Challenges of Implementing Circular Economy in Polluting Industries: A Hybrid Meta-synthesis and Fuzzy DEMATEL-ANP Approach

The present study sought to provide a pattern of the relationships among the challenges of implementing a circular economy in polluting industries. In terms of purpose, this research is considered as a component of applied developmental research and regarding research type, it is considered as a mix method (exploratory mix) one. Yazd glass industry was selected as one of the polluting industries in the country and ten experts in this industry who were purposefully selected, were polled. In the qualitative part of the research, the Meta-synthesis approach was used to identify the challenges and categorize them, and in the quantitative part, the Fuzzy DEMATEL-ANP method was used to present the pattern of relationships among these challenges and prioritize them. The qualitative findings included identifying 27 challenges in six dimensions: economic, cultural and social, managerial, organizational, infrastructure and technology, market and design. In quantitative terms, the findings showed that economic challenges are the most effective and market and design challenges are the most affected challenges in implementing a circular economy. Also, the organizational challenges were found to interact more with other challenges. In a more complete analysis, the challenges of market uncertainty (e.g., recession), the existence of a linear mindset in the managers, the lack of systematic and circular thinking, and the challenge of low customer demand for recycled products are the most important challenges in implementing a circular economy in polluting industries such as the glass industry. In addition, the impact and effectiveness of each of the challenges were identified in their relationship to each other, which can be a roadmap for the use of managers and experts of different organizations to implement a circular economy.