Exploring Plausible Circular futures

2026-07-22

Circular Economy (CE) represents a new paradigm that is capable of pushing the frontiers of sustainable development by transforming the relationships between ecological systems and economic activities. Such a new paradigm is expected to repair economy-society-nature interactions, replacing the current linear economic model with a new one that is restorative and regenerative by intention and design. However, while there is common agreement that the transition towards a CE could foster more sustainable futures, there is a lack of discussion about how a truly circular economic system should be organised. Most of the current literature on CE fails to recognise this, presenting the transition towards a CE as a straightforward, neutral, and apolitical process, implicitly characterised by a techno-optimistic and eco-modernist stance. Within this context, this project calls for opening up a debate to deconstruct the increasingly hegemonic discourse of CE based on a technocratic approach and reconstruct it by embedding normative and political dimensions, looking at a plurality of plausible CE futures, and discussing their implications in terms of the organisation of production and distribution networks, also involving a wide set of stakeholders. As such, the project will involve a plurality of disciplinary perspectives, in order to devise future supply chain configurations that could be implemented in specific industrial sectors under specific CE scenarios. A wide array of non-academic beneficiaries ensures that the project will be capable of realising relevant knowledge transfer through secondment mechanisms.

Italy

2026-03-01