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Biomimicry is an interdisciplinary approach inspired by the living beings in nature while searching for solutions to solve mankind’s problems. This new approach emerging in the late 1990s has been quite innovative while dealing with basic problem solving processes in a business environment. Biomimicry is a creative solution for such processes as design, transformation, organization and sustainability in business enterprises. The objective of this work is to offer model samples that build a bridge between the nature and business organizations. The principles in nature offer many strategies for a sustainable business performance and thus help us maintain optimization and effectiveness in business management through cooperation.

A circular economy perspective embraces a systemic, cradle-to-cradle notion that everything is designed to be reused as long as possible and then recaptured and repurposed when reuse is no longer possible. Designing for a circular economy ecosystem requires a holistic, integrative viewpoint, spanning all aspects of design and development and considering many supply chain actors, far beyond that of traditional supply chains. This edited book adopts a biomimetic lens, highlighting the need for cross-industry flows and need for different actors (beyond producers and consumers) in circular value cycles. Enablers such as incentives and/or legislation are also discussed. While biomimicry provides the structure for organizing this book, individual chapters build on other theoretical lenses and concepts, such as stakeholder theory, etc. The intent is to move beyond a dyadic (buyer–supplier) view, embracing a holistic network or ecosystem view, to consider a cross-industry system perspective, where there is a diversity of actors (covering four actor groups: producers, consumers, scavengers, and decomposers) needed for a working ecosystem. This edited book offers a comprehensive overview of system components and actors, including how the circular economy adds value, the role of producers and consumers, the spectrum of recovery possibilities to return products back to the consumption supply chain, and the essential role of information management.

In this paper, we bridge the gap between imitation and creativity, as we examine whether and how it is possible to succeed in imitation, understood here as the intentional creation of alikeness and, at the same time, the production of something novel and valuable. By distinguishing processes of copying, echoing, and eluding, we scrutinize how different imitation processes intended to create alikeness lead to the emergence of novelty. Using empirical data from two distinct empirical fields, music and pharmaceuticals, we discuss if and how these processes may even lead to emulation and thus the emergence of novelty superseding the imitated original. We find that novelty emerges during processes of imitation from the interplay of a guiding structure obtained from existing originals and the performative variation embedded in processes of imitation. We thereby identify performance enactment, translations between an imitated core and surrounding opportunities as well as the generative effects of intellectual property regulation as key ingredients to foster emulative novelty.

This chapter empirically investigates the main drivers of the circular economy (CE) and sustainable development (SD) of European countries. The European Union (EU) legislation imposes equal rules for the members who should be followed to achieve CE and SD. This chapter gives a critical overview of the related literature on this topic. The second part focuses on measuring the efficiency of EU countries in achieving CE and SD via a nonparametric approach. Furthermore, the results from the efficiency evaluation are used as a dependent variable in determining which economic, social, institutional, and other factors have the greatest influence on CE and SD achievements. The nonparametric approach consists of selected models of data envelopment analysis (DEA), as this is a methodology useful in constructing a ranking system based on selected criteria. The results indicate that on average, the most efficient countries were (besides Malta and Luxembourg) the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, and the United Kingdom. The worst performing ones were Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, and Croatia. The second part of the research indicates that the resource production and corruption perception index has the greatest effect on the efficiency scores, followed by education attainment. The research and development (R&D) variable is not significant in the observed sample. Based on these results, specific policy recommendations are given at the end of this chapter.

This case study shows how Osklen, a 30-year-old fashion brand in Brazil that focuses on Brazilianness and sustainability, has been facing challenges in the last 10 years pioneering the adoption of recycled cotton in its products. By taking the lens of biomimicry and supply networks that encompass vertical, horizontal, and diagonal ties, the case exposes how the weak links in the transition to circular fashion limit advancements. In a field such as sustainability where lack of transparency prevails and there is decoupling between practices and communication, consumers are often unaware of what is being done behind the scenes, and pioneer fashion brands may not benefit from sustainable and circular fashions. Besides the challenges at the consumer front, the shift to circular fashion is hindered by having scavengers as the weak link in the supply network given the lack of financial incentives, excessive informality, and misguided marketing from larger brands.