Characteristics and implications of a diversified circular economy. The case of a Belgian not-for-profit cooperative

Irma Emmery^*Erik Paredis

• Department of Political Sciences, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

The Circular Economy as a resource sustainability strategy is both established and contentious in and beyond academia. This paper contributes to the growth-critical scholarship on circularity, starting from the premise that circular economic diversity is both a function of, and is required for, an economy beyond growth-dependency. Exploring the question what this diverse circularity might look like on the ground, this paper inventories the wide range of circular activities and relationships taking place in a not-for-profit maker cooperative in Belgium and distils the main characteristics expressed in and by those activities and relations. Our methodology deploys the Diverse Economies (DE) framework, which enables the study and classification of economic activity – including non-market and informal economic practices – and which broadens our understanding of what can be considered ‘circular economic’. We found that many of the circular activities we observed (repairing, urban mining, reusing, dismantling, maintaining) are often overlooked in the literature on CE strategies, tend to involve a wider variety of materials than in the for-profit CE (unruly left-over materials, outdated furniture, bicycle components typically discarded), and occur within a wider range of economic dynamics (including informal and non-monetary encounters). We also identified four characteristics that pattern these diverse activities and relations: diversified material value and purpose, redefined work, social embeddedness, and resilience in the face of precarity. Based on these results, we make the case that diverse circularity might be crucial for our collective wellbeing in critical futures: they include more diverse actors, are more creative with whichever materials are locally available, include a wider skill-set and are more tethered to community approaches to provisioning. Lastly, the paper highlights why and how structural barriers related to spatial planning and financial investment need to be overcome in order to support diverse circularities.