Leveraging Resource Management and Duality Theories to Strengthen Circular Economy Practices in the Waste‐to‐Energy Industry

Adhya Rare Tiara, Benny Tjahjono, Macarena Beltran, Francis Rayns and Philip Longhurst

Business Strategy and the Environment, 2025, vol. 34, issue 4, 4642-4660

Abstract: With the immediate actions required to address environmental issues posed by waste generation and the growing interest in the circular economy, anaerobic digestion (AD) offers a promising solution. As a major component of waste‐to‐energy, AD plays a dual role by processing waste and generating renewable energy at the same time, thus contributing to the success of closed‐loop systems. However, the success of AD as a business remains uncertain due to the high costs of material handling. Through a systematic literature review (SLR), this study reveals AD‐specific key barriers in feedstock exchanges and typical strategies applied to address them. The dual role of AD and the involvement of different stakeholders in the upstream processes further complicate these challenges, thus necessitating a more holistic approach to strategy formulation—an aspect not fully covered in the current literature. These gaps present opportunities to theorise the unique operations of AD businesses and the dynamics of multi‐stakeholders in complex feedstock supply processes. This study integrates resource management theories and duality theory, proposing a theoretical framework to enhance the sustainability and circularity of AD ventures. The proposed framework views AD from a resource‐oriented perspective and thus reinforces its pivotal role in fostering a truly closed‐loop system within the circular economy.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.4219

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:34:y:2025:i:4:p:4642-4660

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1002/(ISSN)1099-0836

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
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().