Challenges and opportunities for scaling up global upcycling towards sustainable production and consumption: Literature review

Upcycling, creation or modification of a product from used or waste materials, components and products for equal or higher quality or value than the compositional elements, represents a promising alternative to mass production and frequent replacement purchases. The benefits of upcycling include increased resource efficiency, reduction of solid waste and industrial energy consumption involved in processing and manufacturing with virgin materials, creation of new job opportunities, and promotion of sustainable consumer behaviour. Despite such anticipated benefits, upcycling remains a niche practice. Moving from a niche to a mainstream practice, in other words, scaling-up, could realise the full potential of upcycling. Regarding the embryonic stage of upcycling research despite rising academic and industry interests, development of upcycling theory could contribute to scaling-up. In particular, understanding challenges and opportunities in the global upcycling value chain would be an invaluable first step for significant development in practices. This paper critically reviews existing literature on challenges and opportunities in global upcycling, provides a list of common factors across industries and countries/regions, and discusses how these factors should be reflected on any actions for scaling up upcycling locally and globally.