Circular-STAB Group
With changing planetary conditions, economic models based on the assumption of linearity (take, make, waste) are no longer viable. Natural resources become increasingly scarce and their availability increasingly unpredictable. One promising alternative model of economic development is the “circular economy” (reduce, reuse, recycle, recover). The circular economy builds on the assumption that resources are finite and that products should be kept in use as long as possible. It is an idea that has been extensively explored within industrial ecology (e.g. Jacobs, 2006) and was adopted in the new “Green Deal” of the European Union. However, the circular economy is not without criticism. Some critics focus on specific technological assumptions, whereas others criticize the vagueness and depoliticized discourse on the circular economy (e.g., Corvellec et al., 2021).
What is also unclear is how a circular economy will influence the everyday lives of citizens and how circular approaches can be realized in all regions, sectors, and within all types of businesses. Predictions regarding how a circular economy will bring down CO2 emissions or the prospect of future jobs centered around the circular economy demonstrate an enormous range of possible effects and outcomes (Kirchherr et al., 2017). This is because, to our understanding, there is not a singular, standardized framework for realizing a circular economy. Importantly, most frameworks neglect the importance of social, psychological, and behavioral changes that would be needed to realize the transition to a circular economy (Corvellec et al., 2021). In this project, we focus on interactions among stakeholders on several levels (micro to macro level) in complex social systems. This has been often ignored in previous research. Our project zooms-in on some neglected psychosocial enablers and consequences of the circular economy, taking a multidimensional approach.
We are a team of social science researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds, covering consumers’ daily decision-making to collective system transition approaches. This makes us uniquely equipped to identify various psychosocial enablers of the circular economy (Long-term Objective 1), and to explore the repercussions of behavioral changes on complex social systems, ranging from small family units to large business networks or geographic regions (Long-term Objective 2). We are united by our shared understanding that behavioral change is needed at different levels to realize the full potential of the circular economy. Our mission is to identify enablers of the circular economy at the individual level (citizens, consumers, employees) and the collective level (teams, families, organizations), as well their connection with system-level changes (policies, practices)
Team members of Circular-STAB (C-Stab) in alphabetical order:
Loes Abrahams (Assistant Professor, Tilburg University)
Tom Junker (Assistant Professor, Tilburg University)
Caspar Krampe (Assistant Professor, Wageningen University)
Laura Ripoll Gonzalez (Assistant Professor, Erasmus University Rotterdam)