ABSTRACT
Increasing amounts of waste produced are exceeding the earth's capacity for regeneration and natural resilience; one increasingly popular concept to address this is through a transition to a circular economy (CE). Within such a transition, mechanisms of change are described as catalysts. This chapter posits that actors in a regime-niche (R-N) – innovative thinkers operating in a regime context – are a prime example of catalysts in sustainability transitions, a topic that remains understudied to date. To address this gap, a transition research lens is applied to delve into complexities within the regime dynamic, to deepen the concept of the R-N and describe some of these actors' functions within a transition context, to expand and develop further the concept of catalysts, and to examine how the transition to CE can be catalysed through R-N actors. From a literature review and empirical support, three primary catalysing functions of the R-N in the transition to CE are proposed; they are defined, described, and exemplified with empirics from the Dutch context. Finally, this chapter positions these propositions within existing concepts from transition theory, considers factors related to the R-N's catalytic impact potential, and discusses the implications of this study for research and practice.
