Sustainable entrepreneurship between ecological distinction and local context

Circular Economy Transition in Brazil: The Power of Institutional Entrepreneurship of Local Governments

In light of the socio-environmental challenges faced by cities and the climate threats intensified by the linear economic model, it has become increasingly urgent to understand how local governments can lead the transition to more sustainable urban models, such as the Circular Economy. This research analyzes the actions and policies adopted by local governments to promote this transition in major Brazilian cities. The municipalities of Salvador (BA) and São Paulo (SP) were investigated through a multiple-case study and cross-case synthesis. The results indicate that these governments may assume roles and mobilize mechanisms consistent with institutional entrepreneurship by performing five key roles: strategic direction, normative adaptation, capacity building and collaboration networks, support for innovation and circular businesses, and circular urban management. In this research, the findings reveal a predominance of coercive institutional pressures, with a lower presence of normative and mimetic mechanisms, which limits the broader institutional diffusion of circular practices. It is concluded that promoting the CE requires an integrated and multilevel approach that articulates planning, regulation, and stakeholder engagement, as well as the strengthening of institutional capacities and collaborative networks to expand urban transformation. The study contributes by showing that the role of local governments in circular transition depends not only on the existence of governmental initiatives, but on how strategic roles, governance arrangements, and institutional pressures are combined to induce change toward circularity.

POPULAR ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A Grammar of Moral Economy in Contemporary Urban Peripheries

This article examines how popular entrepreneurship operates as a cultural grammar that disrupts established practices of wageless life in urban peripheries. Drawing on four years of ethnographic research conducted in São Paulo, it analyses entrepreneurial discourses not simply as ideological impositions, but as ambivalent mediations of everyday strategies of social reproduction. Rather than emerging solely from contemporary labour market transformations, entrepreneurship is shown to be rooted in longer‐term trajectories shaped by family practices, moral values, and experiences of precarious work. The article situates the entrepreneurial ethos within broader processes of economic restructuring and the spreading of global trends of modernity, highlighting its entanglement with shifting expectations of mobility and autonomy. Empirical material from street‐level commerce, entrepreneurship events, and in‐depth interviews demonstrates how individuals navigate between survival and aspiration, mobilizing both residual practices and new normative frameworks. While entrepreneurship may provide access to resources, recognition and future‐oriented projects, it also reorganizes existing tensions within the limits imposed by precarious conditions of life and work. In this sense, popular entrepreneurship is understood as a contradictory formation, through which longstanding ways of life are reworked rather than replaced, and where competing moralities, expectations and forms of economic action might converge.

Systemic Barriers to Sustainable Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies: A Hybrid Review and the Development of an Integrated Barrier Framework

Sustainable entrepreneurship has gained significant traction as a tool for addressing socio-economic and environmental issues in emerging economies. Nevertheless, current research has primarily examined institutional, financial, socio-cultural, and technological barriers in isolation, resulting in a limited understanding of how these obstacles interact and reinforce one another. This research paper aims to fill the gap by synthesising the existing literature on sustainable entrepreneurship in emerging economies and developing a systems-based model that explains the interactions among several barriers. A mixed bibliometric and systematic review of 72 papers published from 2000 to 2025 has been performed using the PRISMA approach. The research is based on the use of bibliometric tools, such as yearly output and keyword co-occurrence visualisation, along with thematic synthesis of the existing knowledge. These results suggest the presence of five key research dimensions and illustrate that the effects of institutional fragmentation, financial conservatism, socio-cultural scepticism, and technological constraints reinforce each other and create a state of low-innovation equilibrium, which prevents the emergence of sustainable entrepreneurship. The study advances sustainable entrepreneurship theory by developing the Integrated Sustainable Entrepreneurship Barrier Framework (ISEBF), which conceptualises institutional, financial, socio-cultural, and technological barriers as interconnected ecosystem mechanisms that collectively shape sustainable entrepreneurial outcomes in emerging economies. The findings guide policymakers, entrepreneurial support organisations, and researchers seeking to strengthen sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging economies.

Linking Entrepreneurship, Environmental Justice, and Sustainable Development: Pathways to Ecological and Social Transformation

We are living through an era in which climate change, ecological collapse, and deepening socioeconomic inequality are no longer distant threats but immediate, lived realities, particularly for communities in the Global South. In response, green and social entrepreneurship have been championed as promising vehicles for addressing these interconnected crises. But is entrepreneurship truly capable of delivering environmental justice and sustainable development? This paper grapples with that question. We argue that when deliberately anchored in justice-oriented frameworks, entrepreneurship can indeed serve as a catalyst for ecological and social transformation. Drawing on the Quintuple Helix Innovation Model, Environmental Justice in Technology principles, and case studies from Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, we make the case for ethical design, robust institutional support, and context-sensitive innovation. Yet we also acknowledge significant gaps, especially the underrepresentation of Global South perspectives and the absence of structural justice metrics in mainstream entrepreneurship research. We conclude by calling for more interdisciplinary, equity-focused scholarship and policy innovation that embeds fairness across green entrepreneurship ecosystems.

International Journal of Community Currency Research

Innovation in Design for Sustainability

The intensification of ecological crises, resource scarcity, and social inequalities compels design to fundamentally redefine its role, methods, and criteria for innovation. This article argues that innovation in design can no longer be understood as the mere creation of new artifacts, but rather as the capacity to reconfigure systems of production, consumption, and disposal. Based on the widely recognized premise that the majority of the environmental impacts of products and services are determined during the design phase, the designer is repositioned as a strategic agent in the transition toward sustainable socio-economic models.Within this context, the article examines the synergistic articulation of four complementary approaches: Ecodesign, as an analytical foundation oriented toward life-cycle thinking; Circular Design, focused on redefining business models and material flows; Biodesign, which incorporates biological principles and processes; and Human-Centered Design (HCD), responsible for ensuring social, cultural, and ethical relevance. It is argued that the transdisciplinary integration of these approaches constitutes an emerging paradigm of systemic innovation in design, in which success is assessed according to interdependent environmental, social, and economic criteria, thereby demanding new professional competencies and expanded forms of collaboration.