Towards Circular Consumption

Abstract

The European Union’s transition to a circular economy demands that consumers shift from linear consumption habits towards value-retaining actions such as repairing, reselling, and recycling products. While EU citizens acknowledge that environmental issues affect their daily lives, this awareness has not translated into proportional circular action. A key enabler in bridging this gap is the Digital Product Passport (DPP), introduced through the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). The DPP creates a digital record of product-specific information accessible via a data carrier on the product. This thesis investigates how DPP-enabled services can facilitate consumers to act circularly in the European circular economy, moving beyond the DPP as a standalone information tool towards the service ecosystem it enables.

Following a design-entrepreneurial approach, this research employs a Double Diamond methodology combined with a Lean Startup approach. The first phase establishes the problem space through three research activities. First, a circular consumer journey framework maps consumer actions across the purchase, use, and post-use phases. Second, an analysis of the ESPR defines the functional data capabilities of the DPP ecosystem for service creation, supplemented by eight expert interviews. Third, a semi-systematic literature review identifies 17 consumer barriers across all phases of the circular consumer journey. These barriers are translated into consumer pain statements and their relevance validated through a consumer survey (N=887). The survey concludes with three service opportunity areas that offer the greatest potential for DPP-enabled service intervention.

The second phase synthesises these findings into tangible service concepts through iterative ideation and co-creation workshops. Five DPP-enabled service concepts are prototyped as experience scenarios and tested with ten consumers. The interviews revealed that the three strongest concepts, ProductWallet, RepairMatch, and SimpleSell, share a common dependency on verified, centralised product information. This prompted a pivot from isolated services towards a consumer product lifecycle platform: the DPP Repository. At its core sits a personal product repository where consumers store their DPPs. Integrations with repair networks and resale platforms enable lifecycle services that leverage this data to reduce effort across the circular consumer journey.

To explore viable business models, a mapping workshop generated five DPP Repository variants, each tested through lightweight experiments. The experiments revealed that a B2B2C information marketplace between consumers and brands shows the strongest signals for viability. This led to the development of Keep It, a two-sided platform where consumers register products and share lifecycle data in exchange for brand rewards and post-purchase services, while brands gain a direct consumer channel, circular service distribution, and aggregated product lifecycle insights. A clickable prototype was developed and validated with three DPP early-mover brands. The validation signals that the platform has the potential to address the pain of lacking post-purchase consumer connections and can provide a missing piece in making DPP investments commercially viable.

This thesis contributes a practical, consumer-centred perspective to the predominantly theoretical and technology-focused DPP discourse. It further expands the scientific discussion by exploring the service ecosystem the DPP can create for consumers. The thesis concludes with next steps to build Keep It as a start-up, beginning with pilot partnerships and consumer adoption testing.