Design-Led Framework for Smart-and-Gameful Circular Practices: An Exploratory Analytical–Comparative Approach to Behaviour Activation, Action Quality, Continuity, and Accountability

The transition towards circular economy models requires, alongside technological innovation and regulatory instruments, design configurations capable of making circular practices operationally legible, executable, correct, and stable over time. Within this framework, the paper investigates the relationship between smart circular economies and gamification as complementary components of socio-technical configurations oriented towards behaviour activation, action quality, and continuity of practice. The aim is to develop a design-led framework that connects design configuration, behavioural outcomes, and accountability. The study adopts a theory-driven approach based on a critical review of the literature, the construction of a case-agnostic analytical grid, and the qualitative comparison of three paper-based case studies: a gamified recycling station in Sweden, a marketplace for urban logistics, and a smart and gamified mobile application for waste recycling. The results show that the synergy between smartness and gamefulness is more robust when the target action is unambiguously defined, the quality of the action is at least partly observable, feedback is located at the point of action, and incentives reward what the system can credibly verify. The comparison identifies three recurring profiles, two cross-cutting trade-offs, and the risk of “performative circularity”. The contribution consists of an exploratory, preliminary, and controlled analytical–comparative device for examining existing cases, clarifying the added explanatory value of integrating smartness and gamefulness, and formulating hypotheses for subsequent empirical validation. Its applicability is bounded by the robustness of the available evidence, the observability of action quality, and the explicitness of accountability conditions.