REMIT Portucalense

1 Introduction The circular economy (CE) has increasingly emerged as a critical paradigm for sustainable development, prompting organizations and policymakers across the European Union (EU) to rethink traditional linear production and consumption models (Lopes and Farinha 2019; Lopes, Pinho, and Gomes 2025). At its core, CE emphasizes the reduction of waste, the continual use of resources, and the integration of environmental considerations into business practices (García-Quevedo et al. 2020).