Designing the Sustainable Circular Economy: From Products to Politics

Mainstream circular economy emphasizes the decarbonization of the economy through the slowing and closing of biological and technical loops as the way to ensure sustainable green growth. Despite widespread enthusiasm in government, industry, and business for the circular economy narrative, the global appetite for circular economy has been thus far limited while critics of mainstream circularity point to semantic and methodological problems with the promise of circular green growth. More recent formulations of a sustainable circular economy (and circular society) look to reconnect the technological narrative of circular economy to the social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. In this book, we argue that a just sustainability transition can be achieved if both the material and socio-political dimensions of change are designed. In this introduction, we identify the developments in the circular economy and sustainable circular economy debates, and we introduce the chapters from our co-authors who take up the challenge of pointing to the policy and practice changes that must be designed if a socially just and ecologically sound sustainability transition is to take place in the future.