The circular business case: Exploring the role of the business case in creating financially feasible and circular biobased housing developments

The construction industry has a significant environmental impact, consumes a large amount of scarce resources, generates a lot of waste, and causes a lot of emissions such as CO2 which contribute to global warming and are all reasons of great concern. A significant portion of these negative environmental impacts are caused by the building sector...

Circularity as a Game Changer: An exploration into dynamic capabilities' microfoundations as mechanisms for business model transformation in architectural firms

Economies, society, and organizations are operating on borrowed time (Lacy &amp; Rutqvist, 2015). <br/><br/>As a response to urgent planetary and societal needs, a critical shift is required on every aspect of how organizations in the construction sector, one of the most resource intensive and pollutant industries, propose, create, and capture...

Twings: A Platform Concept Towards Mainstreaming circular Economy Strategies

The ever growing world population - 10 billion by 2050 - brings many challenges to the table. One of the most imminent is the way we handle and take care of our planets natural resources. More people means more needs. How do are we going provide for all these people? Over the past decades, we have reached a general consensus that our planet is a...

A circular economy approach to exploit the value of urban solid waste: Study case of San Cristobal de las Casas, south-east Mexico

It is possible to recover and maintain the value of urban solid waste (USW) through the implementation of circular economy practices in the waste management strategy. This can have social, economic and environmental benefits. One of the most noticeable benefits is the reduction landfilled USW. To achieve this it is necessary to, firstly,...

Circular Business Model Patterns and their Relevance towards a more Circular Economy: A case survey of 34 circular companies

With tackling the problems of resource depletion and waste, the currently booming topic of a circular economy (CE) comes up. This concept goes beyond the processes of reusing and recycling products and looks at the entire material and energy loops of products. The current economy, or linear economy, is still the status quo where products are...

A circular platform design for upper limb stroke rehabilitation

This project has been developed within the context of a startup company that aims to improve the problem of limited stroke recovery of the upper limb in the Netherlands. The company's value proposition consists of addressing this problem by means of artificially assisted therapy. The specific mission of this project has been to reconsider the...

Supply yourself: A circular reorganisation on the supply side in the construction industry from a financial perspective

Despite circular economy being a phenomenon more and more are familiar with, the actual implementation is practically unknown to most. Especially in the construction industry, a conservative industry in nature, the translation of a circular economy seems to be absent. This research makes this translation, in which the changes in the financial...

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...

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,...

Business Model Innovation in circular product design: A case study in kitchen appliances

Without the guarantee for product return or company ownership, circular alternatives can have a higher perceived financial risk than linear alternatives. Therefore, it is essential to start at the business model to create preconditions for a circular system and develop propositions consumers are willing to pay for. This requires a shift in...

WakaWaka towards a circular economy: The development of a circular business case

WakaWaka develops and markets solar powered lights and chargers for the western world and developing countries in their mission to end energy poverty. The circular economy is an economic system with closed material loops, which can provide benefits for sustainable product design and business model generation. Circular tools have been designed...