Is design playing a role in the realisation of circular economy projects in Europe? A case study analysis

Thanks to the strong push coming from the European Union to fight waste production, the Circular Economy (CE) has gained an important role in Europe. Following this trend, many institutions nowadays state to work on the CE implementation or supporting the transition to a CE. However, are they including design approaches and practices? The design phase is starting to be considered the crucial point to obtain a CE as it required a profound radical change from the beginning of the process and at system levels. After framing the CE concept, we performed desk research to identify which are the players in the CE projects implementation. Afterwards, a multiple case study analysis were performed to the most proper one to understand the presence and the role of design in the implementation process. The results placed the actors in a very fragmented framework and seem to lack almost completely the design presence.