Entrepreneurship in circular economy for the development of urban territories. An effective alternative within the reach of African local Authorities?

Abstract

This contribution aims at analysing through social entrepreneurship, if the circular economy, considered in theory as bearing operational and organizational strategies, capable of substantially increasing economic growth while protecting the environment, has a significant impact on the development of urban territories, carried out by African local authorities. It is therefore a question of ensuring that doing business in the circular economy can constitute an effective alternative capable of helping urban communities to support and energize the development of their territories. Moreover, this reflection strives to verify that the circular economy under its operational auspices, since it constitutes a niche of opportunities for local authorities, is an effective solution capable of enabling them to better face economic and environmental challenges, whether global or local, and thus enable them to further support the development of their urban areas through local entrepreneurship.

We therefore begin by probing the territorial roots of the circular economy, strongly correlated with industrial and territorial ecology, which itself has a more eloquent relationship with the territory and therefore with its development. As a result, we question the capacity of the circular economy to boost and energize urban development, in order to decide on its implementation at the territorial level, after having proposed a coherent definition of the territory, and territorial development. Finally, we proceed to an examination of the different strategies of the circular economy, based on the requirements of territorial development, and which allows us to argue that technical and organizational innovations can contribute to reducing the environmental impact of production processes, and to soften the effects of social inequalities by acting upstream in particular at the level of the design of goods and their distribution and marketing circuits. In addition, the eco-design strategy seems capable of effectively impacting the development of territories. All of which could have both local and global benefits for African urban territories.

Keywords:  Circular economy, industrial and territorial ecology, development, urban territories.

Classification JEL: H79, Q01, Q53, Q56, Q32, Q57, O10

Paper type: Theoretical Research