Circular Economy and Green Growth: Enablers, Benefits, and Implementation Challenges

Purpose: Circular economy (CE) interventions have emerged as promising solutions to promote green growth (GG). This article reviews the literature on how CE interventions support and facilitate GG efforts, highlighting key benefits, enablers, and barriers to their implementation. Design/methodology/approach: The study performed a flexible interpretive review of Scopus and related institutional literature on the CE–GG. The contributions, enablers, and challenges of CE and GG were then thematically synthesized, providing context-sensitive and integrated insights beyond rigid systematic methods. Findings: CE has the potential to promote GG through various direct and indirect benefits. These include improvements in resource efficiency, eco-innovation, and socio-economic resilience. The links between CE and GG depend on several enablers such as supportive policy frameworks, green financing, innovation ecosystems, and digital infrastructure, and they also face challenges from institutional barriers, financial constraints, and socio-cultural factors. Implications/originality/value: The insights from this paper can help policymakers, industry stakeholders, and development practitioners capitalize on CE-GG synergies by focusing on policy consistency, inclusive financing, and SMEs capacity building to support practical system transitions. This paper offers a comprehensive overview of the current understanding of the relationships between CE and GG, clarifying specific enabling conditions and challenges that are context-dependent.