Barriers & Challenges to Circular Economy: Evidence from a Collaborative Circular Innovation Initiative in the Manufacturing Industry

In nowadays business environment, circular economy is becoming increasingly important, as shown by the increasing efforts in the field, as well as the growing research interest over the last decade (see for example, Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Kirchherr et al., 2017; Merli et al., 2018). To exploit the full potential of the circular economy, scholars emphasize the need for collaborative and systemic innovation approaches (for instance, see Blomsma et al., 2019; Brown et al., 2019, 2020, 2021a; 2021b; Konietzko et al., 2020). The research stream of circular oriented innovation adopts such a systemic and collaborative perspective and investigates how a combination of product (re)design, business model innovation and configurations of value creation network can make the circular economy work (Brown et al., 2021b). In general, circular economy is a concept contrasting the traditional linear "take-make-use-dispose" production model (Jaeger & Upadhyay, 2020, p. 730), and is based on strategies for slowing, narrowing, and closing resource loops (Bocken et al., 2016, p. 309). Although circular economy is a promising concept, operationalizing it on a system- or even organizational-level is a complex and challenging task (Brown et al., 2020, 1 & 15; Guldmann & Huulgaard, 2020, p. 3). Accordingly, this research addresses the question: "What barriers and challenges will be perceived/might arise during the sensemaking phase/at the start of circular oriented innovations in industrial manufacturing companies?" The aim is to answer this question and enhance the understanding of challenges and barriers to circular oriented innovation endeavors by conducting a qualitative research design, thereby, analyzing field data from workshops, semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observations, and various additional documents collected throughout the sensemaking phase of a collaborative circular innovation initiative between two production companies.