Circular economy implementation within manufacturing companies at sfax-tunisia: barriers and opportunities

Abstract

The environmental, economic and social consequences of the frequent depletion of natural resources have uncovered the necessity for companies to change the way they manage their relationship with the environment. However, several enterprises are still immersed in a traditional linear economy which consists of take, make, use and waste . Therefore, most of the world's industries have focused on sustainable development and have promoted the development of Circular Economy (CE) to close the loop of the product lifecycle. To this end, a survey was carried out in Sfax, Tunisia with a sample of 102 companies. In this context, this work conducts a descriptive analysis followed by a Factor Analysis (FA), which focuses on CE adaptability, the opportunities and obstacles within the companies of Sfax city. Using the FA outputs, we have identified three factors associated with companies' understanding of CE concept: 1) Reuse of materials, 2) Business strategy towards the environment, and 3) Financial benefits. Then, the opportunities and barriers were presented. Indeed, this work proposes two different categories of opportunities which are direct opportunities presented by CE and opportunity related to the company brand image. Finally, we suggest two different categories of barriers, hard and human barriers.