Business model innovation opportunities in the Dutch downstream photovoltaic industry

This thesis provides insight in the characteristics of photovoltaic business models and how they relate to policy instruments and design considerations. Business models illustrate the rationale of how organizations create, delivers and capture value. The business model approach and more specifically the business model canvas is a tool that is...

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

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...

The process of making historical buildings sustainable: A design of new touch points that increase the service quality of De Groene Grachten and support in building a long term relationship with the customer

Climate changes urges the design of historical buildings to become sustainable. DGG’s mission is to lower CO2 impact of historical buildings. Currently, DGG has no structured approach to keep in touch with their customers after delivering their service and experience a loss in contact. DGG wants to build a long term relationship with their...

Out of the box: Facilitating the reuse of packing material to ensure a reliable parcel delivery in the consumer-to-consumer market

The growth of competitors in the consumer-to-consumer market pressures PostNL - a Dutch mail, parcel and e-commerce corporation – to develop new ways to ensure their market share. Nowadays, PostNL is responsible for the delivery of almost 156 million parcels per year. The consumer-to-consumer (C2C) market consists of almost 5 million consumers...

From waste to value: Designing with recycled mattress ticking

The reduction of waste materials is an important step towards a more circular economy. Within the mattress industry, the focus on sustainability and recycling has increased substantially over the last few years. In the Netherlands and a few other European countries the recycling of mattresses is strongly encouraged or made mandatory by local and...

Consuming food instead of wasting

In the Netherlands, about 50% of the food is wasted in the consumer phase (Netherlands Nutrition Centre, 2014). Wasting food has an enormous impact on the environment and on social-economical aspects for example. To address this problem, a product is designed according to the Vision in Product design approach (Hekkert & Van Dijk, 2011) to...

Circular Business Models: A company perspective

This project aimed to research the perspective of companies on the relationship between sustainability and circular business models. This was done by first looking at how literature describes the relationship between sustainability and the circular economy/circular business models. With this as a basis, thirteen different multinational companies...

The electrically propelled trailer: Investigating a method to judge the feasibility of a market introduction.

Stimulating circular behaviour through design strategy

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...

Designing Circular Cities: Exploring the development of circular economy in cities

Urban policymakers face more complex issues than ever before in developing a socially-, economically- and environmentally sustainable cities. Some cities have already started transitioning towards a circular economy in this endeavor. This research explores the ways in which four pioneering cities have started navigating this transition, and uses...

Reflections on Product Lifetime Extension: Validating and Expanding the 'Products That Last' Framework

The book 'Products That Last: Product Design for Circular Business Models' was published as the result of a research project from the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology to shed more light upon how to build businesses that are able to profit from longer product lifetimes and on how to design products that...

Circular Buildings the Urban Living Lab Way: A Practical Facilitation Tool as Guidance for a Circular Building Process as Collaborative Ecosystem

The Master’s programme Industrial Ecology is jointly organised by Leiden University and Delft University of Technology. The coming decades, the building sector is facing challenges to reduce its impact as one of the major contributors on global problems, like resource depletion, pollution and climate change. The concept of Circular Economy,...

Circular Supply Chain Collaboration in the Built Environment

The main purpose of this study is to examine in what way supply chain collaboration in the built environment can contribute to the transition to a CE in the Netherlands. The study is structured along three main parts: (1) a theoretic part for conceptualising circular supply chain collaboration, (2) a case study where this conceptualisation is...

Circular Backcasting for Businesses: An exploration of the application of Backcasting, for the adoption of Circular Economy in the Dutch furniture sector.

The Master’s programme Industrial Ecology is jointly organised by Leiden University and Delft University of Technology. In order to enable service providers to support businesses in adopting Circular economy as new paradigm, backcasting is suggested as suitable method. By 1. selecting appropriate tools to complete the five phases of backcasting,...