The circular economy operating and stakeholder model “eco-5HM” to avoid circular fallacies that prevent sustainability

A complete operating model for circular economy (CE) would benefit policymakers, firms, academia, society and NGOs for informed decision-making relating to CE operations, tactics and strategic goals. The current prevailing paradigm of a CE operating model encompasses three CE levels: micro-level for firms, meso-level for eco-industry parks and symbiosis, and macro-level for governments and regions. This is arguably an incomplete model, causing circular fallacies, such as problem shifting, poor prioritization, and optimization of the wrong system. In this paper, a CE operating- and also stakeholder-model is explored through theory integration (TI) of CE and the related fields of sustainability, economy, governance and management. TI from these fields has a potential to unlock compounding knowledge for operations and informed decision-making for CE. The result of this TI is the “eco Quintuple Helix Model” (eco-5HM) which integrates the three CE levels with the hierarchical triple bottom line (TBL), nine ecosystem boundaries, three decision-making levels and the 5HM. The eco-5HM comprises five operation and stakeholder levels – firms, governments, academia, society and environment – each with their own systems, operations, interactions, scales and indicators. This CE operating model can better inform decision-makers for CE operations and tactics to achieve the strategic goal of sustainability.