Dlugoborskyte, VytauteVytauteDlugoborskyte2025-05-082025-05-082025-04-03World Sustainability Series F280: 1057-1077 (2025)978-3-031-80434-2978-3-031-80433-5https://hdl.handle.net/11420/55560Tightening environmental policies are forcing companies and society to transform and adopt more sustainable and circular economy (CE)-oriented practices. CE principles present an alternative approach to the dominant strategies of eco-efficiency or relative environmental sustainability, called eco-effectiveness or absolute environmental sustainability. The CE challenges the relative sustainability approach by introducing the goal of maximizing the benefit to ecological systems and increasing the positive environmental impacts (i.e., absolute environmental sustainability) rather than reducing the negative impacts and keeping the focus on eco-efficiency. Various CE definitions are commonly associated with a set of R principles, in scientific research frequently used to evaluate the CE implementation in firms. There is a growing evidence that only a selection of these principles as R strategies are implemented in firms, risking of minimizing the impacts rather than aiming for maximizing the benefits. The paper builds on the dataset of 145 circular firms and shows the selective implementation of CE principles in most cases. The eco-effectiveness of the analyzed circular firms is revealed by introducing a comprehensive circularity framework that weights-in the flow of resources, loop closure and additional generated benefits. The results reveal that current CE-related frameworks do not address the firms acting as CE enablers, i.e. providing services and products to the CE implementers.enCircular economy | Circular economy implementation | Eco-effectiveness | Environmental sustainability | R frameworkTechnology::600: TechnologyBook Part10.1007/978-3-031-80434-2_58Book Chapter