Achieving Industrial Circularity: Adapting Circular Economy in Manufacturing Firms

ABSTRACT The Circular Economy (CE) is a critical enabler of Sustainable Development, yet its adoption in the Large‐Scale Manufacturing (LSM) sector of developing nations is severely constrained by a complex set of unquantified barriers. These barriers restrain industries from implementing productive strategies and solutions to promote CE that ultimately prevent corporations from successfully developing a circular system that guarantees the addition of industrial ecology, societal equity, and corporate sustainability as a whole. To tackle these challenges, the study outlines and analyses the uncertainties linked to identifying indicators and ranking the barriers to CE adoption. Moreover, the paper develops a model for the implementation of CE in manufacturing firms. By examining the connection between overcoming circular transition obstacles (CTOs) and achieving sustainable industrial resource circularity (SIRC), the study seeks to offer valuable insights. To fulfil this, a survey of experts from large scale manufacturing (LSM) industries of Pakistan was carried out and to validate the hypothesis of the study, the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS‐SEM) technique was utilised. The findings showed a strong correlation and revealed that barriers accounted for 60.7% of the variance in SIRC. Based on the study's results, the CE adoption model presents a valuable roadmap to industrialists and relevant stakeholders to adopt industrial circularity in sustainable manufacturing.