CACTUS CACTUS J Tour Bus Manag Econ CACTUS – Journal of Tourism Business, Management and Economics 2247-3297 ASE Publishing House Bucharest, Romania cactus-2026-17 Research Article JEL Classification: L83, Q53, M14 Sustainable hospitality through circular economy: food waste management in the restaurant sector in Manila, Philippines Borja Mitchell https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1103-3064 mitchell.borja@arellano.edu.ph Alejandro Antonino https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3739-1992 Arellano University College of Business Management Colegio de San Juan de Letran College of Business Administration and Accountancy Tourism and Hospitality Management Program 31 5 2026 8 1 38 58 2442026 1552026 1552026 Copyright © 2026, The Author(s) 2026 The Author(s) This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

<p>This study examines how circular economy practices – reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover – predict environmental sustainability in Manila’s restaurant sector using a foundational, sector-wide exploratory survey approach. While the hospitality industry is a significant contributor to global food waste, there remains conceptual ambiguity between specific "environmental benefits" and long-term "environmental sustainability." A total of 150 establishments reported consistent adoption of the 4Rs. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) validated the measurement model, with all standardized factor loadings exceeding the 0.60 threshold (ranging from 0.684 to 0.946), indicating strong construct validity. Multiple Linear Regression analysis confirmed positive and statistically significant predictive relationships between the 4Rs framework and environmental sustainability, explaining 81.2% of the variance (R² = 0.812), with the recover principle (β = 0.865) and the recycle principle (β = 0.832) emerging as the strongest individual predictors. The composite 4Rs score demonstrated the highest predictive strength (β = 0.901, p &lt; 0.001). The findings confirm that while individual circular practices provide immediate environmental benefits, sustainable outcomes are achieved through the holistic integration of the 4Rs into long-term operational frameworks. Given the exploratory nature of the study and existing sample imbalances across restaurant types, these results serve as an empirical baseline for the urban hospitality landscape in the Manila restaurant sector, providing novel evidence in the Philippine context. The study recommends that policy interventions and corporate initiatives prioritize structured recovery and recycling mechanisms to bridge the gap between theoretical circularity and environmental sustainability outcomes. Future research should expand across regions and employ mixed methods designs to enhance generalizability and contextual depth.</p>

 Keywords Keywords: circular economy food waste management 4Rs framework environmental sustainability Manila Philippines

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