A second-hand shop and a council-run repair café may generate more than just fixed toasters and cheap clothes — they may also strengthen the social fabric of a neighbourhood, yet policymakers rarely measure that benefit. Current circular economy policy focuses almost entirely on environmental gains, such as cutting waste, and economic gains, such as creating new markets. The social side — whether these hubs build community cohesion, give low-income groups access to resources, or revalue the skills of local people — remains vaguely defined and largely unstudied. This project fills that gap by examining how social value and community well-being actually emerge in circular economy hubs in the UK. If the research succeeds, it could give local authorities and funders a practical framework for designing and evaluating hubs that do more than recycle materials. Instead of judging success solely by tonnes diverted from landfill, councils could also track whether a repair café helps neighbours trust one another or whether a tool library reduces isolation among older residents. The result would be policy that treats social outcomes as seriously as environmental ones.
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Circular Economy (CE) practice is based on the promotion of a more environmentally conscious use of the planet's finite resources by maintaining materials and products in circulation (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2023). Faced with the impending threat of global resource scarcity, CE as a generative system which promises economic, social and environmental benefits in which 'waste becomes wealth' (Kosir et al., 2021) has grown increasingly more present within the worldwide urban policy context (Fitch-Roy et al., 2021). Research has indicated that CE policy focuses predominantly on its economic and environmental aspects, while social dimensions and targets are often comparatively vague and intangible (Winslow & Coenen, 2023). This aspect of CE implementation is also reflected in the literature, where a significant research gap can be found regarding the social dimension of CE (Valencia et al. 2023; Mies & Gold, 2021). Despite their relevance and interconnection to environmental and economic dimensions of CE, the policy concept's contributions to community well-being and social value, such as providing economic opportunities and resources for low-income groups, revaluing the skills of community members, and fostering local community cohesion have rarely been explored as central research foci (Bradley & Persson, 2022; Mies & Gold, 2021). While spaces of longstanding circular economy practices (such as second-hand shops) have been analysed for their contributions to social value and community well-being (Podkalicka & Meese, 2012; Osterley and Williams, 2019), only few studies have tackled these concepts in the context of CE hubs as an outcome of specifically CE policymaking. Bradley & Persson (2022), for instance, investigated Swedish CE hubs focused on repair, and concluded that these localised practices contribute to 'building social relations, empowering people and creating space for non-consumerist forms of citizenship to develop' (p. 1334).
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