Circular Economy in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises—Current Trends, Practical Challenges and Future Research Agenda

Circular Economy (CE) has evolved as a philosophy to transform industrial supply chains to become greener to combat climate change issues. Countries target of achieving Net Zero will never be fulfilled unless along with larger organisations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are decarbonized as more than 90% of World’s businesses are SMEs. Although recently there are many studies on SMEs sustainability practices and performance covering drivers, bottlenecks, and opportunities, the holistic approach for embedding circular economy and sustainability covering design, planning, implementation, and operations are missing. This research bridges this knowledge gaps by revealing trends and theories of circular economy adoption in SMEs. Additionally, the research derives the drivers/enablers, issues, and challenges, and determine strategies, resources, and competences for the CE adoption in SMEs. The study concludes with a consolidated framework comprising of factors and methods for CE implementation in SMEs. The entire research has been undertaken using secondary data analysis method through content analysis of 163 published articles in highly ranked peer reviewed journals.