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

56 4 Case Description and Within-Case Analysis

Table 7 Overview of circular economy approach of case Alpha

Innovation Type Circular Economy Approach Organization

Alpha

Product

Innovation

(Changes the

product)

Circular Supplies (e.g. creation of products which

are fully recyclable)

x

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

use up left-overs from the production line)

x

Remanufacturing (e.g. implementation of new

products which can be built from the reusable parts

of the original product)

x

Process

Innovation

(Changes the

process)

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

the production line)

x

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)

 x

Case Alpha engages in the circular economy approach through the use of circular

supplies at product level. The organization implemented a closed-loop production

process therefore a company-own collection process has been established to collect

worn-out products for recycling purposes. Whilst a lot of products lose their quality

when recycled e.g. with cotton the organization is able to close the loop with poly-

ester. In cooperation with their partner Case Alpha is able to recycle polyester in a

way that it retains the quality so it can be reused in the apparel industry.

The next circular economy approach is resource recovery which means that

the organization works together with a partner to use leftovers from production

to make new products. Since 2011, Case Alpha’s partner has swept the floors of the

cutting rooms in their factories in China and Malaysia to save the cotton scraps

left after production. Through this process hundreds of tons of useable cotton have

been saved. The leftovers from approximately 16 ‘usual’ shirts results in one ‘reclaim

cotton’ shirt. Since the partner is one of the biggest garment manufacturers in the

world, the procedure ends up saving a massive amount of resources. Case Alpha

uses the reclaimed cotton which is neither bleached nor dyed and mixes it with

virgin organic cotton to create products out of it. In addition to reclaimed cotton,

the organization uses reclaimed wool in their manufacturing process. Another