Barriers to the Circular Economy: Evidence From the European Union (EU)
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These potential technical barriers appear to remain under-appreciated in current political and stakeholder debates on the CE.
“Notably, these potential technical barriers appear to remain under-appreciated in current political and stakeholder debates on the CE (Kirchherr et al., 2018;Leipold and Petit-Boix, 2018).”
From Transforming the bio-based sector towards a circular economy: What can we learn from wood cascading? (2020) · cites this paper as Kirchherr et al., 2018
Section 4.5 (Implications; page unavailable) says current governmental CE strategies focus on overcoming technological barriers, rather than under-appreciating them. Section 4.4 (Technological Barriers; page unavailable) reports that the surveyed stakeholders did not rank technical barriers among the most pressing barriers. The paper's point is that technical barriers receive substantial attention despite appearing less pressing than cultural barriers. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredCompanies lack willingness, awareness, and resources to engage with circular economy.
“A common major finding in this literature is that companies lack willingness, awareness, and resources to engage with CE”
From Is Prolonging the Lifetime of Passive Durable Products a Low-Hanging Fruit of a Circular Economy? A Multiple Case Study (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
Section 4.1 identifies hesitant company culture as a major barrier, supporting the point about companies’ willingness to engage with CE. But its finding about lacking interest and awareness concerns consumers, not companies. Section 4.2 reports high upfront investment costs while saying funding is available and limited funding ranks only tenth, so a general lack of company resources overstates the finding. Page numbers are not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredCompanies often perceive circular economy strategies as too risky and lacking economic viability.
“and that they often perceive CE strategies as too risky and lacking economic viability [11,14,15].”
From Is Prolonging the Lifetime of Passive Durable Products a Low-Hanging Fruit of a Circular Economy? A Multiple Case Study (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
For a PSS to contribute to a circular economy, it must be an attractive business for companies so that it actually gets implemented.
“The first is that a PSS, or other circular measure, must be an attractive business for companies so that it actually gets implemented [11][12][13]”
From Is Prolonging the Lifetime of Passive Durable Products a Low-Hanging Fruit of a Circular Economy? A Multiple Case Study (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
Financial barriers are only one set of barriers to a company implementing circular measures or strategies.
“Financial barriers, although crucial, are only one set of barriers to a company implementing circular measures or strategies [11,15].”
From Is Prolonging the Lifetime of Passive Durable Products a Low-Hanging Fruit of a Circular Economy? A Multiple Case Study (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
Kirchherr et al. (2018) determined through surveys and expert interviews that cultural aspects are the main barriers to CE implementation in the EU, whereas technological limitations are not core challenges.
“Kirchherr et al. (2018) determine, through surveys and expert interviews, that cultural aspects are the main barriers to CE implementation in the EU, whereas technological limitations are not core challenges.”
From Transforming the bio-based sector towards a circular economy: What can we learn from wood cascading? (2020) · cites this paper as Kirchherr et al. (2018)
The categorization of influencing factors partially aligns with the findings and classification of barriers to CE from de Jesus and Mendonça (2018) and Kirchherr et al. (2018), with additional factors related to environmental effects.
“This categorization partially aligns with the findings and classification of barriers to CE from de Jesus and Mendonça (2018) and Kirchherr et al. (2018), as we identified some additional factors related to environmental effects.”
From Transforming the bio-based sector towards a circular economy: What can we learn from wood cascading? (2020) · cites this paper as Kirchherr et al. (2018)
The authors' observations that students and IT practitioners lacked understanding of sustainability and its relationship with IT products corroborated other studies.
“Our observations corroborated other studies (e.g., [45,48,58]).”
From Lessons learned from developing a sustainability awareness framework for software engineering using design science (2024) · cites this paper as [58]
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“Moreover, we note that the barrier ‘ Lacking consumer interest and awareness ’ may result in the barrier ‘ Hesitant company culture ’ , as also implied by some of our inter-viewees, since companies are conditioned to respond to the consumer (Christensen, 1997; Friedman, 1970).”
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- Authors
- Kirchherr, J., Piscicelli, L., Bour, R., Kostense-Smit, E., Muller, J., Huibrechtse-Truijens, A., & Hekkert, M.
- Affiliations
- Utrecht University (NL)
- Deloitte (United States) (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kirchherr, Julian
- Venue
- Ecological Economics
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-08
- Volume
- 150
- Pages
- 264-272
- ISSN
- 0921-8009 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2799571143
- Cited by
- 1,903
- References
- 63
- Citations by year
- 2026: 302 · 2025: 278 · 2024: 282 · 2023: 310 · 2022: 285 · 2021: 214 · 2020: 144 · 2019: 79 · 2018: 9
- FWCI
- 186.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Ecological Economics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Sustainable Supply Chain Management
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Environmental Sustainability in Business
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering › Sustainable Industrial Ecology
- Keywords
- circular economy, barriers to circular economy, cultural barriers, consumer awareness, organizational culture, market barriers, state intervention, European Union, policy implementation
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