Stakeholder engagement accelerating transition towards a sustainable circular economy

In this article, we ask in what ways stakeholder engagement can accelerate the transitions towards a circular economy (CE). The empirical material consists of 35 semi-structured interviews of CE stakeholders at local, regional and national levels in Finland. The CE stakeholders include private, public and third sector organizations fostering the circular economy in Finland. A fine-grained, inductive analysis of stakeholder relationships in the context of a circular economy was conducted. Our analysis identifies four types of engagement relations that prevail among the CE stakeholders: (1) hierarchical relations, (2) collaborative relations (3) adversarial relations and (4) advocate relations. Each of the relations actualizes and is maintained through a set of more specific activities. Hierarchical relations include enabling and bureaucratic activities; collaborative relations include facilitating, learning and communicating, and partnering activities; adversarial relations include competing and moderating activities; and advocate relations include influencing and informing activities. The analysis indicates that each type of relation with its specific activities of stakeholder engagement is valuable for accelerating the transitions toward a sustainable CE. Hierarchical relations lay the foundation for the circular economy, while the collaborative relations based on trust and openness are in the core of advancing the circular economy. In collaborative relations organizations network, learn from each other and share knowledge and partner to collaborate and to co-create, and the traditional roles and boundaries of organizations blur. Despite the prevailing emphasis on collaborative approach, the adversarial relations and the related activities are relevant for the transition to a sustainable circular economy, too, as they force to consider issues and their implications thoroughly and from many viewpoints. Advocate relations illustrate how the CE stakeholders attempt to engage wider audiences in the advancement of the circular economy by informing and driving changes in the attitudes.