Introduction to the special issue on the contested realities of the circular economy

In the past decade the 'circular economy' (CE) has established itself as an influential model for economic development, with the Chinese central and regional governments The ambition of the model is to create 'circular' material flows that break with the current 'linear' economic rationale of take, make and dispose, creating business value for its participants Inspired, among other influences, by the cradle-to-cradle design methodology This ambition has attracted the open support from a wide range of economic and political actors: inter-governmental bodies (OECD), influential forums (World Economic Forum), advocacy associations (World Business Council for Sustainable Development -WBCSD, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Circle Economy), leading corporations and consulting firms (e.g. Accenture, Cisco, Dell, H&M, Hewlett Packard, Intel, IKEA, McKinsey, Renault, and Levy Strauss), cities (Amsterdam, Glasgow) and regions (Region Skne in Southern Sweden). The CE comes with a promise that circular relationships among markets, customers and natural resources (Lacy and Rutqvist 2015) have a unique capacity to combine economic growth with sustainability (Ghisellini, Cialani, and Ulgiati 2016).