The Circular Economy in (Corporate) Australia: a Preliminary Analysis

The paper is structured as follows: in the next Section Two, I provide a brief overview of the different ways ‘economic value’ has been conceptualised in neoclassical, ecological, socialist and nationalist economics preparatory to examining how such values’ are operationalised within the modern corporation. Section Three outlines the methodology employed in the study to obtain data on the top Australian companies’ usage of the Circular Economy concept and reports the results. In Section Four,I consider the unresolved contradiction at the centre of the modern corporation, which, being legally and economically obligated to prioritise exchange value, results in haphazard, voluntaristic and opportunistic attempts to reconcile it with the protection and enhancement of function, use and 3 labour value. The article concludes with a summary of the findings, discusses the study’s limitations, and outlines some avenues for future research.