Abstract
Despite growing awareness of plastic waste, industrial plastic use continues to rise, while recycling rates remain low. Addressing this challenge requires a transition toward a circular economy (CE), in which value depends on interactions among independent yet interdependent actors across sectors. CE innovation ecosystems and complementarities offer lenses for understanding such interdependencies. This paper explores how orchestrators facilitate complementarities in emerging CE innovation ecosystems by drawing on an embedded qualitative case study of plastic waste from Norwegian aquaculture. Four types of complementarities are identified—materials data, from waste to resource, recycling capacity, and regulations—conceptualized along two dimensions: resource flow and infrastructure complementarities. This illustrates where orchestrators facilitate value at present and where their role is constrained by limited infrastructure and regulatory requirements. This study advances research on CE innovation ecosystems by adding a process perspective on how complementarities evolve through orchestration and by highlighting how data can support circularity.