Projecting for circularity in sustainability transitions: The case of wind turbines

• Wind turbine blade decommissioning reframed as a strategic project phase • Circular end-of-life (EoL) enabled through project shaping, sequencing, and lineage • Organisational & institutional barriers outweigh technology in limiting circularity • Projects act as levers to shift renewable assets higher on the circularity ladder • Link project organising mechanisms to socio-technical transition dynamics As wind energy matures, end-of-life project management, especially of turbine blades, poses a growing sustainability challenge. We examine how project organising shapes circular outcomes in decommissioning, bridging project management, socio-technical transitions, and circular economy perspectives. Using a qualitative case of the Danish wind sector (15 interviews plus documents), we find barriers to circularity are less technological than organisational and institutional: front-end project shaping rarely embeds end-of-life goals, and the absence of project sequencing limits learning and market formation. We contribute to project studies by (1) reframing decommissioning as a strategic phase in sustainability transitions, (2) specifying mechanisms - shaping, sequencing, and lineage/learning - that enable circularity, (3) linking these mechanisms to transition dynamics across niche, regime, and landscape levels. We map likely pathways where project organising through shaping, sequencing, and learning interacts with regime conditions, showing projects as levers shifting end-of-life renewable energy assets, beyond wind, up the circular ladder.