| Abstract | This study aims to explore the feasibility, strategic pathways and systemic constraints of circular packaging adoption with Vietnam’s fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) snack and consumer goods sector. While the circular economy model was promoted broadly nowadays by the global sustainability concept, the practical implementation of circular packaging in emerging markets still faces with the challenges of infrastructure limitation, regulatory transition, economic sensitivity and sector-specific safety requirements. Moreover, the higher cost of eco-friendly packaging poses a significant barrier, as it increases production costs and product prices, while frequent purchasing behavior constrains consumers’ overall spending capacity.Conducting an exploratory mixed-method sequential design, this research integrates the survey data from 53 urban consumers in Ho Chi Minh City and combine with the qualitative interview from five stakeholders across the packaging ecosystem, including an ESG Expert, a recycling organization representative, retail manager, packaging manufacture and a snack R&D Manager.The Quantitative Finding disclose moderate awareness of circular packaging with 64,2% of consumer being awakened of the eco packaging with high stated return intention (M=4.19). Moreover, 86.8% of respondents are willing to pay a price premium of 10% or more for products that use eco-friendly packaging. However, logistic regression analysis verified that awareness and perceived barriers show limited predictive power in explaining actual purchasing behavior, suggesting that attitudinal factors unaccompanied are insufficient to initiative circular packaging adoption in the Vietnamese FMCG context. On the other hand, the Qualitative findings recognize structural blocks in collection and sorting infrastructure, food safety constraints associated with multilayer snack packaging, price sensitivity within mass-market segments, and evolving regulatory enforcement under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The combination of both datasets recommends that circular packaging transition in Vietnam is governance-driven and infrastructure-dependent rather than purely consumer-driven.As a result, the study proposes a three-pillars strategic framework that is the combination of organizational capability, stakeholder ecosystem alignment, and consumer activation mechanisms. The findings contribute to Circular Economy and Stakeholder Theory by contextualizing circular packaging within emerging-market regulatory transitions and ESG integration processes. |
