South-East European Research Centre (SEERC)

The transition to a Circular Economy (CE) can be facilitated and may even require the participation of the consumer. The research proposed here will address the consumers’ role in the transition and their participation possibilities as shaped by their perception and willingness to adopt specific CE strategies. The underlying mechanisms leading to the consumer’s intentions and how these are to reflect on actual behaviour are the main themes of the study. This report presents the literature review and the proposed methodology to follow during the thesis writing process. Special emphasis is placed on the links between the approach proposed here and the main strands in the literature concerning the determinants of the interplay between decentralised actions on environment-preserving processes and the relevant institutional context. The main research objectives are: 1. To identify how consumers perceive the CE and their perception’s role in societal development, by focusing on their behaviour, 2. To identify the mechanisms that influence consumers’ adoption of CE practices, and 3. To provide recommendations and insight toward the development of the right institutional context (regulative and normative) in order to fill current gaps in consumers’ adoption of CE practices. As the report argues, the fundamental individual, regulative and social phenomena underlying the intention-behaviour interplay are the main aims of the study, emphasising the existing theoretical paradigms as input to and possible receptors of the expected outcomes.