Managing operations for circular economy in the mining sector: An analysis of barriers intensity

Abstract

The rapid development of industrialization has created significant opportunities for economic growth and development, but its operational activities have impulsively degraded the environment. Circular Economy (CE) practices may help industries, and particularly extracting industries such as mining, to optimize the use of its resources and minimize waste. This would further help to overcome the threats which the traditional linear model poses to the economic growth and development of any healthy economy. This paper aims to identify the barriers to executing the CE model within the context of the Indian mining industry. The five major categories of barriers (i.e. financial, market, government policies and regulations, organizational and operational) and their respective sub-barriers which are responsible for hindering the implementation of CE in the mining sector are identified through an extensive literature review and experts' opinion. To determine the priority of the barriers and their intensity index, a hybrid technique comprising of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and graph-theoretic approach (GTA), is employed. The AHP analysis indicated that ‘government policies and regulations’ was the main barrier to the implementation of CE in the Indian mining sector (43.8%), followed by ‘market barriers’ with a weighting score of 24.6%. However, based on GTMA, the highest intensity was observed for ‘operational’, category of barriers followed by the ‘organizational’ category of barriers. The outcomes of the study would help managers from the mining industry not only to overcome the identified barriers for managing operations for CE but also to optimize and effectively meliorate the consumption and extraction of resources.