abstract
- The environmental crisis and the effects of climate change demand a transition towards sustainability that includes strategies such as the circular economy and concrete actions that involve governments and society in the implementation of business models with a circular approach, which implies transforming production schemes, technologies and consumption patterns. The objective of this article is to identify how these barriers to the development of NQFs are manifested in Mexico and Colombia and to locate the actions that are already present in these countries, but which are still insufficient to makeway for a sustainable transition. Themethodology used was qualitative based on the systematic review of the literature on sustainable transition and circular economy, as well as the analysis of official documents of the two countries studied. The conclusions indicate that both Mexico and Colombia have advanced in the construction of a legal framework and have promoted some programs from their governments to encourage the circular economy, but there are no solid financing schemes and there are no decisive and systematic policies that promote the creation of circular businessmodels as concrete actions of the transition. The contribution of this work is focused on evidencing the weakness of the actions promoted in the countries of the South to contribute to sustainable transitions, which makes it difficult to comply with international commitments and achieve the SDG targets. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.