Circular economy disclosure and inter-organisational collaborations: the case of the consumer electronics industry

Purpose – The global economy is becoming less rather than more circular. A relevant reason behind this regression lies in the effort being placed on the downstream processes of waste management or the upstream limitation of material throughput in the economy, neglecting other valuable circular economy (CE) initiatives throughout the supply chain. Firms often disseminate their CE initiatives through non-financial reports (NFRs). This paper aims to examine the CE initiatives that the world’s largest firms in the global consumer electronics industry portray in NFRs. In particular, this study presents a twofold aim. First, it aims to examine the extent of CE disclosure conveyed by firms in the consumer electronics industry in their NFRs. Second, it aims to investigate which types of CE-related inter-organisational collaborations are portrayed in their NFRs. Design/methodology/approach – This study examines the CE initiatives that the world’s largest firms in the global consumer electronics industry portray in their NFRs through a content analysis. From the retrieved NFRs, the authors first collected extracts about “implemented” or “ongoing” CE initiatives, obtaining 391 extracts describing CE initiatives. Second, the authors categorised such extracts according to the type of CE initiative and the type of CE-related inter-organisational collaboration described therein. Third, the authors conducted a frequency analysis for each category. Finally, the authors provided a region-wise comparison for each main finding, analysing how the disseminated CE initiatives and the role of inter-organisational collaboration change among companies headquartered in Europe, the USA and Asia. Findings – First, the analysis shows that the electronics consumer industry remains focused on CE initiatives with a low degree of circularity, particularly recycling. Second, it points out that firms mostly collaborate with their suppliers to implement CE initiatives but rarely with customers and universities. Collaboration with multiple actors is the most frequent type of inter-organisational collaboration to implement CE initiatives with a high degree of circularity. Furthermore, the analysis highlights that European firms report a higher number of CE initiatives than US and Asian firms. However, the percentage of CE initiatives characterised by a higher degree of circularity is higher for firms headquartered in the USA. Of note, firms headquartered in Asia report fewer CE initiatives, and most of them are characterised by a low degree of circularity. Research limitations/implications – This study presents at least two relevant limitations. First, the authors used a coding scheme that they developed using CE-related terminology (e.g., repair, reuse and recycle) to extract and analyse text from NFRs. This coding scheme forced us to make assumptions about the types of CE initiatives the NFR was referring to. These assumptions, needed to categorise an initiative as, for instance, “reuse” or “rethink”, were based on the authors’ reflections. To overcome this limitation common to many studies dealing with CE and NFRs, firms should link the CE initiative described in NFRs to specific definitions. This would facilitate a more rigorous analysis. Therefore, future reporting guidelines should include this aspect. Second, the choice of relying on NFRs is based on the institutional theory. In other words, the authors advance that firms disseminate CE information in NFRs to show society how they fulfil its expectations. However, for the same reasons, firms may disseminate CE initiatives even when they have very limited impact. Therefore, the application of the rule-of-thumb presented by Potting et al. (2017) to “judge” the industry from a CE perspective can be limitative to some extent. Therefore, future reporting guidelines should encourage firms to provide details about the impact of each initiative. Originality/value – These findings contribute to the growing body of knowledge about CE disclosure and about the role of inter-organisational collaboration in CE initiatives. Indeed, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study examining the CE initiatives and CE-related inter-organisational collaborations portrayed in NFRs by focal firms in the consumer electronics industry. More in general, this is one of the few studies dealing with the relationship between specific CE initiatives and specific types of inter-organisational collaboration. The disseminated CE initiatives in NFRs are likely to represent the CE initiatives pursued by a firm; hence, the aggregate data can provide an overview of the CE initiatives of the consumer electronics industry. Moreover, whether and how CE initiatives are disseminated signals what the industry considers relevant to the stakeholders. Additionally, electronic waste is growing rapidly due to the short lifespan of products, limited repair options, fast-changing technology and increasing demand; therefore, the consumer electronics industry presents high potential in terms of contribution to CE.