CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND LOCAL SUSTAINABILITY: OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITS FOR ITALIAN SMALL MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Abstract

To sustain circular economy development within Italian industrial territory it’s necessary to invest in simplification, sharing and innovation. This paper outlines critical analysis of the Italian situation related to the diffusion of circular economy, underlining difficulties to be solved by small and medium enterprises interested to circular and sustainable innovation. Some operative solutions to facilitate the diffusion of circular initiatives are reported, with examples and case studies related to several industrial sectors. In fact, EU policy directs the market towards recycling, to try to reduce the amount of waste to be treated and contain the consumption of virgin raw materials. Otherwise, it’s evident that at local level there are many obstacles that still affect companies and limit development and innovation. Confusion of the regulatory framework and difficulty of finding support services are two of the main limitations to circular innovation. The Italian economic context has interesting potential for the development of the circular economy: two-thirds of our imports are intermediate products, so greater access to materials and components and greater availability of services could be elements of further development of numerous industrial sectors. More organised and transparent market system would allow more and more companies to adopt circular solutions in the purchase of secondary raw materials and in encouraging the return of waste materials to the market.