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Proposing Circular Economy Ecosystem for Chinese SMEs: A Systematic Review

Circular economy (CE) has attracted so much attention around the world as it can contribute to the balance between economic development and environmental sustainability, to address the increasing critical resources scarcity and environmental issues. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China...

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Autores principales: Min, Zhejun, Sawang, Sukanlaya, Kivits, Robbert A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7967747/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33804522
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18052395
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author Min, Zhejun
Sawang, Sukanlaya
Kivits, Robbert A.
author_facet Min, Zhejun
Sawang, Sukanlaya
Kivits, Robbert A.
author_sort Min, Zhejun
collection PubMed
description Circular economy (CE) has attracted so much attention around the world as it can contribute to the balance between economic development and environmental sustainability, to address the increasing critical resources scarcity and environmental issues. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China are a major driving force in the economy with 43 million SMEs in 2020. Most of them maintain the traditional economic development method of “take–use”, without considering the environment. This has caused great harm to the environment and resource availability. Therefore, Chinese SMEs must adopt CE in their business to address this issue. The current study aims to explore the key barriers (lack of time, lack of human resources and finance) and enablers (e.g., network, innovation, and reputation) for Chinese SMEs CE adoption. The current study employs a systematic review approach with thematic analysis to identify the internal and external barriers and enablers of CE adoption among SMEs. Moreover, a CE ecosystem has been proposed for identifying the key actors in the CE system, which will be beneficial for policy-makers to take into account when drafting and adjusting CE laws and regulations.
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spelling pubmed-79677472021-03-18 Proposing Circular Economy Ecosystem for Chinese SMEs: A Systematic Review Min, Zhejun Sawang, Sukanlaya Kivits, Robbert A. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Circular economy (CE) has attracted so much attention around the world as it can contribute to the balance between economic development and environmental sustainability, to address the increasing critical resources scarcity and environmental issues. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China are a major driving force in the economy with 43 million SMEs in 2020. Most of them maintain the traditional economic development method of “take–use”, without considering the environment. This has caused great harm to the environment and resource availability. Therefore, Chinese SMEs must adopt CE in their business to address this issue. The current study aims to explore the key barriers (lack of time, lack of human resources and finance) and enablers (e.g., network, innovation, and reputation) for Chinese SMEs CE adoption. The current study employs a systematic review approach with thematic analysis to identify the internal and external barriers and enablers of CE adoption among SMEs. Moreover, a CE ecosystem has been proposed for identifying the key actors in the CE system, which will be beneficial for policy-makers to take into account when drafting and adjusting CE laws and regulations. MDPI 2021-03-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7967747/ /pubmed/33804522 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18052395 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Min, Zhejun
Sawang, Sukanlaya
Kivits, Robbert A.
Proposing Circular Economy Ecosystem for Chinese SMEs: A Systematic Review
title Proposing Circular Economy Ecosystem for Chinese SMEs: A Systematic Review
title_full Proposing Circular Economy Ecosystem for Chinese SMEs: A Systematic Review
title_fullStr Proposing Circular Economy Ecosystem for Chinese SMEs: A Systematic Review
title_full_unstemmed Proposing Circular Economy Ecosystem for Chinese SMEs: A Systematic Review
title_short Proposing Circular Economy Ecosystem for Chinese SMEs: A Systematic Review
title_sort proposing circular economy ecosystem for chinese smes: a systematic review
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7967747/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33804522
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18052395
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