Globally, the commitment of companies to Circular Economy (CE) is still limited. Mapping the circular practices performed by companies is a challenging and complex task and few empirical papers have explored CE implementation in companies. Based on interviews and analysis of company reports, we addressed in-depth the implementation of practices, targets, and assessment tools related to CE in ten Swedish companies. Only 10 circular practices out of 21 are implemented in at least 50% of the companies, indicating that the companies have just begun their transition to CE. The most common practices relate to waste reduction and resource efficiency (mainly energy). Barriers to collaboration are competition, keep confidentiality, small company size, lack of interest of other stakeholders, among others. So, there is a potential for increasing collaboration, especially with the municipality. The priority has been emissions reduction targets and the use of climate-focused tools (i.e., carbon footprint) while social aspects and circularity are less explored. We conclude that the monitoring of environmental performance is limited mainly to the use of resources and emissions. The low use of circularity tools is caused mainly by internal barriers such as lack of knowledge and shortage of resources. So, the companies should get more knowledge on CE assessment tools, include social indicators related to circular practices, and set targets for societal impact. © 2025 The Authors

In the transition towards a circular economy and more sustainable business practices, industrial symbiosis (IS) has emerged as a promising strategy to enhance resource efficiency, reduce waste, and generate economic and environmental benefits. Despite its well-documented advantages, IS adoption remains fragmented and inconsistent across industries and regions, raising critical questions about the drivers and barriers that influence its implementation. Energy-based IS, particularly bioenergy production like biogas, exemplifies the complexities of IS adoption. Thus, this study seeks to examine the interplay between drivers and barriers and their effect on adoption and implementation of biogas-based IS on five industrial symbioses, where additional challenges, such as competition with fossil fuels and fragmented supply chains add further complexity. The results show that economic incentives drive industrial biogas symbioses, social factors, especially collaboration and networking, are crucial enablers. A higher number of social barriers, compared to environmental ones, underscores that trust, cooperative competence, and stable relationships are not peripheral but essential. This research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of biogas IS adoption, offering insights for business managers, policymakers, and sustainability practitioners seeking to advance IS as a scalable strategy for circular economy transitions.

The implementation of water-related environmental measures (WREMs) in agricultural businesses presents an opportunity to align food production with sustainable value creation through ecosystem services. However, the complexity of adopting these measures, and making them a part of business models, necessitates the involvement of intermediaries to facilitate business opportunities that align with governmental sustainability goals. This study investigates the role of government-affiliated intermediaries in facilitating agricultural business plans, motives, and support needs for implementing WREMs. Using baseline and follow-up questionnaire data from 255 agricultural business managers, the study finds that intermediaries play a crucial role in fostering long-term sustainability commitments. Their facilitation, through expert advice, knowledge transfer, and resource mobilization, significantly increased the likelihood of businesses planning semi-long-term WREMs. However, the correlation between WREMs and market-driven value creation remained weak, highlighting the need for enhanced support in developing financially viable sustainability solutions. These findings underscore the importance of aligning intermediation strategies with business managers’ financial incentives to drive broader adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. © 2025 The Author(s).

Improving sustainability performance and adapting to circular economy principles in operational business strategies are becoming increasingly prioritized. In this pursuit, the concept of industrial symbiosis (IS) has become increasingly relevant. IS represents a collaborative approach where the interplay of material, residual waste, energy, and infrastructure exchanges aims to yield not only economic and environmental advantages for the participating companies but also substantial societal benefits by using resources more efficiently. Biogas production is such an example, it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions since it can produce heat and electricity, replace renewable fuel for vehicles, or be used as input material for industrial use. The digestate from biogas production can also be used as an effective agricultural fertilizer to replace chemical fertilizers which are produced using fossil energy.

Digital tools and platforms in IS can be used to different extent depending on businesses levels of digital maturity (the extent to which businesses adapt to ongoing digital change and integrate digitalization). Digital tools and platforms hold a central role for developing various advantages in biogas-based IS, but since the digital maturity for IS focusing on biogas production is uncertain, the current efficiency obtained by tools and platforms is unknown. Therefore, through semi-structured interviews and study visits, this study assesses stakeholder collaboration and use of digital tools at five IS sites with biogas production in Sweden. It explores (i) current digital maturity and collaboration characteristics amongst established biogas-based IS, and (ii) needs amongst stakeholders for development of digital tools and platforms to promote digital maturity, monitoring, collaboration, and knowledge exchange in current and future IS structures.

Preliminary results of the on-going study show that the use of digital tools varies depending on the character and size of resource flows that are included in the collaboration, and due to the internal digital maturity of the involved companies. In general, the use of digital tools for stakeholder interaction is on low or medium level, in which manual handling is required and little is automated. This complies with the sites being relatively small, and the number of stakeholders involved are relatively few. Moreover, the preliminary results show that the interest of future development of digital tools is found to be related to business development and expanded market opportunities through diversified raw material use, increased production, and new distribution channels. In addition, a demand of digital platforms for exchange of experience and competence supply has been identified.

Perception and awareness can affect behaviour and decision-making, for example, how companies implement Circular Economy (CE) practices. However, there is limited empirical research about this topic. Thus, we investigated the perception and awareness of representatives from water-intensive and bio-based sectors regarding the CE concept based on interviews and a survey with 10 companies in Sweden. Our results indicate that CE is understood mainly as zero waste and its key principles are resource efficiency and ecodesign. Missing (or partially addressed) important elements of CE are consumption, social aspects, regenerative role of CE, collaboration, and Industrial Symbiosis. The main benefit from implementing circular strategies is economic, and the main barrier is the lack of financial resources. The bio-based companies have a broader understanding of CE and its benefits than the water-intensive companies. Overall, more clarification and standardisation of the CE concept is necessary to avoid misunderstanding with other concepts such as sustainability. © 2024 The Authors

The measurement of progress towards Circular Economy (CE) within a company is crucial for identifying opportunities and designing circular practices. However, most of the existing tools do not consider the systemic view and principles of CE. The aim of this paper is to assess the contributions and limitations of CE assessment tools regarding the key elements: social dimension, stakeholder engagement, R-imperatives and industrial symbiosis. Also, the aim is to offer guidance for improvements towards a CE transition. The methodology was an integrative literature review; then based on the critical assessment of tools a guide was created. Thirty-eight tools were thoroughly analysed and our results show that there is a limited number of multidisciplinary tools (only 10), that is including all CE key elements, and in some cases partly. Social dimension is not fully explored; only 6 tools have indicators related to society, local community, customers, and workers. Recommendations for future tools development include to offer training for possible users of the tools and to develop tools for the service sector. Finally, we conclude that all the key elements of CE are interconnected. The proposed guide-ACTION (Assessing Circular Transition In Organisations Now)- includes the key elements, databases, tools, and indicators, and is aligned with the CE principles to help the assessment. © 2022 The Author(s)

Efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are receiving increased attention among governmental and commercial actors. In recent years, the interest in paludiculture, i.e. the use of rewetted peatlands, has grown because of its potential to reduce GHG emissions by stopping soil decomposition. Moreover, cultivating wetland plants on rewetted peatlands for  bioenergy production that replaces fossil fuels in the transport sector, can contribute to additional GHG emission reductions. In this study, an analysis of literature data was conducted to obtain data on GHG emissions (CO2 and CH4) and biomass production from rewetted peatlands cultivated with two different wetland plant species: Phragmites australis (Pa) and Typha latifolia (Tl). In  addition, a  biogas experiment was carried out to investigate the biomethane yield of Pa and Tl biomass, and the reduction of global warming potential (GWP) by using biomethane as vehicle fuel. The results show that peatland rewetting can be an important measure to mitigate the GWP as it reduces GHG emissions from the soil, particularly on a 100-year timescale but also to some extent on a 20-year timescale. More specifically, rewetting of 1 km2 of peatland can result in  a  GWP reduction corresponding to  the  emissions from ±2600 average sized petrol cars annually. Growing Pa on rewetted peatlands reduces soil GHG emissions more than growing Tl, but Pa and Tl produced similar amounts of biomass and biomethane per land area. Our study concludes that Pa, because of a more pronounced GWP reduction, is the most suitable wetland plant to cultivate after peatland rewetting. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Farm-based biogas production is a promising renewable energy technology with the potential for creating sustainable economic, environmental, and social value. However, Swedish farmers engaged in this activity struggle to turn a profit because of high-investment costs and severe price competition with fossil fuels. One way to address this situation is to re-organize the activity by innovating the business model (BM) towards sustainability. In this study, a team of researchers took an action research approach that proposed solutions for the financial difficulties at a farm cooperative that intended to develop its farm-based biogas production. Two participatory workshops (including researchers, producers, students, and consultants) were conducted using the sustainable business-modelling tool called the Flourishing Business Canvas (FBC). Based on the 215 ideas developed in the workshops, five sustainable BM prototypes were created. These five prototypes form the basis of an approach for initiating the development of a network-level BM for sustainability that highlights its superiority over a single-firm BM. The network-level BM’s main advantage in the farm-based biogas context is its strong focus on stakeholder collaboration that supports the development of a stakeholder business case for sustainability. Overall, this study highlights the usefulness of the network concept in the practice of sustainable BM development. Collaborative business modelling for developing network-level BMs that address environmental and social problems for and with stakeholders can be an effective way to increase long-term financial profit and promote the growth of a firm, a network, or an industry. © 2018 The Author(s)

Global warming along with energy demand and rising prices of natural energy resources have motivated studies to find some renewable and clean energy. The use of algae as the third-generation biofuel can avoid the competition for farmland, and algae can be considered as a potential future source of renewable energy. Algae can be used for biogas production through anaerobic digestion (AD). Fucus vesiculosus and Fucus serratus are the two dominating species of brown seaweed growing in the Baltic Sea in the southwest of Sweden. Pretreatment can significantly affect the biogas production because hydrolysis of the algae cell wall structure is a rate-limiting step in the AD process. In this study, four different pretreatments: mechanical, microwave (600 W, 2 min), ultrasonic (110 V, 15 min), and microwave combined with ultrasonic (600 W, 2 min; 110 V, 15 min) were applied to the seaweed and then codigested with a biogas plant leachate. The aim of this study was to investigate methane yields from AD after these pretreatments. The results showed that when compared with only mechanical pretreatment, the ultrasonic, ultrasonic combined with microwave, and microwave pretreatments could obtain increased cumulative methane yields of 167, 185, and 156%, respectively. The combined pretreatment showed a maximum methane yield of 260 mL/g·of volatile solids after 20 days of digestion. The ultrasonic combined with microwave pretreatment showed a significant improvement in methane yield when compared with the mechanical pretreatment. Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society