CIRCULUX – Implementing a circular economy in Luxembourg – Motivations and barriers of companies for shifting towards circularity

The primary aim of the CIRCULUX doctoral project is to explore the current framework conditions for implementing circular economy and the barriers for firms to adapt to these new imperatives, which have become an essential pillar of sustainability policies and regional development strategies. One of the objectives is to understand what influences companies in Luxembourg to shift towards circularity and how policy could guide a transition towards a circular economy with an emphasis on the building and automotive supply industries. The research explores social practice theories to bring together the different viewpoints on the circular economy to be able to highlight some areas of policy intervention. The study design is qualitative, including the analysis of documents, exploratory and semi-structured interviews (75 interviews in total). The data analysis bases on a two steps coding scheme and operates with the software MAXQDA. The results put forward the interdependence of the actors’ perception of what would mean a circular economy model for Luxembourg. They also reveal the firm’s specific role in this system. The decision of a business actor to implement a circular economy practice depends primarily on its return on investment, the general regulatory pressure and the maturity of the industry and the company. In general, the hindrance for circularity is not the absence of a technological or technical solution. As a push for action, interviewees suggested a regulatory framework for circularity. The Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg (FNR) funds this work under the project proposal 11268491 ‘Implementing a circular economy in Luxembourg’. The project contributes to the FNR CORE project CIRCULAR (2017-2020) under the supervision of Christian Schulz and in collaboration with Rannveig Edda Hjaltadóttir.