What Can We Learn From the Bankruptcy of Renewcell? Some Limitations of Business-Case-Based Circular Transition

Circular start-ups are vectors of hope for a circular transition. But what does a circular champion’s bankruptcy tell us? That a structural barrier to the circular transition is the total dependence on the ability of circular businesses to be profitable.

Circle Economy (2024). The circularity gap report 2024. Circle Economy and Deloitte. https://www.circularity-gap.world/2024
Dewick, P., de Mello, A. M., Sarkis, J., & Donkor, F. K. (2022). The puzzle of the informal economy and the circular economy. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 187, 106602. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2022.106602

Grafström, J., & Aasma, S. (2021). Breaking circular economy barriers. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 292, 126002. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126002

Henry, M., & Kirchherr, J. (2020). Circular start-ups: Five business model archetypes as frontrunners of circular disruption In T. Tudor & C. J. Dutra (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Waste, Resources and the Circular Economy. Routledge.

Henry, M., Kirchherr, J., Raven, R., & Hekkert, M. (2024). Bottom-up dynamics in circular innovation systems: The perspective of circular start-ups. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 28(2), 320-338. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13468

Hina, M., Chauhan, C., Kaur, P., Kraus, S., & Dhir, A. (2022). Drivers and barriers of circular economy business models: Where we are now, and where we are heading. Journal of Cleaner Production, 333, 130049. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.130049

Hobson, K. (2020a). From circular consumers to carriers of (unsustainable) practices: Socio-spatial transformations in the Circular City. Urban Geography, 41(6), 907-910. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1786329

Hobson, K. (2020b). The limits of the loops: Critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy. Environmental Politics, 1-19. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2020.1816052

Kanda, W., Klofsten, M., Bienkowska, D., Henry, M., & Hjelm, O. (2024). Challenges of circular new ventures: An empirical analysis of 70 cases. Journal of Cleaner Production, 442, 141103. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.141103

Närvänen, E., Mattila, M., & Mesiranta, N. (2021). Institutional work in food waste reduction: Startups’ role in moving towards a circular economy. Industrial Marketing Management, 93, 605-616. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.08.009

Rask, N. (2022). An intersectional reading of circular economy policies: Towards just and sufficiency driven sustainabilities. Local Environment, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2022.2040467

Stowell, A. F., & Corvellec, H. (2023). Circular Economy practices will not automatically phase out the linear economy. Future Earth. https://futureearth.org/2023/02/22/circular-economypractices-will-not-automatically-phase-out-the-linear-economy/

Werning, J. P., & Spinler, S. (2020). Transition to circular economy on firm level: Barrier identification and prioritization along the value chain. Journal of Cleaner Production, 245, 118609. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118609

Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Under a Creative Commons license

Hervé Corvellec [1]*, Alison F. Stowell [2]

• [1] Lund University, Sweden
• [2] University of Lancaster, UK
• * Corresponding author: [email protected]