| dc.description.abstract | Every year, each European citizen generates approximately 163 kg of food and beverage packaging waste, representing one third of the total waste he/she yearly generates. Moreover, almost 60% of such packaging waste is made of plastics, one of the materials with the longest degradation time. All this waste represents one of the causes of the tremendous environmental pollution affecting ecosystems, and it needs an urgent solution. Hence, the current thesis focuses on one of the existing market pathways tackling the problem from a precycling perspective – waste reduction/avoidance. Specifically, it investigates the growing niche of packaging-free grocery stores – namely, shops that sell food unpackaged. Such phenomenon has been spreading across the globe in the last 10 years and is now attracting the attention of a growing number of actors. However, from a scientific perspective, scarce literature exists on the topic, and it mainly focuses on its operational/logistics aspects. Thus, on the basis of the several gaps found in the few existing studies, the current research aims to primarily identify the key characteristics of packaging- free grocery stores and subsequently the main drivers and barriers for the establishment and scaling up of this kind of ventures. The research’s geographical scope is set in Italy, being the country a frontrunner in the packaging-free grocery stores phenomenon, thus allowing for a large case-study sample. Additionally, the phenomenon is analysed through the lenses of sustainable entrepreneurship theories, allowing focusing on its entrepreneurial aspects as well as on the entrepreneurs behind such shops. By conducting 32 in-depth semi-structured interviews – 20 of which by personally meeting the different entrepreneurs and visiting their shops – the study provides insightful primary data on the issue. It allows the reader to vividly dive into Italian packaging-free grocery stores and understand all their dynamics, current barriers to growth and future perspectives. Findings represent a significant step ahead in broadening the knowledge in the field and are relevant for a wide range of actors. Namely, for researchers, who would like to keep investigating the phenomenon and understand it better; for “wanna-be-packaging-free- entrepreneurs”, who would like to understand how these shops work and what the implications of starting such business are; for whoever is curious about this “new” way of doing grocery shopping and would like to know more about it; and finally, for policy-makers – currently perceived as one of the major barriers to the phenomenon’s growth – who could be of great support for its further development. | |
