Stimulating circular behaviour through design strategy

Abstract

Mobile phones are undoubtedly an important part of our daily lives and activities. With the avid use and rapid upgrade patterns of mobile phones in current consumer lifestyle comes a wasteful disposal process. The high speed at which mobile phones are left for obsolescent makes the electronic waste problem that they bring with them a target of high concern. There is a strong need for solutions that elicit a shift from linear production and consumption processes to circular systems. The concept of circular economy aims to work towards an industrial and economic system that is restorative by nature, designing out waste to function in a regenerative and closed-loop consumption system. Circular economy is a burgeoning concept within businesses, and subsequently Vodafone Netherlands sought out to explore its opportunities for user-centred design solutions within the circular economy way of thinking. The main challenge of this thesis project concerns stimulating consumers to display more circular behaviour through Vodafone’s design strategy. Circular behaviour in this context revolves around driving users to engage in consumption behaviour that falls in line with guidelines of circular economy theory, while still catering to the needs and desires of users regarding mobile phone use. This report documents the complete design project in how this central challenge was tackled. The project consists of three main phases: analysis, synthesis and the final design strategy. During analysis, the current problem context was critically analysed to see where growth opportunities lie. Key insights derived from this analysis showed that users are becoming more price conscious, open to lower-end devices and most importantly, desire flexibility in a rapidly changing industry. Moreover, product-service-systems are key for circular economy propositions. The most relevant circular interventions that can take place on a business model level focus on facilitating repair & circling longer, and providing access to a service rather than a product itself. The final phase of analysis saw the creation of a conceptual framework built around circular intent and behaviour. This showed that circular intent is formed by internal, social and external factors but are halted by inhibiting factors. The external and inhibiting factors showed where growth opportunities lie for Vodafone in their circular services. In the synthesis phase, the input from analysis was translated into meaningful design directions. By looking at the input from analysis through the eyes of two polar opposite type of users, six design challenges were formulated. These were then converged into three directions for concepts using validation from an internal stakeholder co-creation session at Vodafone. Subsequently, a first roadmap towards circular behaviour containing two short-term concepts and one long-term vision was created, wherein the short term visions are necessary gradual steps in shifting consumption behaviour patterns towards circularity. The two shorter term solutions were tested for user feedback through two surveys that were sent out to Vodafone post-paid consumers, receiving 2.954 responses in total. The results from these surveys were analyzed using SPSS, and the insights gained were used as input to redesign these two concepts into iterated versions. The final design strategy of this project describes a high-level roadmap towards circular behaviour for Vodafone. The first concept, Inruildeals 2.0, focuses on redesigning Vodafone’s retention service to help close the consumption loop. The second concept is titled Phone Boost, and functions as a service check-up for users to make use of their devices longer and focuses on encouraging circling longer in the consumption loop. For these first two concepts, service design blueprints have been graphically elaborated upon to show how the services practically take shape. The final vision, Always Connected, is a future vision wherein current linear user contracts are restructured into an all-encompassing circular customer journey. The final outcome of the roadmap gives short- and long-term advice to Vodafone’s Strategy department in what high level actions need to be taken to implement these three concepts to stimulate users to engage in circular behaviour through Vodafone’s design strategy.