Earth, wood, and coffee: empirical evidence on value creation in the circular economy

Circular economy is concerned with rethinking economic models to reduce both the pressure on resources and the generation of waste. The implementation of such models often implies new forms of coordination across different processes, actors and scales. The literature on value chains has struggled to conceptualise such transitions. Recent contributions have advocated to frame circular economy initiatives as giving rise to new ‘value systems’ rather than conventional value chains. Empirical studies on how such ‘circular value systems’ come about are still rare and lack a firm conceptual basis. We close this gap by applying a conceptual framework to three case studies, respectively concerned with material flows of excavated earth, urban wood and coffee grounds. Our results provide novel empirical evidence on value creation in circular economy initiatives.