Circular business model: Breaking down barriers towards sustainable development

Barriers to circular economy implementation are adversities that organizations, in general, cannot overcome. Other adversities are relative, that is, true within a particular context of some organizations. In this sense, they would be-in fact-obstacles, which can emerge as a competitive differential for those organizations that have or develop internal capacity to overcome them. The article aims to explore how barriers integrate solutions to face barriers or obstacles in the company and whether this brings a competitive advantage. In order to achieve the aim, 40 interviews were carried out in companies that already have implemented a circular economy in manufacturing strategy. The results suggest that absolute barriers emerge as an extreme theoretical reference of minor occurrence in practice (outliers). However, obstacles are ordinary and frequent events, which can be converted into a competitive advantage as appropriate operations strategies are incorporated into the circular business model to achieve sustainable development.