Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Conceptual background

۳٫ Methods

۴٫ Results

۵٫ Discussion

۶٫ Conclusion

Declaration of Competing Interest

Acknowledgement

Appendix.

References

Abstract

Many companies have innovated their business models in their attempts to transition towards a circular economy. However, the label ‘circular’ does not necessarily mean better for the environment. How do companies measure the environmental performance of their business models? And as they alter them for a circular economy, how do they forecast the potential environmental impacts? These questions are important to better understand the impacts of circular business models. This study sets out to answer these questions through 29 semi-structured interviews and 39 survey responses, with business developers, managers, product designers and consultants from more than 10 industries. The results reveal that while most participants measure the impact of their current business models, they do not forecast the future impacts of their circular business ideas before implementation. The most popular measurement method was rules of thumb, followed by life-cycle assessment (LCA) or LCA-based tools. A lack of data, increased uncertainty during experimentation and a lack of knowledge are the common barriers that keep the participants from measuring environmental impacts.

۱٫ Introduction

The need for a more circular economy is increasingly being recognised by both governments and the private sector (European Commission, 2020; Government of Canada, 2019; Government of the Netherlands, 2016; Lewandowski, 2016). Businesses are trying to become more sustainable by trialling circular business models (CBMs) that aim at longer product lifetimes and production of less waste (Bocken and Antikainen, 2018; Geissdoerfer et al., 2020). Companies often do this through business model experimentation (Bocken and Snihur, 2020), which tends to follow the – ‘build, measure, learn’ – Lean Startup approach (Blank, 2013; Ries, 2011). This is an iterative approach, where different business strategies are repeatedly trialled to find the best product-market fit (Chesbrough, 2010). In the circular economy context, business experimentation also focuses on addressing pressing sustainability issues, in particular to narrow, slow, close, and regenerate resource loops (Bocken et al., 2016a,b; Konietzko et al., 2020a).