System Approaches for Accelerating the Transition to a Circular Economy
A special issue of Systems (ISSN 2079-8954). This special issue belongs to the section "Systems Practice in Social Science".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 14 February 2027 | Viewed by 11
Editors
2. Center for Renewable Energies and Energy Efficiency, National Institute of Economic Research, "Costin C. Kiriţescu”, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania
Interests: marketing research; consumer behavior; green economy; social responsibility; entrepreneurship; energy sector economics
2. Center for Renewable Energies and Energy Efficiency, National Institute of Economic Research, "Costin C. Kiriţescu”, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania
Interests: energy; sustainable development; resource productivity; economics and environment; resource economics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. European Marketing and Management Association, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Interests: management; human resources management; management of non-profit organizations; strategic management; organizational behavior
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The transition to a circular economy (CE) has been increasingly recognized as a fundamental component of sustainable development, aiming to decouple economic growth from resource use through regenerative and closed-loop systems. Despite increased policy attention and academic interest, implementation remains limited due to fragmented approaches that overlook the complexity of socio-technical systems. This Special Issue emphasizes systemic approaches as an integrative framework for addressing these challenges, incorporating technological, economic, environmental, institutional and social dimensions. It highlights the role of methodologies such as system dynamics, material flow analysis and life cycle assessment in capturing system-level interactions and informing effective interventions. Contributions are invited that investigate system-level interventions, including, but not limited to, multi-level governance arrangements, policy integration and coherence, industrial symbiosis networks, digital infrastructures and circular business ecosystems. There is a particular emphasis on the integrated approach of circular system enablers, to design favorable regulatory and institutional frameworks and integrate circular strategies into value chains and at the spatial scale. The Special Issue aims to connect innovations at the micro-system level with transformations at the macro-system level, providing concrete insights to accelerate the implementation of a sustainable and resilient circular economy.
Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:
- System dynamics and integrated modelling approaches for transitions to the circular economy;
- Multi-level governance and policy mixes enabling circular systems;
- Governmental roadmap for the transition of the socio-technical system to circularity;
- Socio-technical systems issues in implementing industrial symbiosis and developing eco-industrial networks;
- Circular cities and regional systems design;
- Digital technologies (e.g., IoT, AI, digital twins) as enablers of circular systems;
- Modelling, simulation and optimization problem solving techniques for the design, simulation, analysis and operation of energy systems to accelerate the transition to a circular economy;
- The social system and new behavioral patterns of the transition to the circular economy;
- Skills, education and workforce transformation for circular systems;
- Metrics, indicators and assessment frameworks for systemic analysis of the level of circularity;
- Kickback effects, trade-offs and unintended consequences in systems circular;
- Design, planning and optimization of smart technologies for a resilient architecture of circular systems.
Dr. Violeta Sima
Prof. Dr. Andrei Jean-Vasile
Prof. Dr. Mile Vasic
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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Keywords
- circular economy
- systems thinking
- socio-technical systems
- system dynamics
- integrated assessment
- material flow analysis
- life cycle sustainability assessment
- industrial symbiosis
- energy systems
- circular ecosystems
- policy coherence
- institutional frameworks
- digital technologies
- digital twins
- sustainability transitions
- resource efficiency
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