Sustainable transformation toward a circular society, in which all ecosystems and livelihoods are protected and sustained, requires the integration of sufficiency in circular production and consumption practices. Beyond the technological promises to decouple resource use from economic growth, sufficiency measures to reduce production and consumption volumes in absolute terms are necessary. Businesses integrating sufficiency act as agent of change to transform current unsustainable practices along the entire supply chain. By observing the operationalization of sufficiency in 14 pioneer businesses, this study identifies dimensions and practice elements that characterize sufficiency in business practices. This study observed that the sufficiency in business practices mainly represents a rethinking of business doings on three dimensions: (1) rethinking the relation to consumption; (2) rethinking the relation to others; and (3) rethinking the social meaning of the own organization. Sufficiency practitioners understand production and consumption as a mean to fulfill basic human needs instead of satisfying consumer preferences. They co-create sufficiency-oriented value with peers in a sufficiency-oriented ecosystem and they redefine growth narratives by envisioning an end to material growth. Additionally, this study revealed that care, patience and learning competences are essential characteristics of sufficiency in business practices. Sufficiency practitioners reshape their business doings by caring for others and nature; they demonstrate patience to create slow, local, and fair provision systems; and they accept their shortcomings and learn from mistakes. Integrating elements of care, patience and learning in business practices reduce the risks of sufficiency-rebound effects. Ambivalences between the sufficiency purpose and growth-oriented path dependencies persists for sufficiency-oriented businesses. Further research should investigate pathways to overcome these ambivalences and shortcomings that sufficiency practitioners experience, for instance, by exploring political and cultural settings that foster sufficiency-oriented economic activity.
There is an increasing desire for regenerative consumption and production systems that—through the concept of the circular economy—enable longer and better use of resources and products. Circular products and services designed for repair, reuse and recycling require alternative consumption patterns, consumer roles and daily routines—a topic that is still under-researched in the current circular economy literature. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on circular practices with the following objectives: (1) to identify the circular consumer practices studied, (2) to determine the necessary conditions for their appropriation and routinisation, and (3) to suggest how their appropriation and routinisation can be better studied. The analysis of 44 articles revealed 15 circular consumer practices. Meanwhile, Circular consumer practices relating to sufficiency, such as refuse and reduce, have received less attention. We find that elements of practice such as consumer competence, meaning and material play an important role in the appropriation and routinisation of circular consumer practices. However, components such as socio-structural contexts, trade-offs and rebound effects, all of which influence the likelihood of appropriation and routinisation of circular products and services, have not been sufficiently explored. We also find that circular consumer practices are often described as momentary doings rather than ones that are continuously integrated into existing everyday consumption routines. Our findings suggest that circular consumer practices, although interconnected and likely to compete or reinforce each other, are currently conceptualised as isolated practices. Future research should explore how circular consumer practices interlock with and reconfigure other practices and contribute to the improvement of the framework proposed in this review.
Citizen Science
(2023)