Abstract

The circular economy (CE) has emerged as a sustainable alternative to the linear model of production and consumption of products and services. Consumers are key actors in the circular economy loop, yet consumer behaviour and decision-making remain at the periphery of research in this area. To close this gap and to promote related academic research we perform a systematic literature review, analysing the main areas of research in the CE relating to consumer behaviour and decision-making. The results show that there are six main areas that link consumer and CE: consumer behaviour, purchase intention and sustainable consumption; lifetime and reparability; recycled plastics, upcycling, e-waste and innovation. These areas seem incomplete and focused on a relatively small number of sectors. Further, while attitude and knowledge are the most influential elements in the consumer’s buying decision-making process, our analysis shows significant gaps in current research in this regard. A key element of consumer behaviour, the post-purchase phase relating to “use”, “recycle” and “upcycle” was found to still be obscure. We provide recommendations on how this gap can be filled.

Introduction

The circular economy (CE) has been gaining increasing attention in recent years from society, companies and public bodies (Korhonen et al., 2017). The best-known economic model until now was the linear model, based on continuous growth and the use of many resources (Kirchherr et al., 2017; Ness, 2008). The CE has emerged as an alternative to this model, due to the fundamental positive role it plays in the environment, its functions and its interactions with the economic system (Ghisellini et al., 2016). The concept of CE has been reformulated and analysed several times in recent years (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Ghisellini et al., 2016; Kirchherr et al., 2017; MacArthur et al., 2013; Prieto-Sandoval et al., 2018), with researchers agreeing that it is a regenerative production and consumption model. However, it cannot be regarded as an individual process, as the CE involves a change in companies, industries and the economy through shifts in values, norms, behaviours and attitudes in society (Chizaryfard et al., 2021).

To this effect, the concept of CE is being analysed from different fields such as economics, strategy, engineering and resource consumption (Clube and Tennant, 2020; Demirel and Danisman, 2019; Machado et al., 2019; Perez-Castillo and Vera-Martinez, 2021), although there are still few studies concerned with the impact of consumers on the CE loop. Consumers must be involved in the whole process and be aware of the value of CE-based products and services. However, as stated by (Kirchherr et al., 2017), the reasons why consumers do or do not take part in CE processes have not been sufficiently analysed (Camacho-Otero et al., 2018). established that although there is increasing research on consumption, the contributions often refer to possible solutions relating to the nature or meaning of CE or the consumption progress, but do not focus on the relationship between the CE and the consumer. In turn (Wastling et al., 2018), argued that the role of the consumer in the CE needs to be questioned and has not yet been fully explored. To this end, there is a need to analyse the role of consumers to resolve the existing gaps in the current literature. However, not only is the relationship between CE and consumer essential to understand, but so are the behaviours and attitudes that consumer may have regarding this process, considered a hot topic due to the wealth of information it brings to both companies and society (Stankevich, 2017). The consumer can be analysed effectively through the decision-making process, wherein the consumer is at the centre (Zhang and Benyoucef, 2016).

Discussion and conclusions

Based on this literature review, it was found that interest in the relationship between the CE and the consumer has increased in the last two and a half years, when 75% of the documents analysed were published. This reflects the fact that it is a new topic that has a long way to go, and one that is important not only at European but also at global level. This literature review provided an overview of and revealed the deep research in the existing literature regarding the CE and the consumer, in terms of consumer behaviour and consumers’ PI.

To answer the first research question – What are the main areas of research in the CE relating to consumer behaviour? – this paper summarises and interrelates the different main areas of the CE with the consumer. Notably, seven different main areas were detected, all of them interrelated, as shown in Fig. 7. A circular economic model is presented, composed of “take, make, distribute, purchase, use and dispose”, adding “recycle, upcycle and innovate”. The CE was the main concept analysed, from which six different main areas were obtained that can be connected to the circular chain in terms of consumer behaviour. They were (1) the elements that affect consumers’ behaviour, PI and sustainable consumption; (2) lifetime extension and reparability; (3) packaging and recycled plastic; (4) e-waste; and (5) upcycling. Moreover, it was identified that process improvement and involvement depend on (6) innovation, as a way to reduce barriers to CE adoption and to contribute to a more sustainable economy, and so is considered a key factor within the CE loop. Each of the areas mentioned, except for the “purchase” area, which deals with the key concepts of consumer behaviour and attitudes, analyse consumers in a superficial manner, focusing more on the product or service than on consumer reactions or behaviours. To this effect, an important gap is detected in the literature, and that is the lack of knowledge of consumers in actions such as decisions to extend the life of a product, how consumers perceive the changes in new consumption models, and even how they can be re-educated in relation to concepts based on the CE.