Consumer preferences for a circular economy are known to be heterogeneous; however, most existing studies focus exclusively on the product acquisition phase and assume homogeneous utilities. This study aims to understand consumer segments for circular business models in terms of consumer preferences and market shares, and to investigate the commonalities across the three phases of consumer engagement in the circular economy: acquisition, repair, and discharge. We combined choice-based conjoint analysis, ensemble clustering, and market simulation, and applied them to three typical products (refrigerators, laptops, and children's goods) in the Japanese market. The analysis revealed the consistent existence of key consumer segments across the three phases. First, circular-oriented segments (12–33 % of the population, depending on the phase and product category) show a high willingness to adopt circular business models (e.g., 67–100 % within-segment share), making them a promising entry point for target-based marketing. Second, price-sensitive segments (13–30 %) could play a pivotal role in mainstreaming circular business models, highlighting the need for substantial price reductions of circular offers relative to linear offers. Third, balanced decision-makers (19–38 %), who tend to resist traditional circular options (e.g., reuse), are open to new circular business models (e.g., refurbish, subscription, functional upgrading, sharing), indicating the importance of designing attractive product service offers. Finally, linear-insistent segments (24–51 %) almost never choose circular products and repair options (e.g., 0–2 % segment-wise share). This results in a persistently high total market share of linear options, even under ambitious scenarios; e.g., 44–57 % of acquisitions are brand-new, and 51 % of broken products remain unrepaired. Although linear-insistent behaviour in any of these phases may act as a bottleneck, overlapping membership among consumer segments suggests the potential for positive spillover across phases. This study's approach enables more nuanced consumer segmentation, facilitating the identification of diffusion stages, the design of appealing product services, and the development of target-wise marketing strategies towards the circular economy.

In evaluating a circular economy (CE), one needs to address the complexity arising from indicators with multiple objectives, multiple means of implementation with combinations of CE strategies, and the uncertainty inherent in resource cycle systems. Regional sensitivity analysis (RSA) is a version of global sensitivity analysis that can be used to determine whether the output variables of a mathematical model lie within a certain range. Although RSA has found application in a wide range of fields, no prior studies sought to apply the method to industrial ecology. In this study, RSA is applied to a dynamic material flow analysis (MFA) model to identify the essential factors and analyze the conditions under which two indicators, greenhouse gas emissions and total material requirement, are influenced, in the case studies for digital cameras and smartphones. To this end, RSA with 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations were performed. Two factors were found to be especially important: (1) controlling the collection channels of end-of-life products, and (2) encouraging consumers to use products over a longer period. It was also suggested that, for ambitious reductions in environmental impacts, the achievement of targets should be given priority over the speed of implementation of strategies. To avoid catastrophic environmental impacts, the first step should be to ensure higher recycling rates using well-developed collection routes. This study represents a major step forward from simply forecasting future cycles with the dynamic MFA model to the application of RSA to systematically consider parameter uncertainties with various possibilities of combined circular economy strategies.