During the recent two decades, academic research and public discourse on circular economy (CE) have been proliferating. With the increased scarcity of natural resources as well as the exceedance of safe limits of 4 out of 9 planetary boundaries (including CO2 atmospheric concentration), CE is increasingly considered a key path to sustainable development. The CE offers a synergetic solution by striving to maintain materials and resources, both primary and secondary, for as long as possible in the economy while minimizing harmful emissions and waste. However, despite the numerous research, endless policy documents, and regulatory efforts, circularity is still in its infancy in most of the developed world. This is attributed to the required systemic, deep, transformation of entire value chains. Given the growing role of consumers, paving the way for CE must involve them, while considering their perceptions, attitudes, and preferences towards the different aspects of CE.
Based on previous research and accumulative practical experience, stimulating demand for circular goods is challenged by two entangled structural hurdles: while circularity potentially increases producers’ costs, consumers’ concerns about the reliability and quality of reused or remanufactured goods result in low interest in these products and consequently in reluctance to pay a premium price for these products. This Research Topic is aimed at identifying measures to overcome the latter hurdle by shaping positive perceptions toward circularity and triggering demand for circular goods. For this reason, it is imperative to 1. understand current state consumer attitudes, preferences, and acceptance of circularity, and, 2. identify measures to shift negative dispositions and create positive preferences towards this conscious, responsible, consumption behavior and internalize the negative externalities imposed by the linear economy. These two aims are interrelated.
This Research Topic welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions to bridge these research gaps while distinguishing between developed and emerging economies, product categories, regulatory regimes, consumers’ segments, or types of circular business models, as identified by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), namely, circular supply, resource recovery, product life extension, sharing and product-service systems. Contributions can be drawn from fields such as environmental marketing/management, behavioral/environmental economics, environmental psychology, or environmental regulation, and should be able to guide new and adapted policies and policy tools, including, but not limited to, soft regulatory measures (e.g. nudges, de-marketing, communication, and awareness-raising tools) aimed at stimulating demand for circularity, including identifying segments of early adopters, demand trade-offs or mediating effects. Potential contributors are encouraged to employ experimental methods (survey-or field-based, revealed- or stated preferences), conduct randomized control trials, and simulate policy measures using agent-based and multi-modeling approaches. Other relevant approaches are also welcomed.
During the recent two decades, academic research and public discourse on circular economy (CE) have been proliferating. With the increased scarcity of natural resources as well as the exceedance of safe limits of 4 out of 9 planetary boundaries (including CO2 atmospheric concentration), CE is increasingly considered a key path to sustainable development. The CE offers a synergetic solution by striving to maintain materials and resources, both primary and secondary, for as long as possible in the economy while minimizing harmful emissions and waste. However, despite the numerous research, endless policy documents, and regulatory efforts, circularity is still in its infancy in most of the developed world. This is attributed to the required systemic, deep, transformation of entire value chains. Given the growing role of consumers, paving the way for CE must involve them, while considering their perceptions, attitudes, and preferences towards the different aspects of CE.
Based on previous research and accumulative practical experience, stimulating demand for circular goods is challenged by two entangled structural hurdles: while circularity potentially increases producers’ costs, consumers’ concerns about the reliability and quality of reused or remanufactured goods result in low interest in these products and consequently in reluctance to pay a premium price for these products. This Research Topic is aimed at identifying measures to overcome the latter hurdle by shaping positive perceptions toward circularity and triggering demand for circular goods. For this reason, it is imperative to 1. understand current state consumer attitudes, preferences, and acceptance of circularity, and, 2. identify measures to shift negative dispositions and create positive preferences towards this conscious, responsible, consumption behavior and internalize the negative externalities imposed by the linear economy. These two aims are interrelated.
This Research Topic welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions to bridge these research gaps while distinguishing between developed and emerging economies, product categories, regulatory regimes, consumers’ segments, or types of circular business models, as identified by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), namely, circular supply, resource recovery, product life extension, sharing and product-service systems. Contributions can be drawn from fields such as environmental marketing/management, behavioral/environmental economics, environmental psychology, or environmental regulation, and should be able to guide new and adapted policies and policy tools, including, but not limited to, soft regulatory measures (e.g. nudges, de-marketing, communication, and awareness-raising tools) aimed at stimulating demand for circularity, including identifying segments of early adopters, demand trade-offs or mediating effects. Potential contributors are encouraged to employ experimental methods (survey-or field-based, revealed- or stated preferences), conduct randomized control trials, and simulate policy measures using agent-based and multi-modeling approaches. Other relevant approaches are also welcomed.
