Industrial ecosystem renewal towards circularity to achieve the benefits of reuse - Learning from circular construction

Abstract

To enable an industry-level transition towards the circular economy, complementary companies and other actors from the focal industry sector, resembling an industrial ecosystem, can jointly increase circulation via reuse or recycling in the system. Although all involved actors must benefit from doing so if their engagement is to be secured, little is known about how industrial ecosystem renewal towards circularity creates benefits. Therefore, this study aims to contribute by applying ecosystem and circular industry development approaches to examine how industrial ecosystems change towards circularity, particularly in regard to the little-studied reuse principle, and identify the diverse benefits of an industry's shift towards circularity via reuse. Thus, this study examines changing industrial ecosystems in the construction industry which have high environmental impacts and focuses on the needed changes to the roles, interactions, and perceptions of ecosystem actors and the diverse benefits gained by increased reuse at company, industry, and societal levels. We conducted an extensive multiple-case study of two industrial ecosystems, namely pilot projects addressing concrete-element reuse, in Finland and Sweden and gathered extensive data covering over 20 interviews, over 18 months of ethnography, and over 300 documents. Our findings show that industrial ecosystems' renewal towards circularity requires changes in the ecosystem actors' roles (role expansions and emergence of new roles), interactions (communication, collaboration mindset, utilization of tools), and perceptions (understanding the value of circulated resources, design thinking, and change resistance to conformity). We found that such changes towards circularity generate benefits at the micro level to companies (direct business, competence, and work satisfaction benefits), at the meso level to the industry (environmental, competition, and industry feasibility benefits) and at the macro level to society (environment and employment benefits). Pragmatically, we provide insights and tools for development, business, and sustainability managers, industry associations, and policymakers seeking an increase in circular practices and principles among the industry sectors, involved companies, and surrounding society. Our study contributes to industry-level and sectoral circular economy transformation, reuse, circular construction, and ecosystem research.