Circularity through Collaboration - A Case Study on Textile Industry

Sammanfattning: In the last decade, circular economy (CE) has gained widespread attention among scholars, practitioners, and policymakers as a sustainable alternative to the current linear system. This system, which operates under the logic of "take-make-dispose", poses significant threats to our environment due to the exponential growth in natural resource extraction that we have witnessed in the last fifty years. The circular economy concept proposes an economic system that emphasizes the efficient use and reintroduction of resources back into the system instead of disposal in landfills. Despite growing interest, the adoption of circular economy practices remains low. In the existing literature, collaboration has been identified as a significant driver for circular economy adoption, yet it has been studied only recently and sporadically. Furthermore, the existing literature does not explain in detail how collaboration can be used to drive circular economy adoption. Scholars have also noted the limited use of systemic perspectives to study complex phenomena like circular economy. Building upon existing literature and adopting a holistic framework based on Systems theory and System thinking, we conduct a qualitative case study in the textile industry to explore how collaboration can drive the adoption of circular economy. Our findings suggest that various types of collaboration can help overcome barriers to circular economy and drive its adoption. Finally, we introduce the concept of "circular lock-in" to discuss how circular economy strategies and practices can become the norm in an industry or face systemic resistance.