Environmental and social sustainability enhancement in agro-industrial circular ecosystem: a research co-development between Brazil and Australia

Abstract

Circular Economy (CE) is considered one of the main ways, in the field of business management, to implement sustainable development, although there are social and environmental aspects that need to be better considered. Traditionally, CE applications focus on the integration of few environmental elements (physical resources and waste) into economic activities, with low consideration of social aspects. Literature and practice highlight the limitation of empirical evidence and case studies on the integration of social and environmental dimensions into circular ecosystems, and the agro-industrial systems of fertilizers is a fertile field for this development. Based on this, the research question is: how to create value with environmental and social benefits for the agro-industrial fertilizer circular ecosystem? From the research question, the objective is to develop a roadmap to support the creation of sustainable environmental and social values of an agro-industrial fertilizer circular ecosystem. The specific research objectives are: 1. to deepen the theoretical construct on sustainability in agro-industrial fertilizer circular ecosystems and on ecosystem agro-industrial value creation; 2. to identify the value proposition and configurations of processes and actors of an agro-industrial fertilizer circular ecosystem; 3. to analyze the environmental and social sustainability of the processes and actors of an agro-industrial fertilizer circular ecosystem; 4. to identify sustainable environmental and social values opportunities of an agro-industrial fertilizer circular ecosystem; 5. to build a roadmap to support the creation of sustainable environmental and social values of an agro-industrial fertilizer circular ecosystem. The project, including the case study, will be developed within the scope of the "Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Nutrients in a Circular Economy", from the Australian Government Research Council. The applied methods will be: traditional and systematic literature review; case study with field visiting and semi-structured interviews; technical meetings and workshops; Environmental and Social Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the Sustainable Value Analysis Tool. The results of the theoretical construct, the environmental and social analyzes and the opportunities for sustainable environmental and social values of the NiCE case of an agro-industrial fertilizer circular ecosystem will be analyzed according to the contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The results of the roadmap to support the creation of sustainable environmental and social values from the NiCE case of a circular agro-industrial fertilizer ecosystem will be analyzed in a multi-level perspective, considering the socio-technical context of the agro-industrial fertilizer ecosystem in Brazil and Australia. As the main results of the research, in addition to the contribution to the agro-industrial sector of fertilizers, this project will develop an applied roadmap to support the creation of environmental and social values in circular ecosystems, as well as to expand and integrate the boundaries of knowledge areas in relation to value chain, ecosystem, circular economy and sustainability. (AU)