantly growing global population over time, restoring a stable balance between nature and man towards a more sustainable future (Brem and Puente-Díaz, 2020; Gusmerotti et al., 2019; Murray et al., 2015; Ranta et al., 2018; Zucchella and Previtali, 2019).

In this regard, the Circular Economy (CE) may represent at least part of the solution, bringing significant economic, environmental and social benefits to all the European Union States members. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMAF) defines the CE as “an alternative development strategy aimed at: decoupling economic activity from resource consumption, designing waste and pollution out of the system and keeping products and materials in use”. However, several barriers are hindering the transition towards a complete implementation of the CE principles.

In this perspective, the objective of this chapter is to investigate the origins of the CE first of all, but the real focus is to contribute to the academic debate on the evaluation of those barriers that overall hinder the implementation of CE principles within European manufacturing sector, providing also new entrepreneurs, or “traditional” business, useful hints. Starting with an in-depth literature review with a systematic approach, it was possible to identify 35 articles that have been in-depth analysed. The initial output of the literature review is the systematization of the barriers resulted from scattered contributions, first of all categorized into external and internal – referring if they originate within a company or from outside, thus not controllable – and then enriched with further sub-barriers. In the end, a comprehensive map of such barriers is reported as the main contribution of the study.