EDITORIAL: More than closing loops: Community-based circular food systems as pathways for transformation

Abstract

Introduction

As we move deeper into the third decade of the 21^st century, global food systems are being profoundly shaped by external pressures of what scholars have termed a VUCA world, marked by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (Bennett & Lemoine, 2014). VUCA-related issues such as climate-driven disasters, military conflicts, pandemics, land grabbing, environmental degradation, and economic inequality are increasingly creating local, regional, and global sustainability food concerns (Persis et al., 2021; Sharif & Irani, 2017). These conditions have only intensified the geo-political disturbances across the globe since early 2025, reshaping both the challenges and the possibilities for food system transformation.

Amid growing global turbulence, food systems are recognized increasingly not only as sites of vulnera­bility but also as critical levers for resilience and social-ecological regeneration. As Cooper (2023) and others have argued, agriculture and food are now central to both the causes and potential solutions to global climate and environmental change. Any meaningful progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals will require a transformative change across the food system, from production to consumption and waste, while pro­moting human and planetary well-being (van Zanten et al., 2023). In this context, the push for circularity has emerged as a promising pathway. Yet predominant visions of circular economies, often focused on closed-loop industrial efficiencies, fall short on addressing deeper questions of equity, culture, power, and community agency. . . .