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The environmental, social and economic limits and shortcomings of the current linear model of production and consumption highlight the necessity of a rapid transition towards a sustainable paradigm. The concept of a circular economy has recently gained traction among scholars, policy‐makers and businesses as a promising alternative. Yet our understanding of how to speed up the systemic transition from a linear economy paradigm towards a circular economy paradigm is lacking. In this paper, we address this research gap by introducing the concept of 'circular disruption' and by describing how such a disruption may unfold. To do so, we build on S‐curve thinking and the concept of panarchy. Based on the resulting synthesis, we propose three phases that constitute the core of the disruption process: (1) the release phase, (2) the reorganisation phase and (3) the eruption phase. We then operationalise these three phases for different enabling innovation system functions and illustrate our observations with examples for the textile and fashion sector. We discuss how each of the three disruption phases can be accelerated to quickly create an opening for the new circular paradigm. The proposed circular disruption framework offers novel insights on socio‐technical transitions and changes and contributes to strengthening a systemic and theoretically grounded approach to circular economy research. Scholars and practitioners alike may take advantage of this work to focus circular economy efforts on speed and scale—an urgently needed focus to start tackling the sustainability challenges humankind is currently facing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the evolution of renewable energy cooperatives, examining all such cooperatives founded in German districts between 2006 and 2016. The rise of the cooperative form in renewable energy production is a prominent example of the strong involvement of users in market formation. We investigate the effects of 'institutional relatedness', arguing that renewable energy cooperatives can leverage the organizational knowledge and the legitimacy gained by cooperatives active in other industries in the same district. Using an organizational ecology approach, we find that the local presence of cooperatives in other industries indeed supported the founding of renewable energy cooperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT One potential major role of social economy organizations in sustainability transitions is the creation and mobilization of social capital. Yet, the social economy gathers very distinct organizational models which may be associated with different types and levels of social capital. Accordingly, the objective of this article is to explore whether, and if so how, the type and level of social capital differ between mutual benefit organizations - which essentially seek to meet their members' needs - and public benefit organizations - which seek to enhance the well-being of a broader community or the society as a whole. The study draws on an econometric analysis of different forms of social capital in two renewable energy cooperatives which are located in Flanders but have clearly divergent orientations toward mutual versus public benefit. The results show that, as compared with an orientation toward public benefit, an orientation toward mutual benefit is associated with lower social identification with the cooperative and weaker ties between members. Our study explores the underlying explanatory mechanisms behind these relationships. Its findings contribute to understanding the potential roles played by cooperatives in sustainability transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas a centralized energy supply system is still dominant today, the energy sector is currently witnessing the development of small-scale and more geographically dispersed generation units, so-called distributed generation technologies. The alignment framework proposes a very useful approach to look at this evolution. Yet, we argue in this paper that this framework does not fully take into account the inertia associated with past technological and institutional choices that may hinder future changes. Relying on the concept of socio-technical lock-in, we illustrate this point with the case of the diffusion of distributed generation technologies. Based on this analysis, we propose an adaptation of the alignment framework in order to integrate these elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]