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Introduction
The Special Issue aims to enrich the existing literature on the intersection of service quality, sustainability, and the circular economy by providing a comprehensive overview of key themes, research gaps, and empirical insights. It explores how service design, innovation, and delivery can integrate quality, sustainability and circularity to address challenges such as climate change, resource depletion, and social equity. The goal is to showcase how service systems can drive sustainability transitions and contribute to a regenerative future. To this end, the issue welcomes research on sustainable and circular service design, stakeholder engagement, digital technologies enabling sustainable services, and impact measurement across economic, environmental, and social dimensions.
The concept of service quality is evolving to include sustainability, balancing efficiency, customer satisfaction, and positive environmental and social impacts. Sustainable services not only fulfil user expectations but also contribute to long-term well-being and ecosystem preservation. The circular economy offers a transformative model focused on retaining resources, minimizing waste, and fostering regeneration within service systems. Its principles provide a framework to redesign services and business models for enhanced resource efficiency and sustainable value creation. While the circular economy is often focus on engineering and production, this Special Issue adopts a service-oriented perspective to examine how services can optimize resource use, support regeneration, and enhance both quality and social well-being advancing sustainable transition.
This Special Issue stems from the growing need to explore the role of services in advancing quality, sustainability, and circular economy goals. While the shift from a linear to a circular economic model is widely recognized as essential for addressing resource depletion and environmental challenges, the contribution of services to this transition remains underexplored. In particular, there is growing interest in how the concept of service quality, traditionally cantered on efficiency, customer satisfaction, and improvement, can evolve to incorporate sustainability and regeneration. Despite the critical role services play in driving systemic change, the intersection of services, sustainability, and the circular economy has received limited attention in current research.
This Special Issue seeks to address this gap by exploring how services can foster sustainable practices, enhance resource efficiency, and create value for both society and the environment, providing relevant insights for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.
It will address critical societal challenges and aligns with several UN SDGs. Indeed, it will support Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) by exploring strategies for resource optimization and waste reduction. It aligns with Goal 13 (Climate Action) by examining the role of services in mitigating climate change. Additionally, the focus on enhancing well-being through sustainable services links to Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). It informs discussions related to Goal 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), Goal 14 (Life Below Water), and Goal 15 (Life on Land) through the promotion of practices that preserve natural ecosystems.
List of Topic Areas
The special issue will cover a wide array of topics related to service systems and circular economy. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Design of sustainable and well-being-centric services;
- Circular service design;
- Quality and innovation in service business models;
- Circular and sustainable value creation in services;
- Sustainability and stakeholder engagement in service systems;
- Integrating circular economy and service systems;
- Digital technologies (Ai, IoT, Blockchain,…) enabling sustainable services;
- Measuring the economic, environmental and social impact of services;
- Smart and sustainable cities;
- Sustainable service operations.
Guest Editors
Veronica Ungaro, Roma Tre University, Italy, [email protected]
Roberta Guglielmetti Mugion, Roma Tre University, Italy, [email protected]
Jaylan Azer, University of Glasgow, UK, [email protected]
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Author guidelines must be strictly followed.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Key Deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 15th August 2025
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 5th December 2025
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