The transition to a circular economy requires innovation at all levels of society. This insightful Research Handbook is the first comprehensive edited work examining how innovation can contribute to a more circular economy.

This groundbreaking handbook leads the way in accelerating the transition to a sustainable circular economy by introducing the concept of a catalyst as a positive and enhancing driving force for sustainability. Catalysts create and maintain favourable conditions for complex systemic sustainability transition changes, and a discussion and understanding of catalysts is required to move from a linear economy to a sustainable and circular economy. With contributions from leading experts from around the globe, this volume presents theoretical insights, contextualised case studies, and participatory methodologies, which identify different catalysts, including technology, innovation, business models, management and organisation, regulation, sustainability policy, product design, and culture. The authors then show how these catalysts accelerate sustainability transitions. As a unique value to the reader, the book brings together public policy and private business perspectives to address the circular economy as a systemic change. Its theoretical and practical perspectives are coupled with real-world case studies from Finland, Italy, China, India, Nigeria, and others to provide tangible insights on catalysing the circular economy across organisational, hierarchical, and disciplinary boundaries. With its broad interdisciplinary and geographically diverse scope, this handbook will be a valuable tool for researchers, academics, and policy-makers in the fields of circular economy, sustainability transitions, environmental studies, business, and the social sciences more broadly.

The drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted many of society’s systemic inequalities. In this timely and prescient book, Taina Pihlajarinne, Jukka Tapio Mähönen and Pratyush Nath Upreti explore the importance of intellectual property rights (IPRs) post pandemic and argue for a pressing revision of the current IPR system to build a more globally sustainable and just regime.

The Handbook of the Circular Economy takes a unique look at this rapidly expanding field of activity from the perspectives of global thought leaders, world-leading researchers and industry. Exploring both transitional activity and considering a transformed Circular Economy the book is presented in three distinct sections: section one includes first-hand ideas and opinions from some of the biggest names in our 21st century Circular Economy landscape. The second section includes empirical work that considers the state-of-the-art in research from a host of perspectives ranging from accounting to innovation, from policy to communities of practice. The final section includes brief examples of leading industrial innovations that are aiming to change the world. Suitable for students, researchers, policy-makers and industrialists this handbook highlights many of the challenges we face in shifting away from our linear economy.

Public procurement law is a necessary component of the single market because it attempts to regulate the public markets of Member States and represents a key priority for the European Union. This Research Handbook makes a major contribution to the understanding of the current EU public procurement regime, its interface with the law of the internal market and the pivotal role that this will play in the delivery of the European 2020 Growth Strategy.

This innovative Research Handbook answers crucial questions about how individuals and organisations can make a difference towards sustainability. Offering an integrative perspective on sustainability agency, it reviews individual, active, organisational and relational forms of sustainability agency, demonstrating the capacity of individuals and organisations to act toward sustainable futures.

Outlining how the concepts of green economy and green growth have become the forefront of policy and political debates within the last decade, this compelling Research Handbook investigates the policies and plans that utilise these concepts at both the local and global level to achieve a truly green economy. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

This Research Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the role of project management in sustainable development. Examining how to successfully integrate sustainability into the processes and practices involved, it highlights the significant development in sustainable project management whilst exploring potential future directions for the field.