Circular economy practices in the leather industry: A practical step towards sustainable development

The concept of circular economy (CE), a recent popular global business trend, considerably minimizes waste and environmental pollution. However, studies exploring CE practices in the context of leather industry have been scant. To deal with this issue, this paper proposes a decision support framework for evaluating the challenges to CE practices in the context of leather industry. Best worst method, a generic decision support tool, is employed in the assessment process. The study findings reveal that lack of financial support from authorities is assigned the highest weight in the final ranking results. This indicates that the lack of financial facility poses a major challenge to the successful implementation of CE practices. The findings can assist industrial managers and authorities in taking the required actions to implement CE practices in the leather industry for the sustainable development of the leather sector. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.