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Over the last few years, much attention has been paid to the phenomenon of household food waste which largely contributes to the total amount of food waste generated in industrialised countries. The reduction of food waste has been also included within the European strategy of circular economy and ambitious objectives have been assigned to the European member states. Youths proved to be the segment of the population most inclined to waste food and therefore they need to be monitored. This exploratory study, based on a survey involving 380 youths residing in Italy and Spain, aims at investigating the complexities of food waste behaviour within the framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. By referring to the PLS-SEM approach, we analyse the validity of the relationships between individual habits, attitudes, addiction to marketing ploys and sales strategies, and attitudes towards food waste. It also aims at verifying the existence of mediator effects in order to better understand these relationships. The construction of the Importance Performance Matrix Analysis enables identification of the dimensions which greatly influence positive behaviour, and whether urgent attention and interventions are required. The results confirm that behavioural models are appropriate for explaining youths' behaviour towards food waste with an important role played by the perceived behavioural control. Situational factors which characterize the moment of purchase should be carefully considered and monitored. This paper concludes that marketing and sale strategies negatively influence the waste behaviour of individuals, emphasizing the important role of retailers in preventing the generation of food waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circular economy (CE) has a huge potential to overcome sustainability challenges. The EU and several national governments have been urging firms for CE implementation. However, to date, most firms are failing in translating the CE concept into their business operations. Some scholars point out that firms may attain CE objectives through dynamic capabilities. To empirically investigate whether or not dynamic capabilities facilitate CE implementation, we analyzed a sample of 220 manufacturing firms in Italy through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Our PLS-SEM analysis shows that sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities and their underlying organizational routines significantly facilitate CE implementation. This paper contributes to the literature in the following ways. Firstly, this paper presents the measurement scales of dynamic capabilities and demonstrates how to operationalize a reflective-formative hierarchical component model (HCM) of dynamic capabilities in PLS-SEM. Secondly, this paper highlights the key capabilities and organizational routines through which firms can identify and pursue CE opportunities. Image 1 • We argue that firms may attain circular economy (CE) objectives through dynamic capabilities. • Sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities significantly facilitate CE implementation. • Key routines to identify CE opportunities include, but not limited to, market monitoring and R&D. • LCA seems to be an essential tool to identify CE opportunities. • Key routines to accomplish CE opportunities include, but not limited to, strategic planning and technological upgradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]