Shaping circular futures: The role of future-making practices in the transition to circular food systems

Summary

Visions of circular food systems have become increasingly central to debates about sustainability, guiding strategies to reduce waste and regenerate resources. Among the at times conflicting visions that diverge in values and priorities, the transition toward circular food systems remains uncertain. We examine how everyday future-making practices reconfigure relations with waste and shape circular transitions in Switzerland. Drawing on Social Practice Theory and the concept of transformativity, we analyze how actors perform practices that reshape how waste is encountered, valued, and integrated into circular material flows in everyday life. Based on qualitative fieldwork conducted in 2023 with four cases from the Swiss food system including fertilizer production from urine, urban aquaponics, food waste redistribution, and biodynamic CSA farming, we show how different practices render alternative waste values tangible and engage people in circular futures-in-the-making through habitual, planned, and experimental modes of practices. In doing so, we highlight the everyday as a key site where contested circularity visions are negotiated, adapted, and implemented.