Editorial special issue who will benefit from the transition to the circular economy?

Over the last two decades, the enormous impact of the take-makewaste linear economic model has pushed the academic research (Uphadhayay et al., 2024; Anaruma et al., 2022; Schoggl ¨ et al., 2020; Ghisellini et al., 2016; Su et al., 2013) and stakeholders of worldwide socio-economic systems (such as policy makers, consumers, non-profit organizations, media) to focus their attention towards the development and adoption of consumption and production models oriented towards the Circular Economy paradigm (Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation, 2024). Societal stakeholders have been increasingly involved in programs, policies, and strategies aimed at transitioning towards CE (Clube and Tennant, 2023; Van Bueren et al., 2023). Consequently, the Circular Economy is gaining momentum (Kirchherr et al., 2023) and is attracting much of the debate on the search for sustainable solutions (Evans, 2023; De Lima, 2022; Terra dos Santos et al., 2022) to support the diffusion of consumption (Shevchenko et al., 2023) and production patterns with lower impacts on resources leveraging longer lifetimes for enhanced environmental conservation (Luzzati et al., 2022) and socially just (Costanza, 2023; D’Urzo and Campagnaro, 2023; Persson and Hinton, 2023; Pitkanen ¨ et al., 2023; Vanhuyse et al., 2022) and cost-effective waste management supply chains (Zerbino et al., 2023) and systems (Harala et al., 2022). Countries are adopting CE strategies, programmes and policies (Guarnieri et al., 2023; Rebehy et al., 2023; Remme and Jackson, 2023; Lazarevic et al., 2022) and integrating CE in their sustainability agendas (Pynol Alberich et al., 2023) even if in a diversified manner, both in EU (such as between Northern-Western and Southern-Eastern states and regions) (Awad, 2023; Arsova et al., 2022; Van Langen and Passaro, 2021) and non-EU countries such as Brazil (Guarnieri et al., 2023; Rebehy et al., 2023) and China (Agutiono et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2022). Furthermore, consumers/citizens are becoming more aware of the CE concept and its potential in relation to climate change (Eurobarometer, 2023) and more environmentally responsible in their daily life (Greene et al., 2024) but showing a resistance to radically change their consumption habits (Bigliardi et al., 2022). In terms of physical material flows the adoption of the CE model is still at the early stage in the worldwide economy since the circularity rate is only 7.2% (Circular Economy Foundation, 2024), although some EU countries (e.g. Netherlands and Belgium) have achieved a higher circularity rate and are able to send back to the economy more than 20% of the recovered materials (EUROSTAT, 2023). Therefore, it is important to understand at this initial stage the CE potential of contributing to mitigate climate change and natural resources consumption (Ghisellini et al., 2023) but also of pursuing a more sustainable human development (Clube and Tennant, 2023; Nogueira et al., 2023; Tiep Le, 2022) and reduce the injustices of the linear model of production and consumption (Persson and Hinton, 2023; Pitkanen ¨ et al., 2023; Velancia et al., 2023; Vanhuyse et al., 2022). In other terms, this SI intends to understand more broadly who the beneficiaries of the CE are. Particular attention has been dedicated to encouraging the analysis of the environmental and social impacts and benefits resulting from CE implementation from a large perspective across R principles beyond recycling, policy programmes, research projects, methods, scales (micro, meso, macro and ahead). Moreover, the SI was also intended to stimulate the discussion around the emerging visions of CE model beyond the mainstream and having the potential of promoting simultaneously at all scales the values of environmental consciousness and adaptiveness, social justice, qualitative public well-being beyond purely quantitative economic growth.