IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i22p12351-d675055.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Critical Review of the Role of Repair Cafés in a Sustainable Circular Transition

Author

Listed:
  • Rikke Marie Moalem

    (Department of Planning, Aalborg University, 2400 Copenhagen, Denmark)

  • Mette Alberg Mosgaard

    (Department of Planning, Aalborg University, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark)

Abstract

Extending the useful life of consumer products is a critical element in the circular economy. Although commercial repair is an established part of the global economy, the repair is often conducted informally. This means that non-commercial repair ecosystems exist, including the international network of repair cafés, spreading worldwide to over 2000 repair cafés in 37 countries (April 2021). As the first review on this topic, this article investigates and gains more knowledge about repair cafés, and critically assesses their role as a sustainability initiative, i.e., how the concept may translate into a broader sustainability context. A systematic literature review (2010–2020) was conducted, including 44 articles in descriptive and content analyses. The bibliometric data revealed an increase in the number of publications on repair cafés, particularly over the last four years, indicating that repair cafés as a research topic have started to gain attention, and this is likely to grow in numbers. However, the significant number of different places of publication indicates that this is not (yet) a well-established field with defined research channels. The content analysis revealed that the concept has spread to a range of different contexts, beyond the original scope, influencing the mindset and acts of a broad field of practitioners. This indicates a wide range of possibilities for the expansion of the concept of repair cafés, bringing different expectations on calling into question the future role of repair cafés. However, the aims of the people involved in repair cafés span from the altruistic and strategic, over personal gains, to critical consumer, financial and educational aims. This may challenge repair cafés’ future role(s), i.e., ambitions set by the international organisation of repair cafés. Notably, the ambition for actors at the micro-level is to feed in data on repair and achieve ‘collaborative repair’, as the aims of the people involved are complex, and their expectations lack alignment, both vertically and horizontally.

Suggested Citation

  • Rikke Marie Moalem & Mette Alberg Mosgaard, 2021. "A Critical Review of the Role of Repair Cafés in a Sustainable Circular Transition," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-25, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12351-:d:675055
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12351/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12351/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Serdar Türkeli & Beijia Huang & Agata Stasik & René Kemp, 2019. "Circular Economy as a Glocal Business Activity: Mobile Phone Repair in the Netherlands, Poland and China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Sonali Diddi & Ruoh-Nan Yan, 2019. "Consumer Perceptions Related to Clothing Repair and Community Mending Events: A Circular Economy Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-17, September.
    3. Nancy M. P. Bocken & Elsa A. Olivetti & Jonathan M. Cullen & José Potting & Reid Lifset, 2017. "Taking the Circularity to the Next Level: A Special Issue on the Circular Economy," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 21(3), pages 476-482, June.
    4. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    5. Erik G. Hansen & Ferdinand Revellio, 2020. "Circular value creation architectures: Make, ally, buy, or laissez‐faire," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 24(6), pages 1250-1273, December.
    6. Snyder, Hannah, 2019. "Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 333-339.
    7. Kyungeun Sung & Tim Cooper & Sarah Kettley, 2019. "Developing Interventions for Scaling Up UK Upcycling," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-31, July.
    8. Andrew M. King & Stuart C. Burgess & Winnie Ijomah & Chris A. McMahon, 2006. "Reducing waste: repair, recondition, remanufacture or recycle?," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 257-267.
    9. Kirchherr, Julian & Reike, Denise & Hekkert, Marko, 2017. "Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 221-232.
    10. Udo Pesch & Wouter Spekkink & Jaco Quist, 2019. "Local sustainability initiatives: innovation and civic engagement in societal experiments," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 300-317, February.
    11. Korhonen, Jouni & Honkasalo, Antero & Seppälä, Jyri, 2018. "Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 37-46.
    12. Elisabeth Unterfrauner & Jing Shao & Margit Hofer & Claudia M. Fabian, 2019. "The environmental value and impact of the Maker movement—Insights from a cross‐case analysis of European maker initiatives," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(8), pages 1518-1533, December.
    13. Massimiliano Borrello & Francesco Caracciolo & Alessia Lombardi & Stefano Pascucci & Luigi Cembalo, 2017. "Consumers’ Perspective on Circular Economy Strategy for Reducing Food Waste," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, January.
    14. Roberta De Angelis, 2018. "Business Models in the Circular Economy," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-75127-6, February.
    15. Margaret Haderer, 2020. "Revisiting the Right to the City, Rethinking Urban Environmentalism: From Lifeworld Environmentalism to Planetary Environmentalism," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-13, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Samina Ghory & Bader Obeidat & Ra’ed Masa’deh, 2023. "Measuring Café Lovability Using Google’s HEART and Understanding the Roles of Usability, Sustainability Innovation, and Innovation Cocreation in Café Lovability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-29, April.
    2. Fadhlur Rahim Azmi & Mastura Roni & Megawati Sa’at, 2024. "Circular Supply Chain Management in Developing Countries: Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways to Sustainability," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 16(1), pages 105-115.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jaroslaw Golebiewski & Josu Takala & Oskar Juszczyk & Nina Drejerska, 2019. "Local contribution to circular economy. A case study of a Polish rural municipality," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 21(3), pages 771-791.
    2. Concepción Garcés-Ayerbe & Pilar Rivera-Torres & Inés Suárez-Perales & Dante I. Leyva-de la Hiz, 2019. "Is It Possible to Change from a Linear to a Circular Economy? An Overview of Opportunities and Barriers for European Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Companies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Nallapaneni Manoj Kumar & Shauhrat S. Chopra, 2022. "Leveraging Blockchain and Smart Contract Technologies to Overcome Circular Economy Implementation Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-18, August.
    4. Gilbert Silvius & Aydan Ismayilova & Vicente Sales-Vivó & Micol Costi, 2021. "Exploring Barriers for Circularity in the EU Furniture Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-25, October.
    5. Georgios Lanaras-Mamounis & Anastasios Kipritsis & Thomas A. Tsalis & Konstantinos Ι. Vatalis & Ioannis E. Nikolaou, 2022. "A Framework for Assessing the Contribution of Firms to Circular Economy: a Triple-Level Approach," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 883-902, September.
    6. Carmen García-Castillo & Erandi Maldonado-Villalpando & Luis Seguí-Amórtegui & Hilda Guerrero-García-Rojas, 2024. "Circular Economy, Eco-Innovation and a Business Model for the Operation of Wastewater Treatment Plants in Mexico," Resources, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-15, June.
    7. Kirchherr, Julian & Reike, Denise & Hekkert, Marko, 2017. "Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 221-232.
    8. Arijit Bhattacharya & Shefali Srivastava & Abhijit Majumdar, 2024. "Circular supply chains in manufacturing—Quo vadis? Accomplishments, challenges and future opportunities," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5), pages 4397-4423, July.
    9. Katherine Mansilla-Obando & Fabiola Jeldes-Delgado & Nataly Guiñez-Cabrera, 2022. "Circular Economy Strategies with Social Implications: Findings from a Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-16, October.
    10. Philipp Schäfer & Mario Schmidt, 2021. "Model-based analysis of the limits of recycling for its contribution to climate change mitigation [Modellgestützte Analyse der Grenzen des Beitrags von Recycling zum Klimaschutz]," Sustainability Nexus Forum, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 65-75, June.
    11. Carina Pasqualotto & Daniela Callegaro-De-Menezes & Cornelius Stephanus Lodewyk Schutte, 2023. "An Overview and Categorization of the Drivers and Barriers to the Adoption of the Circular Economy: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-24, July.
    12. Leena Aarikka-Stenroos & Martina Don Welathanthri & Valtteri Ranta, 2021. "What Is the Customer Value of the Circular Economy? Cross-Industry Exploration of Diverse Values Perceived by Consumers and Business Customers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-18, December.
    13. Yannis Politis & Evangelos Grigoroudis, 2022. "Incorporating the Sustainability Concept in the Major Business Excellence Models," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-20, July.
    14. Juli Nurdiana & Maria Laura Franco-Garcia & Michiel Adriaan Heldeweg, 2021. "How Shall We Start? The Importance of General Indices for Circular Cities in Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-22, October.
    15. Roberta De Angelis, 2022. "Circular economy business models as resilient complex adaptive systems," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 2245-2255, July.
    16. Felix Carl Schultz & Vladislav Valentinov & Robert Jaroslav Reinhardt & Ingo Pies, 2024. "The circular economy rebound effect: Reconceptualizing rebound approaches and mitigation opportunities from an ordonomic perspective," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 28(3), pages 374-385, June.
    17. Christoph P. Kiefer & Pablo del Río & Javier Carrillo‐Hermosilla, 2021. "On the contribution of eco‐innovation features to a circular economy: A microlevel quantitative approach," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1531-1547, May.
    18. Nicolae Istudor & Ionel Dumitru & Alina Filip & Alin Stancu & Mihai Ioan Ro?ca & Andrei Canda, 2023. "Integration of Circular Economy Principles in Consumer Behaviour for Electrical and Electronic Equipment," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 25(62), pages 1-48, February.
    19. Moritz Böhmecke‐Schwafert & Marie Wehinger & Robin Teigland, 2022. "Blockchain for the circular economy: Theorizing blockchain's role in the transition to a circular economy through an empirical investigation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(8), pages 3786-3801, December.
    20. Louise Laumann Kjaer & Daniela C. A. Pigosso & Monia Niero & Nynne Marie Bech & Tim C. McAloone, 2019. "Product/Service‐Systems for a Circular Economy: The Route to Decoupling Economic Growth from Resource Consumption?," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 23(1), pages 22-35, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12351-:d:675055. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.