 Reevaluating waste as a resource under a circular economy approach from a system perspective: Findings from a case studyPina Puntillo, Carmela Gulluscio, Donald Huisingh and Stefania Veltri Business Strategy and the Environment, 2021, vol. 30, issue 2, 968-984 Abstract: The circular economy (CE), definable as a system focused on the reorganization of material, information, and energy flows to achieve greater resource efficiency through the reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling of materials, is a concept widely discussed by practitioners and scientists of many disciplines. Waste recycling is integral to the CE, but there are still few articles focused on waste, and only few studies shed light on CE implementation at the company level. This paper focuses on a particular type of waste, that is, absorbent hygiene products (AHPs), which represents a nonnegligible fraction of municipal solid waste, considered an increasingly serious global challenge. We conducted our analysis on FaterSMART, an Italian firm that developed a unique worldwide technology able to totally convert AHP raw material wastes into recyclable materials, under a CE approach. The case study findings are based upon semi‐structured interviews, direct observations, and analysis of FaterSMART's archival documents and are analyzed according to a framework developed for the research and focused on the place of waste from a linear economy, in which waste is considered a burden to CE, in which waste is considered a resource. The latter case is what we found that happens at FaterSMART. FaterSMART's findings could contribute to open up new management scenarios and stimulate further research into how this and similar types of technology will help societies to change from the “use‐it‐once‐and‐throw‐it away” mentality of linear business models to the sustainable CE model that fully conceptualize waste as a resource for the system. Date: 2021 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:30:y:2021:i:2:p:968-984 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Business Strategy and the Environment is currently edited by Richard Welford More articles in Business Strategy and the Environment from Wiley Blackwell |
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