Assessment of organizations’ maturity towards circular economy practice in manufacturing industries: Evidence from a developing economy

Circular Economy (CE) is emerging as a potential solution to ongoing global environmental and economic issues, particularly for the manufacturing industries around the world. A pertinent maturity model is required for evaluating and guiding them toward the implementation of circular practices. This study intends to adapt a reference maturity model to make it suitable for the manufacturing industries and assess the status of circular practices of the manufacturing organizations of a developing economy like Bangladesh. This study analyzed the relative importance of dimensions and associated activities, identified by literature review and experts’ opinions, using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model. The findings show that Value Creation dimension is significant to the explanation of CE maturity status, in which ‘R-related activities’ exhibit the most crucial effect. Furthermore, it examines the CE maturity status of the manufacturing sector in the developing economy through a multi-level fuzzy comprehensive evaluation technique. The data indicate that approximately 51% of the studied industries are still in the initial levels of circular transition. They have just started to either comprehend the importance or adopt pilot projects to judge the potential of implementing circular practices within their value chain. In contrast, remaining industries surpassed this threshold level. In addition, Explorative was the most frequently obtained level among the studied industries. Within this scope, the paper urges the decision-makers to take CE practice on board as a strategic problem in managerial decision-making. That would not only improve the overall status, but it would also benefit the economy and society.