Consumer electronics are made of a wide range of materials, including precious metals and critical minerals with limited global reserves. Ensuring the recycling of these materials is essential for future use, especially since many renewable energy solutions are based on them. In addition, improper end-of-life treatments of these products cause harm to the environment and human health. This study explores the incentives that have been used to increase consumer collection rates for end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment (EoL EEE). Based on extensive global literature reviews, we propose an alternative to existing consumer incentives. The research suggests that implementing an economic incentive based on the electronic bonus card system (EBCS) has several benefits compared to existing incentives. It compensates the consumers for the transaction costs of proper collection and satisfies the consumer perception of EoL EEE as having a residual value. However, application of the EBCS motivation technology will require the cooperation of various stakeholders, including electronics producers and national and international authorities.

Efficient electronic waste (e-waste) management is one of the vital strategies to save materials, including critical minerals and precious metals with limited global reserves. The e-waste collection issue has gained increasing attention in recent years, especially in developing countries, due to low collection rates. This study aims to search for progressive solutions in the e-waste collection sphere with close-to-zero transport and infrastructure costs and the minimization of consumers’ efforts towards an enhanced e-waste management efficiency and collection rate. Along these lines, the present paper develops a smart reverse system of e-waste from end-of-life electronics holders to local recycling infrastructures based on intelligent information technology (IT) tools involving local delivery services to collect e-waste and connecting with interactive online maps of users’ requests. This system considers the vehicles of local delivery services as potential mobile collection points that collect and deliver e-waste to a local recycling enterprise with a minimum deviation from the planned routes. Besides e-waste transport and infrastructure costs minimization, the proposed smart e-waste reverse system supports the reduction of CO₂ through the optimal deployment of e-waste collection vehicles. The present study also advances a solid rationale for involving local e-waste operators as key stakeholders of the smart e-waste reverse system. Deploying the business model canvas (BMC) toolkit, a business model of the developed system has been built for the case of Sumy city, Ukraine, and discussed in light of recent studies.

Transforming the plastic industry toward producing more sustainable alternatives than conventional plastics, as an essential enabler of the bio-based circular economy (CE), requires reinforcing initiatives to drive solutions from the lab to the market. In this regard, startups and ideation and innovation events can potentially play significant roles in consolidating efforts and investments by academia and industry to foster bio-based and biodegradable plastic-related developments. This study aimed to present the current trends and challenges of bioplastics and bio-based materials as sustainable alternatives for plastics. On this basis, having conducted a systematic literature review, the seminal research themes of the bio-based materials and bioplastics literature were unfolded and discussed. Then, the most recent developments of bio-based sustainable products in Ukraine, as alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, that have gained publicity through local startup programs and hackathons were presented. The findings shed light on the potential of the bio-based sector to facilitate the CE transition through (i) rendering innovative solutions most of which have been less noticed in academia before; (ii) enhancing academic debate and bridging the gap between developers, scholars, and practitioners within the plastic industry toward creating circularity across the supply chain; (iii) identifying the main challenges and future perspectives for further investigations in the future.

The full-scale aggression unleashed by the russian invaders against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, became an unexpected horror that struck the life of this European country. The war radically changed absolutely everything and for everyone. It has crippled the fate of millions of innocent people, claimed the lives of tens of thousands.The crazy decisions of the russian leadership and the influx of its hordes have turned a huge number of Ukrainian cities and towns into hell. Destroyed or damaged urban infrastructure, homes and businesses, hospitals and schools.These monsters did not spare the universities either.

This research is devoted to the determinants of green branding in the agro-sphere. The existence of competition between regular and green brands in the agricultural sector has necessitated the determination of the degree of influence of green branding on the formation of consumer loyalty in order to understand the effectiveness and feasibility of such practices among agricultural producers. Previous research in the study of green branding has not focused on the factors studied influencing the level of consumption of organic products or the factors influencing the size of the price premium for green brands. In this study, the influence of green branding on the loyalty of consumers of the eco-market was determined on the basis of a comparison of integrated indicators of satisfaction and importance of the regular brand and green brands by an expert survey of 250 respondents in five supermarkets in Kyiv (Ukraine). In the example comparing the coefficients of consumer loyalty of eggs of the eco-brand and the regular brand, it was found that the rate of consumer loyalty to the eco-brand exceeded the rate of consumer loyalty to the regular brand by 3%. It was established that the size of the price premium of a green brand is determined by such factors as consumer loyalty, availability of organic certificates, costs of green advertising, additional cost of organic products, average profitability of the industry, and average income of consumers. Based on cluster and discriminant analysis, green brands were divided into three levels of price premium: “high”, “medium”, and “low.” Discriminant equations for each cluster according to the level of price premium were constructed. Such equations make it possible to assign a new object of analysis (a new brand) to a certain classificational price category. The current study proves the feasibility and economic and statistical validity of the impact of green branding on consumer loyalty in the agricultural sector. The study has significant implications for brand management by providing empirical evidence that can improve brand managers’ strategic decisions in determining the level of price premium.