Circular Economy: Unravelling the Business Model of Resource Recovery

Dear colleagues,

Resource recovery is one of the main workhorses of the circular economy. However, setting up a successful business model for resource recovery depends on multiple factors, from incentives to divert waste from landfills to the availability of technologies for waste processing and clear regulations regarding the safe use of waste in manufacturing. Additionally, recovered resources often stand in competition with virgin materials, whose prices do not necessarily reflect all environmental externalities, such as damage to natural ecosystems. Companies active in resource recovery face the challenge of linking two different worlds: waste producers and the manufacturing industry using recovered resources. In addition, resource recovery firms operating in developing countries must often cooperate with the informal sector. Can process improvement methods and the systematic application of KPIs help resource recovery businesses in meeting these challenges? What is the role of education and infrastructure in enabling the business of resource recovery? What value is added by resource recovery in circular supply chains? This Special Issue focuses on the business aspects of resource recovery, from theoretical work to case studies and experiments. The scope of the work includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Barriers to and drivers of resource recovery;
• Technological enablers of resource recovery;
• The pricing of recovered resources;
• Managing the interface between waste producers and the manufacturing industry using recovered resources;
• The role of resource recovery in circular supply chains;
• The KPIs of resource recovery;
• The application of process improvement methods (e.g., lean manufacturing) to resource recovery;
• Resource recovery in developing countries and transition economies;
• The recovery of biological nutrients;
• The recovery of technological nutrients.

Dr. Grégoire Meylan
Guest Editor

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• circular business model
• business model innovation
• circular supply chain
• supply chain management
• resource recovery
• upcycling
• recycling
• downcycling
• management science
• business science