Abstract

In recent years, the circular economy (CE) paradigm has emerged as a mainstream policy discourse having the potential to disrupt linear economic development pathways by extracting and retaining the maximum value from existing resources through their recirculation. Highlighting the diverse circuits of value implicated in local CE development, this article considers how the ecological (material) and extraeconomic (social) premises of CE thinking can be harnessed through mission-driven social enterprises (SEs). Using a case study of a SE project in Graz, Austria, which is engaged in CE activities across the textile, interior design/wood, and food sectors, it proposes a novel heuristic framework for examining the role of circuits of value in constructing alternative circular narratives and local circular economic development trajectories. In doing so, this framework positions SE as an entity entangled in a complex web of interconnected material and social relations and practices that occur across coexisting mainstream and alternative economic spaces of production, exchange, and consumption. By aligning the CE concept with circuits of value, the article further shows the importance of mapping and conceptualizing value flows and feedback loops associated with the local development of the CE in a given spatial and temporal context.

摘要

近年来，循环经济 (CE) 范式已成为主流政策话语，有可能通过再循环从现有资源中提取和保留最大价值来破坏线性经济发展路径。本文强调了地方 CE 发展中涉及的各种价值循环，考虑了如何通过使命驱动的社会企业 (SE) 来利用 CE 思维的生态（物质）和超经济（社会）前提。使用奥地利格拉茨 SE 项目的案例研究，该项目从事纺织、室内设计/木材和食品领域的 CE 活动，它提出了一种新颖的启发式框架，用于检查价值回路在构建替代循环中的作用叙述和地方循环经济发展轨迹。在这样做，该框架将 SE 定位为一个实体，它纠缠在一个复杂的相互关联的物质和社会关系和实践网络中，这些关系和实践发生在生产、交换和消费的共存主流和替代经济空间中。通过将 CE 概念与价值回路对齐，本文进一步展示了在给定的空间和时间背景下绘制和概念化与 CE 的本地发展相关的价值流和反馈循环的重要性。