Motivations, Barriers, Drivers, and Benefits of Circular Economy in EMAS and ISO 14001-Certified Companies

Understanding circular economy (CE) practices in companies is still limited, with a call for more empirical studies to clarify micro-level actions involved in CE and equip practitioners and decision-makers with more insights and information to facilitate the shift of organisations and societies towards a CE. The goal is to evaluate the micro-level CE factors, within EMAS and ISO 14001 Portuguese companies, to understand their relationships and envision ways to foster CE. Exploratory factor analysis uncovered the underlying structure of the data identifying a set of CE factors. An online survey of 117 companies was used to test the relationships among factors with a bivariate Pearson correlation matrix, and mediation analysis. Some prominent results are the drivers' impact on benefits such as resource usage optimisation, business opportunities, and customers and workers satisfaction which are amplified by the mediator effect of the motivations, i.e., environmental tools and instruments usage and competitiveness development, with the mediation accounting for 40% of the overall effect. The results highlight the role of internal and external barriers on drivers and motivations as lowering the barriers will improve drivers, motivations and benefits. Policymakers can take away the relevance of the mediator effect of environmental tools and instruments usage and invest and further develop those tools in policies and initiatives promoting CE. These findings provide opportunities for managers and decision-makers to strengthen the adoption of circular practices to achieve the European Green Deal goals.