Exploratory Study on Circular Economy Approaches A Comparative Analysis of Theory and Practice

52 4 Case Description and Within-Case Analysis

4.1.1 Framework for Description of Circular Economy

Implementation

Since circular economy provides aspirational targets for organizations, the ap-

proaches employed when transitioning towards this type of economy differ a lot.

In order to enable the analysis of these approaches in a structured way a framework

has been developed which is explained in chapter 2.3.7.

As described in the previous chapter, the framework is a combination of the

Schumpeterian differentiation between the different types of innovation, and the

five business models for circular economy as identified by Accenture. Since the

framework has already been presented in detail in chapter 2.3.7 only a quick recap

of it will be provided in the next section.

Only three types of innovation out of five have been found relevant for the

framework: product innovation, process innovation and business model innovation.

These three innovation types constitute the first level of distinction. As a second

level, the business models for circular economy implementation have been selected.

The field of application for each business case were checked in order to sort them

into the correct type of innovation. Organizations can implement either just one

or multiple approaches to transform their business towards circular economy.

Table 4 Analysis framework for this thesis

Innovation Type Circular Economy Approach Organization

Product

Innovation

(Changes the

product)

Circular Supplies (e.g. creation of products which

are fully recyclable)

Resource recovery (e.g. creation of new products to

use up left-overs from the production line)

Remanufacturing (e.g. implementation of new

products which can be built from the reusable

parts of the original product)

Process Innova-

tion (Changes the

process)

Circular Supplies (e.g. use of renewable energy for

the production line)

Organizational

Innovation

(Changes or adds

a business model)

Sharing Platform (e.g. enable customers to extend

the use of their products)

Product as a Service (e.g. sell the products access,

internalize the lifecycle management)

Product Life Extension (e.g. gather used products

and resell them if possible, replace certain parts of

the product)