5.1 Implementation of the Circular Economy Concept 99
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or two approaches and are at a very early stage in their transformation towards a
circular economy. They are still in the process of implementing the circular economy
approaches they have selected. In case Eta the interviewee stated: „Currently almost
80 percent of our clothes are made according to our company-own certification [with
a certain stake of recycled resources] and in the area of handbags and hardware (e.g.
tents, back bags and so on) almost 20 percent include this material. Our objective
is definitely to reach 100 percent” (see Appendix: German Quote 49). The quote
demonstrates that case Eta focuses on expanding its commitment in the selected
circular economy approach instead of selecting additional approaches.
Another potential reason for the limited number of approaches chosen for im-plementation is a lower success rate of the concept then initially anticipated. The
representative of case Zeta stated: “...we do not plan any further steps particularly
because the level of awareness [of the Cradle-to-Cradle certification] and also the
demand from the customer was pretty disappointing. The topic circular economy will
remain current and we are and will stay involved in some research projects but we are
not planning to expand our initiatives for now” (see Appendix: German Quote 50).
This statement emphasizes a certain disappointment in the concept, which leads
to a current stagnation of the investment and a limitation of the commitment to
the selected circular economy approach.
Maturity level is the third aspect that distinguishes the cases in their imple-mentation of the circular economy concept. This aspect details the completion level
of the circular economy approach, as some approaches are implemented entirely
and some only partly.
As mentioned previously in cases Gamma and Epsilon, the organizations haveachieved the development of a circular product but do not know how to manage the
end of the product lifecycle. The lacking solution to the problem of the handling of
the end of product life prevents these organizations from fully implementing their
circular economy approach. Case Gamma is considering two options to handle the
end of the product lifecycle: “We do know that this work [removing the parquet from
the floor and refurbishing it] probably has to be done by a subcontractor. But in parallel
we are thinking of innovative administrative systems to offer the possibility to lease the
parquet instead of selling it” (see Appendix: German Quote 51). For Epsilon the situ-
ation is similar, and it is still unclear how the organization will recover the products
at the end of the lifecycle: “There are different possibilities to incentivize customers.
One is to offer a certain amount from the purchasing price in case the customer brings
back the chair after using. When doing this the customer probably will remember to
bring back the chair. That is the first option, another one is to offer different types to
finance, e.g. leasing” (see Appendix: German Quote 52). Both of those circular econ-
omy approaches are highly developed at the beginning of the product lifecycle but