Chapter 6: A Review and Research Agenda for the Circular Economy

Moving to a circular economy (CE) at a time of increased global ecological awareness may require a change of ethical and moral standards in existing and future staff. This may manifest itself in different ways across a range of organisations and circumstances and may include: a different sense of personal responsibility, possibly deriving from one’s own beliefs; a sense of official responsibility, including corporate social responsibility (CSR); acting with the interest of one’s employees, customers, and shareholders; standards stemming from personal loyalties, including organisational loyalties; technical morality dictated by standards set by one’s professional enterprise; and legal responsibility to abide by the law, court decisions, and administrative orders (adapted from Steiner, 1975, chapter 13). However, this list does not go far enough towards the ethical and moral standards required by employees and companies to meet the obligations of business and ecological change in the CE into the 2030s.