Building collaboration towards a circular economy

Building collaboration towards a circular economy: A framework for systemic collaboration to accelerate the transition to a circular economy

Henselmans, G.G.M.

Bocken, N.M.P. (mentor)
Prendeville, S.M. (mentor)
Calabretta, G. (mentor)
Blaauw, O. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Design Engineering

Strategic Product Design

2017-05-19

Problem situation - Global population is expected to double its size in 2030 (EMF, 2013), so will global consumption. Resource scarcity and associated environmental impact has shown that the current way of conducting business is not sustainable (Bocken et al., 2014). A promising alternative is proposed; circular economy. This new economic system is like an ecosystem; everything interacts through endless cycles and flows, thus waste does not exist. To establish a circular economy, a new way of approaching the problem (the current way of business) is required. This new way involves looking at problems holistically instead of breaking them apart; it is called a systemic approach. The company - Circular Valley is an organisation that wants to accelerate the transition to a circular economy by taking this systemic approach. At Circular Valley, people can rent workspaces and collaborate to solve circular challenges. They look at a problem as a whole and bring organisations together to work on that problem. A team of approximately 10 people, called Valley Creators, help organisations in their transition by guiding and enabling these collaborations. At present, Circular Valley is still in their start-up phase. The assignment - The scope of this thesis is to study the approach Valley Creators take and formalise it. Thereby it answers the following research question: Research question How can organisations systemically collaborate to accelerate the transition to a circular economy using an action research approach? Approach - To investigate the approach an action research approach was adopted. Action research includes a number of research methodologies that simultaneously pursue action (change) and research (understanding) (Altrichter et al., 2002). Literature regarding circular economy, systemic approaches, current state of the circular economy and facilitating cross sector collaborations, whole systems design and circular business model innovation were reviewed. Findings were combined with the insights gained from studying Valley Creators. Results - It was found that Valley Creators are still in the start-up phase. The approach they take was not yet formalised. Also, the way the approach was communicated was unclear. By formalising it, positioning, branding and communicating the concept will become easier. Both the literature study and the research showed that the facilitating party, Valley Creators, need to have certain values, capabilities and principles. Based on the findings from the research a design vision was formulated. Design vision - The goal is to design a guide that helps Valley Creators to facilitate, structure and express how they build circular systems to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Design outcome - A framework describing how to facilitate the collaboration to build a circular system was designed. It consists of the following steps, See figure Figure 1 on page 5. Experiencing the need for a new economic system Define circular system of urgency Refine circular system solutions through co-creation Test circular system feasibility Scale circular system solutions Setting the economic standard The proposed framework is supported by tools and methods; embedding a systemic approach in the transition to a circular economy. All of it is described form the perspective of Valley Creators. Business guidelines were formulated, pertaining to values, capabilities, principles and tips to facilitate the process. Evaluation - The evaluation showed that the developed framework was too abstract and needs to be combined with the findings from Valley Creators to communicate it with clients. Furthermore, 4 experts reflected on the proposed framework. They perceived the steps to be logical but more study is required to fully comprehend the feasibility and desirability of the approach. Also, the framework inhibits a number of implications. These include e.g. the group facilitating the method needs to be specialised and each project requires a degree of tailoring. The framework should be constantly updated as it describes a transition. Discussion - Finally, the framework relies largely on theory and e.g. a case study could enrich it further. Also the complementary list of suggested methods and tools to support the framework are non-exhaustive and should be tested. This framework should be interpreted as a first proposal.

Circular economy
systemic collaboration
accelerated transition
circular systems
design
service blueprint

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:9ae6cf0b-a8b8-41a7-84f2-cb04612d5619

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2017 Henselmans, G.G.M.