Resumo

We live in a context of food, economic and social crises, environmental pollution, growing awareness of social responsibility, sustainability and concern for the environment (Fibl & Ifoam, 2021). In addition, the continuous decrease of non-renewable resources, with the continuous increase of the global population, pressures scholars and entrepreneurs to find new approaches to production and consumption (Lakatos et al., 2016). In this sense, the adoption of the Circular Economy (CE) is seen as one of the ways to solve this dilemma.

Within the CE context, a number of studies point to drivers and barriers to CE adoption in different sectors and countries. However, despite CE studies, there is a lack of investigation in the literature regarding a macro analysis of the drivers and barriers to CE adoption. Thus, through a systematic literature review, it will be possible to have an overview of the drivers and barriers to CE adoption.

CE focuses on maintenance, reuse/redistribution/remanufacturing/recycling, circularity and optimization of resources, the use of clean energy and process efficiency, with zero waste as a basic premise (Sehnem & Pereira, 2019).

To have an overview of the drivers and barriers to CE adoption, the method of systematic literature review was used. This method consists of a content analysis of selected studies based on specific criteria defined by the author. In the present study, four stages were followed: definition of the database to be used, search for studies according to clear criteria, refinement of the set of selected studies, and analysis through data coding and structuring of findings.

The results from the analysis of the 53 articles with drivers and/or barriers to CE was described. It was found different contexts and sectors which studies were applied, and a significant range of countries and regions around the world. There are more articles in the literature presenting barriers than drivers to CE adoption. Some articles used categories to present drivers and barriers. Following this idea, the drivers and barriers listed from the literature review, were grouped according to 10 categories proposed for this study.

Finally, it is presented and explained the ten categories of drivers that can help the CE implementation and barriers to disrupt the CE adoption, as follow: environmental, supply chain, economic, information, legal, market, organizational, public, social and technological.

Fibl & Ifoam – Organics International. (2021). The World of Organic Agriculture Statistics and Emerging Trends 2021. https://www.fibl.org/fileadmin/documents/shop/1150-organic-world-2021.pdf Lakatos, E.S., Dan, V., Cioca, L.I., Bacali, L., & Ciobanu, A.M. (2016). How supportive are Romanian consumers of the circular economy concept: A survey. Sustainability, 8(8), 789. Sehnem, S., & Pereira, S.C.F. (2019). Rumo à Economia Circular: Sinergia Existente entre as Definições Conceituais Correlatas e Apropriação para a Literatura Brasileira. Revista Eletrônica de Ciência Administrativa, 18(1), 35-62