Product-service-system, A strategy for Corporate Real Estate Management to minimize material leakage in the office (transformation): A study of minimizing material leakage within CRE by using PSS

The world is moving toward environmental sustainability and a circular economy. The construction industry generates more than one-third of waste in landfills around the world is considered a critical sector. Material leakage is becoming one of the most concerning issues in the construction industry globally. <br/><br/>Due to globalization, many...

Design for refurbishment of child car seats – Towards circular safety critical products

This graduation project investigates the challenges of designing a safety critical consumer product suitable for the refurbishment loop of the circular economy through a case study on child car seats. Currently when child car seats are reused or resold on the second-hand market, their safety cannot be guaranteed as it is unknown whether the...

‘If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Explain It’: The Influence of Visual and Verbal Information about Prior Use on Consumers’ Evaluations of Refurbished Electronics

Refurbishment presents opportunities for designers to improve the sustainability of new and old products via an experiment and post hoc interviews, this research investigates and explores how information about prior use – offered in a visual (signs of wear and tear) or verbal (textual description) form – influences consumers’ evaluations of...

The Role of Product Design in Creating Circular Business Models:: A Case Study on the Lease and Refurbishment of Baby Strollers

In the transition to a circular economy companies are exploring new business models, implying a shift from selling products to offering products in circular business models, such as leasing.<br/>Product design is thought to play a crucial role in enabling this. Having a robust overview of relevant design roles and competencies is of foundational...

The customer acceptance of refurbished smartphones

This research aims to uncover the factors influencing the customer acceptance of refurbished products. To gain insight in these factors, a quantitative study (N = 250) on the response of customers to the proposition of refurbished smartphones was conducted in cooperation with Fairphone. Fairphone is a social enterprise start-up, aiming to open...

Influencing consumer acceptance of refurbished smartphones

Previous studies showed that the consumer acceptance of refurbished products is not optimal. This experimental quantitative study investigates three potential ways to influence the consumer acceptance, being the existence of wear and tear on the product, providing additional information about the previous use or providing additional information...

Developing a mobile device for a Circular Economy

E-waste, price volatility of resources and the constant increase of the middle class world population expecting the same ‘high quality’ life standards have (amongst other) made some companies consider their options. In the reports of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, one aspect of the circular economy model aims at decoupling sales revenues from...