Chapter 3: Sustainable Production and Consumption Within the Circular Economy

Circular economy (CE) is a powerful and provocative concept that increasingly provides society with a strategy for human action in the face of environmental disaster. The CE has received global attention because it has the potential to optimise and promote sustainable production and consumption through new models based on continuous growth and limitless production (Govindan & Hasanagic, 2018; Ludeki-Freund, 2019; Tseng et al., 2020). These aspirations, when aligned with sustainable development, produce a potential game-changer in the fight to preserve the planet for future generations. The recent outcome from COP-27 shows that a change in global sustainability cannot occur only by issuing edicts and laws. In certain areas of the globe, it would certainly be more beneficial to rely on conventions rather than laws. A more realistic suggestion may be to develop and implement a set of desirable and feasible international rules and regulations that can facilitate the promotion of an effective CE. Both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors will be necessary to support a collective trajectory towards CE. This requires complex coordination, collaboration and collusion around the values of CE in order to bring about a virtuous set of inter-related partnerships and relationships throughout society, industry, and government. The quintuple helix, underpinned by innovation, becomes a highly resonant model for delivering CE (Carayannis et al., 2012), as it seeks to integrate into partnership with universities and knowledge hubs, government, industry, civil society, and the media along with the natural environment.