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

76 4 Case Description and Within-Case Analysis

4.7 Case Epsilon

4.7 Case Epsilon

4.7.1 The Company’s Circular Economy Approach

The organization started to implement the circular economy approach about five

years ago and therefore already has some experience in this area. The circular

economy approach of the organization in case Epsilon can be clustered into four

circular economy approaches. All four circular economy approaches and the specific

initiatives of this organization are explained below.

Ta b l e 11 Overview of circular economy approach of case Epsilon^2

Innovation Type Circular Economy Approach Organization

Epsilon

Product

Innovation

(Changes the

product)

Circular Supplies (e.g. creation of products which

are fully recyclable)

(x)^2

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

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)

 (x)

Product Life Extension (e.g. gather used products

and resell them if possible, replace certain parts of

the product)

x

The first circular economy approach the organization of case Epsilon has applied is

circular supplies on product level, more specifically the implementation of circular

product lines. In 2010, the organization began to implement the Cradle-to-Cradle

concept and today has three circular product lines. These product lines contain

2 X in brackets means that a certain business model is currently in test phase but not yet
fully implemented.