## 2 Material and Methods
### Data Collection and Analysis  
A semi-structured questionnaire (available upon request), was administered to the 29 participants through face-to-face online interviews, in the period October-November 2020. Interviews lasted approximately 30 min and, to avoid biases, environmental elements were kept constant, such as the same office with same orientation, same interviewer, and same dressing code. Open questions were asked, giving respondents some freedom on the focus of their answer, in line with the semi-structured modality chosen. The questionnaire aimed to identify the following:  
* strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) involved in the transition into a sustainable circular bioconomy in the Salerno area; and
* most suitable strategies to foster the transition. The questionnaire was composed of 3 sections, preceded by an introduction. The introduction aimed to obtain the participants' informed consent, to provide them with a brief description of the purpose of the study, as well as to introduce potential CBE solutions for the forest-wood supply chain. The two categories of respondents were asked to answer the same questions. However, the protocol was drafted in two versions, having slight differences that aimed to tailor the questions to the different respondents' role. More specifically, the entrepreneurs' version of the protocol aimed to receive answers related to their perception of the forest-wood sector of the Salerno province, considering their active role as supply chain producers, as well as their mode of operation in the management of their business; in the key informants' version, questions were phrased to receive respondents' perception of the state of the sector, considering their role as actors knowledgeable of supply chain dynamics. The sections are the following:  
* Section 1: this section aimed to gather general information on the destination of wood waste and by-products in the Salerno area, according to respondents' knowledge (Figure 4). Even though it was insufficient to have a representative and accurate outline of the current state of CBE in the Salerno province, this section provides a stylized description of the territory. Furthermore, it served as an interview warm-up to lead respondents toward the main content of the study. * Section 2: this section was devoted to the SWOT analysis, thus including open-ended questions aiming to identify interviewees' opinion on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in the implementation of circular bioconomy models. The SWOT analysis--also called SWOT matrix--is a strategic planning and strategic management technique intended to identify the internal (strength and weaknesses) and external (opportunities and threads) factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving the objectives of a venture or project [7; 47; 48; 49]. Thus aimed at situational assessments, the SWOT analysis is a widely adopted tool for addressing complex strategic situations, by reducing the quantity of information and thus facilitating decision-making [50]. Performed to gain an in-depth understanding of the baseline conditions of the forest-wood sector of Salerno, the SWOT tool was selected in the present study to disentangle all the factors influencing the transition into a circular bioeconomy in this territory. * Section 3: This section of the questionnaire was built by adapting the 19 strategies identified by [PERSON] et al. [7] for the transition into a forest-based bioeconomy in Italy. This contribution was selected because the strategies it suggests are based on a review of publications focusing on forest governance in Italy over the past ten years and then validated by experts in the field. By merging and synthesizing these strategies to tailor them to the Salerno context, 9 strategies were generated.