Towards Sustainability: Mapping Interrelationships among Barriers to Circular Bio-Economy in the Indian Leather Industry

Increasing environmental awareness and stringent environmental norms of developed countries have demanded eco-friendly industrial practices from the leather industry. On the path to achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs), the concept of circular bio-economy (CBE) practices has gained significant attention from the leather industry with regards to waste management. CBE practices encourage the potential of recovering value from leather waste. However, the CBE concept has not been well received by the leather industries of developing countries for various reasons. Hence, this study aims to identify and evaluate various barriers to CBE practices from the context of the Indian leather industry. Twenty-five barriers to CBE practices in the leather industry are identified through literature review and interaction with managers. Then, a rough decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (R-DEMATEL) was utilized to reveal the interrelationships among the barriers to CBE practices. Restrictiveness to change, difficulty in forming a reliable supplier network, difficulty in developing customers, lack of vision, and unclear and partial understanding of the CBE concept have been identified as the five most critical barriers to CBE practices in the leather industry. Furthermore, in the current study, nine barriers fall into the cause group and sixteen barriers fall into the effect group. The outcome of the study reveals the causal interrelationships among the barriers to CBE practices to the industrial management and policymakers. This study is the first of its kind to analyze the barriers to CBE practices in the Indian leather industry context.