Design Guidelines to Develop Circular Products: Action Research on Nordic Industry

Product design and development are key to moving towards a circular economy; however, the majority of products and components that are currently recirculated have not been designed for circulation of any sort. Circular economy business models and closing the loop can be functional only if the products and services are designed for circularity. This paper presents a set of generic design guidelines for different circular strategies. The guidelines are then used to map companies’ circular product design initiatives in the early stages of product design and development. The guidelines have proved to support decision-making and enhance the circularity of products. The guidelines were developed, validated, and tested at four companies within the Nordic countries through an action research approach. Sourcing raw materials, recycling, and ensuring the robustness of products for the use phase are the most common strategies used by the studied companies. There is an ongoing transition towards other recirculation strategies, such as repair, remanufacture, and reuse.

[1]  W. Vermeulen,et al.  The circular economy: New or Refurbished as CE 3.0? — Exploring Controversies in the Conceptualization of the Circular Economy through a Focus on History and Resource Value Retention Options , 2017, Resources, Conservation and Recycling.

[2]  Cecilia Bengtsson,et al.  Waste flow mapping to improve sustainability of waste management : A case study approach , 2015 .

[3]  T. McAloone,et al.  Business model innovation for circular economy and sustainability: A review of approaches , 2019, Journal of Cleaner Production.

[4]  Chunxiang Guo,et al.  Dynamic Incentive Mechanism Design for Recycling Construction and Demolition Waste under Dual Information Asymmetry , 2019, Sustainability.

[5]  M. Hekkert,et al.  Conceptualizing the Circular Economy: An Analysis of 114 Definitions , 2017 .

[6]  Eivind Kristoffersen,et al.  Developing a circular strategies framework for manufacturing companies to support circular economy-oriented innovation , 2019 .

[7]  Soh-Khim Ong,et al.  Design for assembly and disassembly for remanufacturing , 2016 .

[8]  Gabriella Arcese,et al.  Entrepreneurial Drivers for the Development of the Circular Business Model: The Role of Academic Spin-Off , 2020 .

[9]  Paulo Ferrão,et al.  Design for recycling in the automobile industry: new approaches and new tools , 2006 .

[10]  Victoria Pérez-Belis,et al.  Identifying design guidelines to meet the circular economy principles: A case study on electric and electronic equipment. , 2018, Journal of environmental management.

[11]  E. Sundin,et al.  Feedback from Remanufacturing: Its Unexploited Potential to Improve Future Product Design , 2019, Sustainability.

[12]  Jan Schoormans,et al.  Business models for sustainable consumption in the circular economy: An expert study , 2019, Journal of Cleaner Production.

[13]  Lars-Erik Gadde,et al.  Systematic combining: an abductive approach to case research , 2002 .

[14]  Feng Wang,et al.  Products that go round: exploring product life extension through design , 2014 .

[15]  Maciej Sydor,et al.  The Material Indices Method in the Sustainable Engineering Design Process: A Review , 2019, Sustainability.

[16]  Manoj Kumar Tiwari,et al.  Design for manufacturing and assembly/disassembly: joint design of products and production systems , 2018, Int. J. Prod. Res..

[17]  Morten Birkved,et al.  Guidelines for evaluating the environmental performance of Product/Service-Systems through life cycle assessment , 2018, Journal of Cleaner Production.

[18]  Yoshiki Shimomura,et al.  A Guideline for Product-Service-Systems Design Process , 2015 .

[19]  Martin Kurdve,et al.  Comparison of Four Environmental Assessment Tools in Swedish Manufacturing: A Case Study , 2019, Sustainability.

[20]  Arnold Tukker,et al.  Product services for a resource-efficient and circular economy - A review , 2015 .

[21]  Samuel H. Huang,et al.  Design for manufacture and design for `X`: concepts, applications, and perspectives , 2001 .