Beyond circularity: Topological and temporal limits of the circular economy

The circular economy has established itself as a dominant sustainability paradigm, yet the formal properties of its foundational metaphor, the circle, remain unexamined. This paper identifies two analytically distinct constraints embedded in the dominant circular imaginary. The first is topological: when the operative metaphor functions as a single closed loop, it reproduces the cycle graph, a one-dimensional structure with zero redundancy and minimal resilience. The second is temporal: the assessment apparatus associated with circularity operates within quantitative, sequential time (chronos) and renders qualitative, heterogeneous temporalities (kairos) structurally invisible. The claim defended here is specific. Sustainability paradigms generally pose time as a problem left open; the circular economy's founding metaphor figures time as resolved (return, cycle, regeneration) while its apparatus operationalizes only chronos. This blindness is not general ignorance but performative contradiction. Empirical evidence from three continents (African solar projects, Mexican circular assessment, Peruvian extraction) substantiates the diagnosis. We propose a polyrhythmic completion structured as a wheel, with Doughnut Economics as the rim, regeneration as the hub, and ArtefactKairos (institutional devices for temporal composition) as the spokes, operationalized through the Temporal Composition Diagnostic (TCD), a four-step governance protocol. The TCD is applied to a published sugar beet pulp biorefinery assessment that models feedstock as a fixed daily input without addressing the seasonal harvest sustaining it, then calibrated ex ante against the Antamina mining region in Peru. In both settings it reveals what standard assessment cannot detect and specifies the institutional clauses it would generate.