Critical success factors for the adoption of circular economy in sustainable healthcare waste management

The rapid growth of healthcare sector, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, has augmented the emission of healthcare waste globally. The healthcare waste is a major concern for developing economies like India instead of developed ones due to ineffective waste management systems. However, the circular economy is a proven approach to efficient waste management. Thus, this study has recognised and prioritised the criticality of critical success factors for the adoption of a circular economy in Indian healthcare to minimise waste generation. Initially, an analysis of variance followed by questionnaire surveys and descriptive statistics is executed to identify the substantial differences in the adoption of circular economy in healthcare having different sizes or domains of expertise. Finally, the interpretive structural modelling embedded fuzzy-decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method is used to identify the most significant critical success factors for adopting a circular economy in health care. Among 17 finalised critical success factors, 12 are identified in a causal group, while the remaining five are in the effect group. The government's responsibility and stakeholders' participation have the highest driving potential, whereas the segregation and collection of healthcare waste 1depend highly on other causal-critical success factors. This study also shows the suitable extent to Indian policymakers for developing strategies and assigning the resources and efforts to enhance the adoption of a circular economy in health care from an Indian perspective. However, the results obtained are India-specific, but this can be a platform to understand and analyse the adoption of a circular economy in health care for other developing economies. Graphical abstract