Open AccessFutures Studies & the CircularEconomy: an Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustainable Development
Author(s) -
Ricardo Weigend Rodríguez,
Francesco Pomponi,
Bernardino D ́Amico
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
economía creativa/economía creativa
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2395-8200
pISSN - 2594-1631
DOI - 10.46840/ec.2019.11.03
Subject(s) - futures contract , futures studies , management science , sustainable development , sociology , computer science , positive economics , economics , political science , financial economics , artificial intelligence , law
While the Circular Economy (CE) is gaining traction as a new economic paradigm to overcome the linear economy, it has not yet developed an understanding on how to transition from the present into the future. What if the future is different from what the CE expects? We argue that the CE cannot answer this question adequately and therefore is not capable of developing this understanding alone. To address this shortcoming, we propose Futures Studies (FS) as a complementary discipline because it offers exactly what CE lacks: methods to explore alternative futures. Whilst both communities are working towards the same goal —a sustainable tomorrow— until now they show little to no interaction. This research represents a first step towards embedding realistic considerations of futures into the CE debate: it reviews literature in both fields and their theoretical background to highlight potential synergies, and lay a path on where and how to start.