IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i3p1726-d740841.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Circular Economy for Cities and Sustainable Development: The Case of the Portuguese City of Leiria

Author

Listed:
  • João Cesar Cadima Antunes

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, 4200-464 Porto, Portugal)

  • Teresa Eugénio

    (Centre of Applied Research in Management and Economics (CARME), School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal)

  • Manuel Castelo Branco

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, CARME, CEF.UP and OBEGEF, 4200-464 Porto, Portugal)

Abstract

The principles of the circular economy play a central role in the global economy, and its application is suggested in the context of business and urban development for creating cities capable of reinventing themselves in the long term. The main objective of this study is to assess the perception of the inhabitants of the city of Leiria (Portugal) regarding the concept of the circular economy and the acceptance of circular actions and projects, gathering their opinions and motivations, and understanding the challenges they perceive for implementing the circular economy. This study is relevant because, to date, no work has analyzed the circular practices of citizens and consequent projects for a city. The adopted methodology consisted of a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, which was materialized in the administration of an online questionnaire to the inhabitants, workers, or students of the Municipality of Leiria. We obtained a sample of 547 answers. These results underwent statistical analysis, and it was concluded that the familiarization of study participants with the circular economy is low, but that they have a positive predisposition to engage in rental, reuse, article repair, and recycling activities. The municipality should continue to invest in the extension and promotion of circular economy initiatives in the city, since there is a predisposition of respondents towards using them, which may lead to the conclusion that they would support their implementation. This is an initial step that should promote further research into understanding the perception of citizens regarding circular economy initiatives and actions, followed by how it might be supported to achieve its full potential in cities.

Suggested Citation

  • João Cesar Cadima Antunes & Teresa Eugénio & Manuel Castelo Branco, 2022. "Circular Economy for Cities and Sustainable Development: The Case of the Portuguese City of Leiria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-15, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:1726-:d:740841
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1726/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1726/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Mariusz Z. Gusiatin & Dorota Kulikowska & Katarzyna Bernat, 2024. "Municipal Sewage Sludge as a Resource in the Circular Economy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-25, May.
    2. Genesis Camila Cervantes Puma & Adriana Salles & Luís Bragança, 2024. "Nexus between Urban Circular Economies and Sustainable Development Goals: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-19, March.

    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:14:y:2022:i:3:p:1726-:d:740841. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.