Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CIRCULAR X (Experimenting with Circular Service Business Models)
Reporting period: 2023-06-01 to 2024-11-30
With increasing pressures on resources and the climate it is clear that a new way of doing business is needed. The Circular Economy has been heralded as a driver for sustainability and competitiveness. In contrast to the current linear economy, materials are kept at their highest utility at all times. Despite great policy, business and academic interest, knowledge on how to move to a Circular Economy is lacking. Project Circular X addresses a new and urgent issue in sustainability research: experimentation with circular service business models (CSBMs). Examples include companies shifting from selling to leasing products and introducing lifelong warrantees to extend product lifetimes. CSBMs are far from mainstream and experimentation focused on trialling new CSBMs is little understood.
Circular X is developing a new field in sustainability studies: CSBM experimentation. It conducts interdisciplinary research in 3 continents - Europe, North America, and Asia - with 4 objectives:
1. Advancing understanding of CSBMs; their emergence and impacts
2. Advancing knowledge on CSBM experimentation
3. Developing CSBM experimentation tools
4. Designing and deploying CSBM experimentation labs
Circular X is developing novel CSBM and experimentation concepts, catalogues, tools and labs to support the business acceleration to a circular economy. Through its comprehensive international approach, Circular X aims to advance understandings on how CSBMs manifest themselves and how these can be experimented with, which will ultimately advance business activities towards a circular economy transition.
Circular X is developing a new field in sustainability studies: CSBM experimentation. It conducts interdisciplinary research in 3 continents - Europe, North America, and Asia - with 4 objectives:
1. Advancing understanding of CSBMs; their emergence and impacts
2. Advancing knowledge on CSBM experimentation
3. Developing CSBM experimentation tools
4. Designing and deploying CSBM experimentation labs
Circular X is developing novel CSBM and experimentation concepts, catalogues, tools and labs to support the business acceleration to a circular economy. Through its comprehensive international approach, Circular X aims to advance understandings on how CSBMs manifest themselves and how these can be experimented with, which will ultimately advance business activities towards a circular economy transition.
Circular X consists of 4 sub projects, based on the main objectives:
1. Advancing understanding of CSBMs; their emergence and impacts
2. Advancing knowledge on CSBM experimentation
3. Developing CSBM experimentation tools
4. Designing and deploying CSBM experimentation labs
For sub project 1 on understanding circular business models, we developed the online Circular X database in year 1 and increased the Circular X database to over 70 cases in year 2 of the project. Since its inception, the case database has been growing and includes many examples of circular business model experimentation, and, where available, the impacts of these experiments. Research with a mobility company is also underway to understand the impact of a service business model on their customers’ travel patterns, with a focus on sufficient consumption.
For sub project 2, progress has been made in understanding the concept of circular business model experimentation through literature and practice review which has led to a joint publication. Progress has also been made in understanding which circular service business model cases emerge and how circular businesses might achieve scale. We are also working on various tools such as the Circular Rebound tool and a circular experimentation lab approach.
For sub projects 3 and 4, work on various circular business model experimentation tools has started. We ran workshops with various companies and innovators already to make them more aware of the need to start experimenting and developing their own circular business experiments. We developed and published on various tools like a Circular Experimentation Workbench Tool as one of the outputs relating to sub projects 3 & 4.
All publications related to the project can be found here: https://www.circularx.eu/en/outputs(opens in new window)
All tools are available here:https://www.circularx.eu/en/tool
1. Advancing understanding of CSBMs; their emergence and impacts
2. Advancing knowledge on CSBM experimentation
3. Developing CSBM experimentation tools
4. Designing and deploying CSBM experimentation labs
For sub project 1 on understanding circular business models, we developed the online Circular X database in year 1 and increased the Circular X database to over 70 cases in year 2 of the project. Since its inception, the case database has been growing and includes many examples of circular business model experimentation, and, where available, the impacts of these experiments. Research with a mobility company is also underway to understand the impact of a service business model on their customers’ travel patterns, with a focus on sufficient consumption.
For sub project 2, progress has been made in understanding the concept of circular business model experimentation through literature and practice review which has led to a joint publication. Progress has also been made in understanding which circular service business model cases emerge and how circular businesses might achieve scale. We are also working on various tools such as the Circular Rebound tool and a circular experimentation lab approach.
For sub projects 3 and 4, work on various circular business model experimentation tools has started. We ran workshops with various companies and innovators already to make them more aware of the need to start experimenting and developing their own circular business experiments. We developed and published on various tools like a Circular Experimentation Workbench Tool as one of the outputs relating to sub projects 3 & 4.
All publications related to the project can be found here: https://www.circularx.eu/en/outputs(opens in new window)
All tools are available here:https://www.circularx.eu/en/tool
The project has created various ' beyond the state of the art' outputs and is anticipated to produce more:
1. The Circular X experimentation case database is the first one of its kind open database that collates how businesses - small and large - experiment with circular service business models:
https://www.circularx.eu/en/cases(opens in new window)
It is being used for curricula (e.g. in the Netherlands and Sweden) as case exemplars, and by business for inspiration.
We typically ask the businesses for feedback to enrich the examples.
2. The Business for Sufficiency database is the first large-scale database of companies across all sectors pursuing sufficiency.
It has featured in highly regarded media-outlets in the US (Bloomberg), Dutch (de Correspondent) and Swedish media (Miljö & Utveckling) - all Circular X countries.
These examples have also been verified with the businesses. Like the Circular X experimentation case database, this database continues to grow.
3. The Circular Experimentation Workbench is the first business tool to bridge lean startup and effectuation theories to come to a new tool for circular business model development. It has been tested internationally (virtually and live) and is published: Bocken, N., & Coffay, M. (2022). The Circular Experimentation Workbench–a Lean and Effectual Process. Circular Economy and Sustainability, 1-23.
4. The paper on the sufficiency-based economy (Bocken, N., Niessen, L., & Short, S. (2022). The sufficiency-based circular economy - An analysis of 150 companies. Frontiers in Sustainability. 3:899289 (open access)) has gone viral on LinkedIn as a leading example of where the circular economy should be heading - integrating sufficiency more profoundly.
5. The work on unsustainable business models (Bocken & Short, 2021) prominently explained the dominant unsustainable business models -across all sectors and has been a high download (and citation) in the journal since publication
6. The paper in Long Range Planning (Snihur & Bocken, 2022) including a novel research agenda for sustainable business models and has been among the highest downloads in the journal. It is also being highly cited in the journal.
7. We published the first special issue on business experimentation for sustainability: Bocken, N., Weissbrod, I., & Antikainen, M. (2021) Business experimentation for sustainability: emerging perspectives
8. In the study by Han et al. (2022), we created a first international comparison of how companies launch new circular service business models in different countries.
9. The study by Das et al. (2022) created novel insight into the actual usage of environmental impact measures when innovating circular service business models, being highly cited already in its first year, and providing a source for future tool development.
10. In the Bocken, Weissbrod, Antikainen (2021) paper, we created a first interdisciplinary literature and practice study to understand the emergence of the new field of circular business model experimentation and identified research streams as diverse as business, engineering, design and transitions study. It also provided a novel definition and pillars for circular business model experimentation as a field.
Various novel circular business model experimentation tools and methods are being developed and many more are in progress.
1. The Circular X experimentation case database is the first one of its kind open database that collates how businesses - small and large - experiment with circular service business models:
https://www.circularx.eu/en/cases(opens in new window)
It is being used for curricula (e.g. in the Netherlands and Sweden) as case exemplars, and by business for inspiration.
We typically ask the businesses for feedback to enrich the examples.
2. The Business for Sufficiency database is the first large-scale database of companies across all sectors pursuing sufficiency.
It has featured in highly regarded media-outlets in the US (Bloomberg), Dutch (de Correspondent) and Swedish media (Miljö & Utveckling) - all Circular X countries.
These examples have also been verified with the businesses. Like the Circular X experimentation case database, this database continues to grow.
3. The Circular Experimentation Workbench is the first business tool to bridge lean startup and effectuation theories to come to a new tool for circular business model development. It has been tested internationally (virtually and live) and is published: Bocken, N., & Coffay, M. (2022). The Circular Experimentation Workbench–a Lean and Effectual Process. Circular Economy and Sustainability, 1-23.
4. The paper on the sufficiency-based economy (Bocken, N., Niessen, L., & Short, S. (2022). The sufficiency-based circular economy - An analysis of 150 companies. Frontiers in Sustainability. 3:899289 (open access)) has gone viral on LinkedIn as a leading example of where the circular economy should be heading - integrating sufficiency more profoundly.
5. The work on unsustainable business models (Bocken & Short, 2021) prominently explained the dominant unsustainable business models -across all sectors and has been a high download (and citation) in the journal since publication
6. The paper in Long Range Planning (Snihur & Bocken, 2022) including a novel research agenda for sustainable business models and has been among the highest downloads in the journal. It is also being highly cited in the journal.
7. We published the first special issue on business experimentation for sustainability: Bocken, N., Weissbrod, I., & Antikainen, M. (2021) Business experimentation for sustainability: emerging perspectives
8. In the study by Han et al. (2022), we created a first international comparison of how companies launch new circular service business models in different countries.
9. The study by Das et al. (2022) created novel insight into the actual usage of environmental impact measures when innovating circular service business models, being highly cited already in its first year, and providing a source for future tool development.
10. In the Bocken, Weissbrod, Antikainen (2021) paper, we created a first interdisciplinary literature and practice study to understand the emergence of the new field of circular business model experimentation and identified research streams as diverse as business, engineering, design and transitions study. It also provided a novel definition and pillars for circular business model experimentation as a field.
Various novel circular business model experimentation tools and methods are being developed and many more are in progress.