Business incubators as effective tools for driving circular economy

The circular economy (CE), which reimagines waste as economic opportunity, has been largely overlooked by traditional entrepreneurs. One explanation for this oversight is that limited information flow and cognitive bias limit their ability to recognize and develop CE opportunities. We propose a framework for a CE-focused incubator that removes these barriers to circular economy entrepreneurship. The framework defines how multiple stakeholders interact in order to provide critical information for CE development. Stakeholders include firms seeking economical ways to handle waste, firms that might use waste as value-added input, government agencies, and circular economy analysts that can provide potentially beneficial information, e.g. via Material Flow Analysis. Entrepreneurs would be recruited to develop CE ventures. The government would be asked to support initial financing, but the final start-ups would stand on their own as enterprises worthy of venture capital funding. The collaborative environment would promote profitable CE behavior. CE entrepreneurs need access to relevant information and a supportive network, both of which the CE-focused incubator we propose provides. Future work is needed to implement CE-incubators to engage entrepreneurs to realize economic and environmental benefits. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.