Establishing an EU circular economy calls for a transformation of Europe’s production/consumption systems. Production systems respond to and shape consumer demand through the products offered and how they are marketed. Informed consumer choices can potentially shape decisions made by producers upstream and downstream in product supply chains.

This briefing explores how policy can enable more circular economy-consistent consumer behaviour by understanding the factors influencing it.

The report Avoiding Blind Spots: Promoting Circular & Fair Business Models by Circle Economy, European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and The Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) provides an overview of the blindspots - the unintended, unaddressed or underexplored negative impacts - of promoting circular business models.

The aim is to get a holistic understanding of the impacts of circular business models, specifically taking into account the social sphere.

The report considers three circular business models (repair, resale and product as a service - PaaS) and four types of blindspots (governance, market, social and environmental).

Recommendations for (EU) policy makers, public procurers and businesses are then formulated to address these blindspots.