Managing the Introduction of Circular Products: Evidence from the Beverage Industry

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study what managerial practices companies follow and implement in their business model to manage the introduction of Circular Products. Extensively screening extant literature in the field, we clustered a set of relevant managerial practices in four main principles of Circular Economy (CE) adoption at the product level: (i) Energy efficiency and usage of renewable sources of energy; (ii) Product and process optimisation for resource efficiency; (iii) Product design for circularity; (iv) Exploitation of waste as a resource. Then, the adoption of these principles was tested on two companies (and three Circular Products) operating in the beverage-packaging industry, where the adoption of CE is further challenged by the fact that packaging is necessary to deliver the product to consumers, but the majority of the one-way packaging is discarded after use. The identified principles provide general objectives in terms of end goals that should be achieved in order to adopt CE and manage the introduction of Circular Products. This paper shows a practical implementation of these principles on real empirical cases for theory-testing scopes.

Systemic circular business model application at the company, supply chain and society levels—A view into circular economy native and adopter companies

“…A CBM, CE business model and even other terminology referring to CE implementations in companies are sometimes used synonymously in the literature. There is no agreed‐upon formal definition of a CBM, but a variety of definitions (Bocken, Schuit, & Kraaijenhagen, 2018; Geissdoerfer, Morioka, et al, 2018; Geissdoerfer, Vladimirova, & Evans, 2018; Linder & Williander, 2017; Mentink, 2014; Nußholz, 2017; Ünal et al, 2019) and descriptions exist (Bocken et al, 2016; Centobelli et al, 2020; Henry et al, 2020; Manninen et al, 2018; Perey et al, 2018; Rosa et al, 2020; Urbinati et al, 2019; Ünal, Urbinati, Chiaroni, & Manzini, 2019) that often rely on the same existing CBM definitions and studies (Table 1).…”

“…It is important to note that Kirchherr et al (2017) already defined the concept of a CE based on business models and operating through the 4R principles. Additionally, several definitions of CBMs include explicit references to value creation, deliver and capture logic (Bocken et al, 2016; Bocken et al, 2018; Centobelli et al, 2020; Frishammar & Parida, 2019; Mentink, 2014; Nußholz, 2017; Urbinati et al, 2019; Ünal et al, 2019) and some type of connection to the economic viability within the function of a CE (Bocken et al, 2016; Linder & Williander, 2017; Rosa et al, 2020). Several definitions also describe principles similar to 4R (Bocken et al, 2016; Bocken et al, 2018; Frishammar & Parida, 2019; Geissdoerfer, Morioka, et al, 2018, Geissdoerfer et al, 2018; Linder & Williander, 2017; Mentink, 2014; Nußholz, 2017; Perey et al, 2018; Urbinati et al, 2019), whereas only a few state a connection to sustainable development (Geissdoerfer, Morioka, et al, 2018; Ünal, Urbinati, Chiaroni, & Manzini, 2019), social sustainability (Frishammar & Parida, 2019; Henry et al, 2020) or a long‐term perspective (Geissdoerfer, Morioka, et al, 2018; Henry et al, 2020).…”

“…However, there is no common knowledge of how companies implement a CE (Merli, Preziosi, & Acampora, 2018; Murray et al, 2017) and, particularly, accelerate a systemic shift to a CE (Geissdoerfer, Morioka, et al, 2018; Geissdoerfer et al, 2017; Perey, Benn, Agarwal, & Edwards, 2018). In the CBM literature, the focus is presently on the company (micro) level (see, e.g., Bocken et al, 2016; Chen, Hung, & Ma, 2020; Demirel & Danisman, 2019; Nußholz, 2017; Urbinati, Chiaroni, & Toletti, 2019). Research on this level has highlighted several contradictions with a sustainable CE: a gap between linear business models and CBMs (Stål & Corvellec, 2018), an emphasis on cost savings (Ranta et al, 2018) and a short‐term orientation (Masi et al, 2018).…”

Overcoming the Main Barriers of Circular Economy Implementation through a New Visualization Tool for Circular Business Models

“…Summary of the circular initiatives (both in input and output), approaches such as design for X and implementation of digitalization and intelligent subdivided for each stage of the supply chain. Source: [1,75,148]. It must be noted that also the circular initiatives are characterized by efficiency, which determines some leakages also during their implementation.…”

Identifying the Equilibrium Point between Sustainability Goals and Circular Economy Practices in an Industry 4.0 Manufacturing Context Using Eco-Design

“…Compared to the linear economy, this new approach is aimed at the dematerialization of production processes seen as the only way to create value (Negrei and Istudor 2018). The functional economy wants to optimize the function of the use of goods and services, maximizing their value in the long run and minimizing the consumption of material resources and energy (Urbinati et al 2019;Sassanelli et al 2019).…”