The textile industry's business model is currently unsustainable and systemic changes must be made. The transition to a circular textile economy can be a major lever for this. However, it faces multiple issues, including the (in)ability of current legislations to provide sufficient protection regarding hazardous chemicals in recirculating materials. It is therefore crucial to identify legislative gaps that prevent the implementation of a safe circular textile economy, and to identify which chemicals could jeopardize this process. With this study, we aim to identify hazardous substances that could be found in recirculated textiles, to identify and discuss gaps in current regulations covering chemicals in textiles, and to suggest solutions to ensure better safety of circular textiles. We compile and analyze data on 715 chemicals and their associated functions, textile production stage, and hazard data. We also present how chemicals have been regulated over time and discuss regulations' strengths and weaknesses in the perspective of circular economy. We finally discuss the recently proposed Ecodesign regulation, and which key point should be included in the future delegated acts. We found that most of the compiled chemicals present at least one recognized or suspected hazard. Among them, there were 228 CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic substances), 25 endocrine disruptors, 322 skin allergens or sensitizers, and 51 respiratory allergens or sensitizers. 30 chemicals completely or partially lack hazard data. 41 chemicals were found to present a risk for consumers, among which 15 recognized or suspected CMR and 36 recognized or suspected allergens/sensitizers. Following the analysis of regulations, we argue that an improved risk assessment of chemicals should consider chemicals specific hazardous properties and product's multiple life cycles, instead of being limited to the product's end-of-life stage. We especially argue that implementing a safe circular textile economy requires that chemicals of concern are eliminated from the market.

While existing research has probed consumer responses to products of different recirculation pathways (recycling, reuse, refurbishment, etc), little work has examined consumer responses to an explicit “circular economy” product label or how willingness to pay is influenced by a continuum of circularity levels. This paper reports on the results of an online survey experiment that tests whether customers are willing to pay more for products with a theoretical multi-level Circular Economy score. Conjoint analysis was used on 800 respondents in the United Kingdom to test their willingness to pay for mobile phones and robot vacuum cleaners at different levels of circularity alongside other product attribute combinations. Results indicate that the average customer almost always prefers a more “circular” product when compared to products with otherwise identical attributes, and that customers are consistently willing to pay more for products with low or moderate levels of circular content. However, analysis suggests that willingness to pay more for products disappears, and in some cases declines, as the proportion of recirculated content increases. Results offer evidence that applying a numerical circular economy label at low levels of recirculated content could be a profitable strategy for producers of mobile phones and robot vacuum cleaners. Such a strategy is less certain for heavily refurbished products, fully reused products, or other product types. © 2020 The Authors

Understanding consumer preferences in the circular economy can help producers develop profitable strategies, lowering the risk involved in transitioning to circular business models and circular product design. This study uses a choice experiment to identify customer segments for mobile phones and robot vacuum cleaners at different levels of circularity. The experiment observes how a product’s theoretical Circular Economy Score (ranging from 0 to 100) influences consumer preferences as compared to other product attributes like price, appearance, warranty, battery life, reseller type, or ease of repair. Drawing from 800 UK respondents, the results indicate the presence of three customer segments that are sensitive to a product’s Circular Economy Score, including two that appear willing to purchase recirculated items and one that expresses a preference against them. The results offer initial evidence that a market for recirculated consumer electronics exists and that circularity labeling is a marketable option. The results also present a strong rationale for further research that probes a greater variety of products and contexts. © 2021 by the authors

Abstract Understanding product circularity as ?three-dimensional? could anchor the Circular Economy to common principles while affording its followers flexibility about how to measure it in their specific sectors and disciplines and within their organization's means. Inspired by a heuristic developed for the urban planning profession to cope with the inherent conflicts of Sustainable Development, this article argues that measuring product-level circularity should consider ways to achieve (1) high material recirculation, (2) high utilization, and (3) high endurance in products and service offerings. Achieving all three dimensions ensures that material flowing through the economy is recovered from prior use phases, that it is used intensely, and that it retains its value in spite of exogenous changes. The article argues further that these three dimensions ought to be measured and reported separately rather than as a composite metric and that certain applications will have opportunities to improve circularity through certain dimensions better than others. The article also explains how researchers at RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden AB) are working with industry and government partners to measure the three dimensions and how diverse actors interested in the Circular Economy can use the three dimensions to take the first steps in their transition to circularity.

This article examines the relationship between circular economy and public procurement by regarding green procurement as an enabler for the transition from sustainable to circular public procurement. Considering the different green procurement uptakes under the common legal framework of the European Union, and particularly, the contrasting practice results of Spain and Sweden and the opposed legal configuration of their procurement Acts, a comparative law study of the exclusion of suppliers, awarding criteria and special conditions of performance’s Articles is conducted.

Determinants of consumer demand for subscription to a sharing platform for underused tools and hobby items were investigated in a series of choice experiments. The stated-preference study with a census-representative sample of 702 Swedish adults, tested four types of offers (sharing boxes) containing: gardening and power tools, photo and video equipment, kitchen and household tools and outdoor/sport equipment. Respondents faced hypothetical buying scenarios: they were asked to choose a subscription to a maintained and insured sharing box located in a public space and containing premium-segment items from one of the above categories. Results show that a possible location for a sharing box depends on its content - for instance, the sharing box with garden tools was preferred by small garden owners. It was also tested, in a demand simulation scenario, how measures aimed at managing utilisation of shared items, such as booking in advance, booking limits or location of the sharing box would affect the preference for the offer. Findings suggest that respondents would be willing to accept these inconveniences of sharing, provided the subscription price was set accordingly (25% lower than the average used across all experiments). Moreover, respondents seem to be using familiar digital subscriptions as a benchmark to determine a fair price for the offers used in the study. © 2022 The Author(s)

Remote meat inspection is currently not permitted under the European Union food control legislation. However, the environmental impact of travelling to and from abattoirs and increasing shortages of qualified veterinary staff make remote controls a potential future scenario. This paper reports the results of a qualitative study conducted with a sample of nineteen official veterinarians and food business operators in Sweden. We investigated attitudes, perceived risks, and prerequisites for remote meat controls in semi-structured interviews. Results indicate both positive attitudes towards remote meat inspection, and concerns related to technical challenges, reliability and security of data transfer, and possibilities of manipulation of the remote system. Respondents also noted both negative effects, such as physical hurdles for good control, and positive impacts on animal welfare, such as shortened waiting times for slaughter. Considering the current regulatory framework, only 21% of the respondents have had any prior experience with (pilot) remote meat inspections and the additional 11% carried out remote inspections of Food Chain Information documents. Nevertheless, all participants, including the majority without any prior experience in remote inspections, assumed that remote inspections would be done via video streaming. The optimal setting for a remote meat inspection, according to our respondents, seems to be a combination of cameras at fixed locations with body cameras worn by assisting abattoir personnel. Overall, remote meat inspections are possible to introduce but not without significant legal and technical adaptations as well as definition of the conditions for this type of control flexibility.

Purpose: Circular procurement is assumed to foster innovation and influence demand for and supply of goods through criteria setting and dialogue with suppliers. However, even in countries placed at the forefront of sustainability practices such as Sweden, examples of procurement that can truly be considered to be circular are rare. This paper aims to examine circular public procurement practices in a selection of Swedish municipalities and regions through the lens of the Advocacy Coalition Framework. The authors propose a categorisation of municipalities by circular procurement uptake and identify factors that support the acceleration of the circular transition in Sweden. Design/methodology/approach: Using the key informant approach, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with employees of seven municipalities, one region and one external procurement agency, as well as seven suppliers of various sizes. The authors also analysed procurement documents received from municipalities. Participating organisations represented a variety of Swedish local government structures and local conditions. Findings: The authors proposed a categorisation of circular procurement uptake. Notably, beginners differ from leaders in circular procurement, most importantly by the level of flexibility policy brokers have within their organisations and by policy brokers’ ability to accommodate changes that materialise between existing organisational structures and set routines. Social implications: The fragmented uptake of circular procurement poses a challenge for local businesses interested in implementing circular business models. It also both highlights and exacerbates inequalities in access to resources between sparsely populated, rural municipalities and more urbanised areas. Originality/value: Despite existing national government guidelines for the circular economy transition in Sweden, circular procurement is not fully realised at the local level. In this paper, the authors examine the Swedish experience with circular procurement and propose several steps to improve the uptake of circular procurement by the public authorities. The authors' findings concerning the role of policy brokers may well be generalised to similar socio-cultural contexts.

We investigate determinants of consumer demand for circular (reused and remanufactured) products. Based on exploratory choice-based conjoint experiments with a sample of 800 adults in the United Kingdom, we examine two types of premium segment electronic appliances: a mobile phone and a robot vacuum cleaner. We find that consumers prefer partly circulated products over fully or not at all circulated products and that circular products can likely successfully enter the existing market at the retail price of a new product. Interestingly, circular products compete for market share primarily with new products, leaving the market share of second-hand options less affected. The results show a promising path for firms considering a transition to circular business models. © 2020 The Authors.

Scientists are expected to communicate their research to a wide audience, while often lacking appreciable training. Environmental science poses many value-laden and ethical questions. This necessitates the identification and use of specific strategies or guidelines, which encourage 2-way communication and enable trust in both the experts and the scientific results. The objective of this paper is to give environmental scientists tools for effective science communication based on sound scientific evidence that does not require further specialization in communication studies. Using common scientific search engines in Europe, scientific communication literature that met specific parameters was identified. The summarized data contextualize the importance of science communication in environmental sciences but also highlight the need of scientists for communication experts to aid in establishing objectives for particularly complex topics and audiences.

Circular Economy scholarship has developed multiple metrics for assessing product-level circularity. To date, however, many product-level indicators either conflate circularity and environmental impact, or have been validated using a very limited sample of products. This study applies a single metric, “C”, to a sample of 18 products in the Swedish marketplace, and compares their C-scores with scores for lifecycle assessment (LCA). LCA scores for sample products are normalized by LCA scores of very similar reference products, allowing for comparison of LCAs across different product varieties. A test for correlation between products’ C-scores and LCA ratios reveals a strong, significant, and inverse association between levels of circularity and products’ relative environmental impact. The results offer evidence that products whose economic value is composed of relatively more recirculated material have a relatively low impact on the environment. Future research will benefit from applying similar tests to a broader variety of products and developing tools to expedite the accurate measurement of circularity and lifecycle impacts.

Remote work technologies offer unprecedented flexibility to modernise official meat inspection (MI). Remote meat inspections, alongside on-site controls have a potential to make MI more sustainable when it comes to working conditions, logistic control hurdles and travel-related emissions. Nevertheless, preferences of meat control staff for features and technological set up of remote MI remain unknown. The paper investigates preferences of official Swedish MI staff for different features of remote MI. The study utilises a quantitative method, namely best-worst scaling to compare the relative importance of six aspects of remote inspections: camera location and settings, connectivity, availability of personnel at abattoirs, communication and language, security and fraud prevention, and ability to relay olfaction and haptics. The survey, administered in September–October 2023 was answered by 54.7% of the Swedish meat control staff employed by the Swedish Food Agency. The results show that respondents rate security and fraud prevention (Security) as the most important aspect for remote MI followed by connectivity and camera placement (Camera). Communication and language (Communication) and ability to relay olfaction and haptics (Senses) are considered the least important aspects. The latter findings can be explained by the fact that Official Veterinarians, which represent the majority of respondents (49%), do not routinely communicate directly with slaughter personnel who are often seasonal workers coming from outside Sweden. Moreover, olfaction and haptics could be considered naturally impractical with remote technologies. The study also finds that respondents from different administrative units and job titles have different preferences for the features of remote MI. Respondents from the headquarter generally have higher preferences for connectivity than respondents from other units. Additionally, respondents with more hands-on experience in MI, such as Official Veterinarians, tend to rate security issues higher than respondents with leading or support roles. Overall, it seems possible to meet the control staff expectations and preferences regarding the prerequisites of remote MI by legal and technical adaptations needed for this type of control flexibility. © 2024 The Authors

This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of ‘publics’, including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of ‘publics’ might create competing normative demands, its acknowledgment is necessary to withstand the monopolization of the process of technology appraisal. The paper presents four ways in which such an appropriation of publicness takes place. The creation of dedicated ‘local publics’, in contrast, helps to overcome these problems and allows for more responsible forms of decision-making. We describe ‘local publics’ as those in which stakeholders from the different publics that are related to the process of technology implementation are brought together, and in which concerns and issues from these publics are deliberated upon. The paper will present eight conditions for increasing the effectiveness of such ‘local publics’. © 2020, The Author(s).

The public sector is a key economic player in society with a significant purchasing power and therefore has the potential to promote societal change while maintaining a degree of control over use of public funds, transparency and fairness. However, current public procurement processes largely result in purchasing products and services through a generally more pre-planned and rigid type of process. In this paper we argue that the current public procurement process is not “fit for purpose” for a transition to large-scale circular public procurement which aims to optimise value retention. In order to overcome this, we propose a conceptual framework that could support public organisations in aligning the procurement processes and structures with the value propositions of their own operations. We suggest that intermediation is the key enabler for a transition to a more circular economy by stimulating innovation in public procurement and with an ecosystem perspective.