Toward a circular supply chain: Understanding barriers from the perspective of recovery approaches

The integration of the concept of the circular economy (CE) within the supply chain is known as the circular supply chain (CSC). Although various articles have identified barriers to implementing CE, no comprehensive study has investigated the impacts of barriers focusing on CSC. This study includes a systematic literature review to contextualize the impact of barriers from the perspective of 3R (i.e., reusing, remanufacturing, and recycling) recovery approaches. It classifies barriers into seven main groups in the context of CSC. The most often observed barriers hindering 3R recovery approaches are identified, and their impacts are discussed. The results demonstrate that barriers related to “economics and finance,” “governments and regulations,” and “society and culture” substantially impact the ability of organizations in the initial phase of adopting recovery approaches. In particular, key findings outline that consumer willingness to purchase recovered products impacts reuse, deficient supportive regulations impact 3R approaches (especially recycling), and a lack of support in the market impacts the ability of organizations to execute remanufacturing effectively. In addition, conducting empirical research is still desirable and creates a meaningful link between theory and practice. It helps to understand the barriers to remanufacturing, reusing, and recycling. Research steps employed to understand the barriers and their impacts on the recovery approaches. [Display omitted] •This study identifies and categorizes barriers towards circular supply chains.•The barriers are studied from the perspective of recovery approaches, (i.e., Reusing, Remanufacturing, and Recycling).•A systematic literature review method is employed to study 68 articles.•It shows that “economics and finance,” “governments and regulations,” and “society and culture” are the most frequent barriers.•It proposes a conceptual framework to understand the critical impacts of barriers and future research avenues.