Mapping social sustainability practices among organizations at different levels of the circular economy journey.

• Autor(a) principal: Esteves, Carla Márcia Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/30104
• topic: Economia circular - Circular economy; Circular economy disclosures; Social sustainability disclosures; Corporate sustainability reporting; Stakeholders theory; Indicadores da economia circular; Indicadores da sustentabilidade social; Relatórios de sustentabilidade corporativa; Teoria dos stakeholders

The global pursuit of sustainable development has reached a critical point, with the Circular Economy (CE) emerging as a transformative model that holds the promise to reshape our economic landscape, representing the latest attempt to conceptually integrate economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable manner. This model, which provides a conceptual framework for achieving sustainability by promoting resource efficiency, waste reduction, and closed-loop systems, aims to bring about a systemic change that fosters long-term resilience, generates economic and business opportunities, and provides environmental benefits. However, despite the frequent association of the CE with sustainability, most practices within this economic system still need to prove their actual contribution to achieving sustainable development. The strong criticism is that even though CE is a great economic and environmental model, it does not bring the social dimension of sustainability in its principles nor discourse. Despite the extensive literature on Sustainability and CE and their relationships, the differences in the implementation of social sustainability practices among organizations at different stages of the journey to Circularity is still missing. This study aims to address this gap by answering the research question “Will there be differences in social sustainability practices among organizations at different stages in the journey towards the CE?” The study collected and analyzed both qualitative and quantitative secondary data. It proposes a scoring system to identify in which level of circularity selected sample of organizations were and then investigates and measures their social practices. The findings revealed a positive trend in the transition to circularity and the considerable implementation of social actions. Moreover, the research highlights that the number and social value of disclosures reported by sampled organizations does not necessarily correlate with the reported progress in the circularity journey. Two companies stand up for their social actions, Apple and Fairphone, the first founded within the industrial LE and on the intermediate stage of circularity, the other, within the CE, in the advanced level of circularity.