Romero Castro, Noelia MaríaLópez Cabarcos, María ÁngelesMiramontes Viña, VanessaRibeiro Soriano, Domingo2023-03-212023-03-212023Romero-Castro, N., Ángeles López-Cabarcos, M., Miramontes-Viña, V. et al. Sustainable energy transition and circular economy: The heterogeneity of potential investors in rural community renewable energy projects. Environ Dev Sustain (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-022-02898-z1387-585Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10347/30378Community renewable energy has been acknowledged as a necessary step in the transition toward a sustainable energy system. It can contribute to the achievement of energy autonomy by communities. In rural settings, it can be a driver of sustainable rural development. And it can be seen as a specific contribution to circular economy from the energy sector. The willingness to invest in community renewable energy has received some attention in previous research but needs further investigation at the local rural scale through quantitative approaches. Based on a survey in a small Galician village, this study contributes to the filling of this gap. The willingness to invest of its inhabitants is analyzed in relation to alternative financial, sociodemographic and sociopsychological features. Survey results show the heterogeneity of individual attitudes and concerns that condition the willingness to invest in rural community renewable energy and the different perceptions of risk and return related to these projects. Cluster analysis allows identifying four different investor profiles (skeptics, financial illiterate, enthusiasts, yield investors). These should be accounted for by project promoters and policymakers when designing incentives and strategies to foster community renewable energy in rural settingseng©2023 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Atribución 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Circular economyCommunity renewable energyRural developmentCluster analysis Willingness to investSustainable energy transitionjournal article10.1007/s10668-022-02898-z1573-2975open access