Abstract
Building a climate-neutral and sustainable environment calls for greater emphasis on energy related issues. However, paying attention to energy alone is not sufficient to achieve global / national net-zero goals. The way we make and use different products will have a major influence on reducing carbon emissions (EMF, 2021). Therefore, there is an urgent need to move away from a linear to a circular economy (CE). Despite large-scale calls and support from global leaders to build a CE, progress has been limited with a worldwide circular rate of 8.6% only in 2022 (OECD, 2020; Circle Economy 2022). In our paper, we posit the view that in implementing circular actions, collaboration between differnt stakeholders assume significance and therefore greater emphasis has to be paid to issues that underpin formation and functioning of inter-organizational relationships. We specifically focus our attentionon how power relations and structures influence the building of a circular supply chain. To explore this phenomenon, adopt qualitative approach and use semi-structured interviews with 31 SMEs in the circular economy in Brighton and Hove city located in the southeast of England.