Paper short abstract:

Implementing circular economy approach relies on the ability of people and communities to change their behaviour. Grassroots circularity is a concept that helps include bottom-up potential of local communities in adaptive reuse practices, developed in the context of three adaptive reuse projects.

Paper long abstract:

Prolonging the utility of products is the main aim of a circular economy. So far, this concept has been implemented in a growing number of areas, one of which is built heritage. The circular economy argues that, instead of destroying a building to make way for a new one, the owners or managers of the property should care for it systematically by repair and refurbishment.

The success of a circular economy approach depends on the ability of people and communities to change their behaviour and way of thinking, yet the existing action plans rarely take into account social aspect of implementing policies. As social anthropologists, we can contribute to a better understanding of the role and capacity of local communities in introducing new ideas of the circular economy in a bottom-up fashion.

We define this local potential for the implementation of circular solutions as grassroots circularity. In our study we analysed three adaptive reuse projects in the area of built cultural heritage using a social sustainability framework. We discovered that, while all five factors contributing to the social sustainability model are highly relevant in describing and understanding the successful implementation of bottom-up adaptive reuse projects, they require some modification in order to fit the circular economy model. As a result of our analysis, we can offer insight on how grassroots circularity can be diagnosed and understood. We believe that the concept of grassroots circularity widens the circular economy model to include the neglected bottom-up potential of local communities.