Assessment of circular economy within portuguese organizations

The move towards a new Circular Economy (CE) economic model has been advocated and supported in Portugal, however, there is limited research on this topic. To address this gap, a quantitative research based on an online survey was carried out among 99 Portuguese organizations, encompassing a wide range of sectors and sizes. The results show that CE is regarded as a strategic and relevant issue for profitability and value creation. Furthermore, the perception that it requires the adoption of new business models in addition to the classical “reduce, reuse and recycle” approach is growing. Moreover, based on the hypotheses raised, results suggest that the level of CE adoption is positively impacted by the status of the EMS (Environmental Management System) certification and the willingness to improve the environmental performance and achieve a sustainable business model. However, CE activities are still relatively modest and a friendlier context (fiscal, legal, organizational, etc.) and the stronger support from supply chain agents and consumers are required. Future research should focus on how to design and shape the transition from a linear to a CE economy and to ascertain if the positive attitude towards CE is materialized in changing the way business is done.Authors would like to thank all the respondents’ organizations for their participation and the support from CIDEM, R&D unit. CIDEM R&D unit is funded by the FCT - Portuguese Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, under the Project UID/EMS/0615/2016. Pedro Domingues benefited from financial support through the FCT post-doc research grantNo. SFRH/BPD/103322/2014. This research is framed with in the scope of Project “PME Sustentável– Projeto nº16129” funded by Portugal 2020 and FEDER.