Creative Industries and the Circular Economy: A Reality Check Across Global Policy, Practice, and Research

Abstract

This paper provides a reality check on circular economy (CE) transitions in the creative industries. Climate change has become a dominant theme across the sector, yet the CE has not emerged as a coherent or widely adopted agenda. While manufacturing and construction are increasingly central to CE policy frameworks, creative production remains marginal and inconsistently represented. Drawing on academic literature (2018–2024), national policy strategies, grey sources, and an exploratory online survey, this study identifies recurring patterns across macro-level drivers, sector norms, and niche innovations. Circular activity is concentrated in downstream, material-focused strategies such as recycling and reuse, whereas more transformative approaches (redesign, refusal, and regenerative practice) remain limited. National government CE strategies largely overlook the sector, resulting in weak policy pressure. Sub-sectors such as advertising, gaming, film, and Createch are notably under-researched despite rising digital resource intensity and environmental impacts. Niche innovations rarely scale, and landscape pressures are not translated into regime change. This paper contributes to CE scholarship by offering the first multi-strand, sector-wide analysis of how circular principles are interpreted, applied, and governed across the creative industries, advancing the understanding of CE transitions in non-industrial, hybrid material–digital contexts.