Eco-Innovation and Circular Economy in the Cooperative Movement

Eco-innovation is widely recognized as a key enabler of circular economy transitions, yet the role of the cooperative movement in generating, adopting, and scaling circular eco-innovations remains underexplored and unevenly evidenced across sectors and countries. Cooperatives operate through distinctive governance and ownership arrangements—member participation, democratic decision-making, long-term orientation, and strong territorial embeddedness—that may shape innovation incentives, risk-sharing, investment horizons, and the distribution of costs and benefits along circular value chains. This Research Topic in Frontiers aims to consolidate and advance knowledge on how cooperatives contribute to circular and regenerative transitions through eco-innovation, and under which conditions they can become systemic change agents. We invite contributions that clarify mechanisms, quantify impacts, identify barriers and drivers, and propose actionable pathways to strengthen cooperative-led circular eco-innovation across diverse contexts.The shift from linear “take–make–waste” systems to circular models requires innovations in products, processes, business models, and governance. While much research focuses on investor-owned firms, cooperatives represent a substantial and diverse share of economic activity and often combine economic objectives with social missions. Their hybrid nature, simultaneously market actors and member-driven organizations, may create unique advantages for circularity (e.g., collective investment, trust-based coordination, community legitimacy) as well as constraints (e.g., capital access, managerial capacity, heterogeneous member preferences). In parallel, circular strategies increasingly intersect with digitalization, social inclusion, and just transition agendas. A focused scholarly effort is needed to understand when cooperative features translate into stronger circular eco-innovation outcomes and how policy, markets, and ecosystems can support diffusion and scaling.This Research Topic welcomes conceptual, empirical, and methodological contributions addressing, for example:- Cooperative governance and incentives for circular eco-innovation (participation, accountability, mission alignment).- Financing, investment constraints, and risk-sharing for circular projects and technologies.- Member/user co-creation, knowledge diffusion, and partnerships (networks, clusters, industrial symbiosis).- Sectoral pathways (e.g., agri-food, retail/consumer, energy communities, waste/resource recovery, construction, services).- Digital and data-enabled circularity (traceability, platforms, monitoring, AI/analytics) in cooperative settings.- Measurement and evaluation of outcomes (resource efficiency, emissions, resilience, value distribution, social impacts).- Policy and institutional frameworks that enable cooperative-led circular transitions (public procurement, regulation, support schemes).We welcome Original Research, Review/Systematic Review, Perspective, Policy and Practice Review, Methods, and Brief Research Report manuscripts, using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods (including comparative and cross-country studies, case-based designs, and data-driven evaluations). Topic editors: FERNANDA FRANKENBERGER, Fernando J. Díaz López, Maciej K. Szulc Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79255/eco-innovation-and-circular-economy-in-the-cooperative-movement