Conny Bakker

Product design and business model strategies for a circular economy

The transition within business from a linear to a circular economy brings with it a range of practical challenges for companies. The following question is addressed: What are the product design and business model strategies for companies that want to move to a circular economy model? This paper develops a framework of strategies to guide designers and business strategists in the move from a linear to a circular economy. Building on Stahel, the terminology of slowing, closing, and narrowing resource loops is introduced. A list of product design strategies, business model strategies, and examples for key decision-makers in businesses is introduced, to facilitate the move to a circular economy. This framework also opens up a future research agenda for the circular economy.

Designing cradle-to-cradle products: a reality check

The cradle-to-cradle (C2C) concept of McDonough and Braungart, which has a strong emphasis on materials strategy, gives a vision of a sustainable future, inspired by nature. Their guilt-free approach has enthused many new people, drawing them into the field of sustainability. However, the question of when and how the C2C concept can be applied successfully in business is still being debated. This paper takes a look at the applicability of the C2C concept in day-to-day product development in a business setting. Based on student design projects for several multinationals, the strengths and weaknesses of the concept are evaluated. In particular, the compatibility of C2C and life cycle assessment (LCA) is addressed. The authors conclude that LCA and C2C can and should be used as complementary tools. C2Cs main value is that it triggers many questions about current business practice. Designers may play an interesting role in ‘paving the way’ for the restructuring of business operations according to C2C: through design pilots they can show how C2C could make business sense. LCA should be used to assess whether such pilots still make environmental sense if implemented in todays ‘real world’.

Prospective Impacts of Electronic Textiles on Recycling and Disposal

Electronic textiles are a vanguard of an emerging generation of smart products. They consist of small electronic devices that are seamlessly embedded into clothing and technical textiles. E‐textiles provide enhanced functions in a variety of unobtrusive and convenient ways. Like many high‐tech products, e‐textiles may evolve to become a mass market in the future. In this case, large amounts of difficult‐to‐recycle products will be discarded. That can result in new waste problems. This article examines the possible end‐of‐life implications of textile‐integrated electronic waste. As a basis for assessment, the innovation trends of e‐textiles are reviewed, and an overview of their material composition is provided. Next, scenarios are developed to estimate the magnitude of future e‐textile waste streams. On that base, established disposal and recycling routes for e‐waste and old textiles are assessed in regard to their capabilities to process a blended feedstock of electronic and textile materials. The results suggest that recycling old e‐textiles will be difficult because valuable materials are dispersed in large amounts of heterogeneous textile waste. Moreover, the electronic components can act as contaminants in the recycling of textile materials. We recommend scrutinizing the innovation trend of technological convergence from the life cycle perspective. Technology developers and product designers should implement waste preventative measures at the early phases in the development process of the emerging technology.

Product Design in a Circular Economy: Development of a Typology of Key Concepts and Terms

Summary In a circular economy (CE), the economic and environmental value of materials is preserved for as long as possible by keeping them in the economic system, either by lengthening the life of the products formed from them or by looping them back in the system to be reused. The notion of waste no longer exists in a CE, because products and materials are, in principle, reused and cycled indefinitely. Taking this description as a starting point, the article asks which guiding principles, design strategies, and methods are required for circular product design and to what extent these differ from the principles, strategies, and methods of eco-design. The article argues that there is a fundamental distinction to be made between eco-design and circular product design and proceeds to develop, based on an extensive literature review, a set of new concepts and definitions, starting from a redefinition of product lifetime and introducing new terms such as presource and recovery horizon. The article then takes Walter Stahels Inertia Principle as the guiding principle in circular product design and develops a typology of approaches for Design for Product Integrity, with a focus on tangible durable consumer products. The newly developed typology contributes to a deeper understanding of the CE as a concept and informs the discussion on the role of product design in a CE.

Of chalk and cheese: behaviour change and practice theory in sustainable design

Design for sustainable behaviour (DfSB) is becoming increasingly influential in the areas of design research and practice. With its success, however, concerns are also rising about its limitations. This paper bundles these concerns and illustrates how DfSB approaches tend to focus on incremental savings that easily disappear in larger trends, how it risks not achieving the intended behaviour change, how its literature contains a strong rhetoric of right and wrong behaviours and how opportunities for larger scales of change tend to be missed. These concerns are illustrated using examples from the DfSB literature concerning refrigerators, electric kettles, televisions and showers. Going deeper into these limitations, the paper argues that the assumptions underlying DfSB approaches may not be the most appropriate basis for approaching the complex issue of sustainable consumption. Building on a growing number of publications in environmental policy and sustainable design, the paper then moves to explain practice theory as an alternative paradigm and argues that it shows potential to aid designers to envision change beyond the status quo and to achieve a higher effectiveness with designed interventions.

Critical materials: a reason for sustainable education of industrial designers and engineers

Developed economies have become highly dependent on a range of technology metals with names such as neodymium and terbium. Stakeholders have warned of the impending scarcity of these critical materials. Difficulties in materials supply can affect the high-tech industries as well as the success of sustainable innovation strategies that are based on sophisticated technology. Industrial designers and engineers should therefore increase their awareness of the limits in availability of critical materials. In this paper, it is argued that materials’ criticality can give a fresh impetus to the higher education of industrial design engineers. It is important to train future professionals to apply a systems perspective to the process of technology innovation, enabling them to thrive under circumstances of constrained material choices. The conclusions outline ideas on how to weave the topic into existing educational programmes of future technology developers.

Is there a market for refurbished toothbrushes?: An exploratory study on consumers' acceptance of refurbishment for different product categories

Refurbishment is the process of collecting used products, assessing their condition, and replacing and/or upgrading parts in order to resell them to other consumers. Although refurbishment is increasingly seen as both economically and environmentally advantageous, it remains questionable whether consumers will accept refurbishment as a viable alternative for all sorts of product categories. In-depth interviews among 18 participants were conducted in which participants were asked to sort 30 product categories on their likelihood to accept or reject a refurbished product from this category and to elaborate on their underlying motives for this. The results revealed the following reasons for either accepting or rejecting a refurbished product for a certain category: financial, functional quality, aesthetic quality, warranty, contamination, and personalisation. Based on the type of product category (e.g., hedonic vs. functional, high vs. low involvement), these reasons are either more or less important to consumers. When designing for refurbishment, designers need to tackle the relevant reasons for the specific category in their design process to stimulate consumers to accept refurbished products.

The circular pathfinder : Development and evaluation of a practice-based tool for selecting circular design strategies

The Circular Pathfinder tool, which provides guidance to companies looking for appropriate circular design strategies, was developed based on OEM (original equipment manufacturer) case studies. Ease of use was one of the main requirements during development of the tool, resulting in a software-based guide that asks a maximum of ten product-related questions, after which it gives a recommendation for one or more specific circular design strategies. The advantage of a practice-based tool is that the practical relevance is, in all likelihood, high. The disadvantage, however, is the lack of scientific validation. This paper presents a literature review of the decision variables and heuristics of the Circular Pathfinder, with the aim to uncover any discrepancies between practice and literature. The main finding is that the focus on practical usefulness of the tool has led to excessive reduction of the complexity inherent in strategic circular design decisions. Recommendations for improving the Circular Pathfinder tool are given.

Product policy and material scarcity challenges : The essential role of government in the past and lessons for today

Materials are important in economies, business, innovation activity and products, and they have quickly become essential to maintain and improve our quality of life. The world faces problems concerning material supply, but these concerns are not translated into product design activity, even though history shows that product design policy can play an important role in finding solutions to materials problems. This paper has a focus on the role of governmental policy in ensuring material availability to the state. The case of British WWII Utility Furniture scheme is one where consumer products were designed and developed as a response to severe material shortages. This action is set in the context of wartime conditions where the products were designed, manufactured, used and often reused over a long lifetime, under very stringent governmental control. The control came from the government ministries but was designed and manufactured by the private sector. The furniture scheme was brought in to allow workers to have a furnished home to live in, eat and rest to allow them to work to help win the war. Drawing on policy lessons from the wartime cases this paper makes a comparison of the WWII British approach with a European 21st century action plan for the circular economy, which raises important questions for policy development.