132 6 Summary and Implications
a circular economy, depicting potential impacts the implementation might have
on the organization and challenges the organization might face.
The elaborated framework consisting of seven circular economy approaches pro-vides a comprehensible overview of the different approaches to the circular economy
concept. Since the concept itself is more of an inspirational source than one that
provides concrete implementation suggestions, managers might be overwhelmed
by the amount of possibilities available to them. However, deciding which approach
should be implemented is the first step on a transition towards a circular economy.
This study encourages managers to choose an adequate circular economy approach
for their organization by providing examples how other companies implement
circular economy approaches. Analysis of this study shows that eight out of nine
cases implemented at least two circular economy approaches and some up to five.
By demonstrating the impacts that the implementation of a circular economycan have on an organization, this study provides interested managers with the per-
spective from the practical implementation of a circular economy. In contrast with
previous literature, this thesis also introduced negative impacts and contradicted
one commonly described benefit of a circular economy: cost savings through the
reuse of material. By describing this new perspective on the impacts the implemen-
tation of circular economy can create, practitioners are enabled to manage their
own expectations as well as leadership expectations. The results show that positive
monetary impact can be achieved. Organizations need to acquire new customer
groups (e.g. through the special features of circular products), find ways to make
use of production leftovers (e.g. by using scrap from manufacturing as input for
production processes) or sell refurbished products (e.g. by collecting, refurbishing
and reselling a product after the first life cycle). Besides presenting these positive
impacts, the study identifies non-monetary impacts. These are a competitive ad-
vantage and reputational impacts which can be used as additional arguments to
convince leadership to invest in circular economy.
The identified challenges of this study enable practitioners to a) carefully choosea circular economy approach and b) prepare to overcome the obstacles. Observing
the challenges in combination with the implemented circular economy approaches
(please refer to the respective within-case analyses for the detailed assessment of
each case) can provide valuable insights on how to face the challenge and success-
fully implement the circular economy approach.
Table 24 illustrates challenges per circular economy approach as described in thiscase study. This list of challenges per circular economy approach does not claim to
be exhaustive. The table simply provides an overview of challenges organizations
of this study faced.