Scaling up circular ecosystems through product design practices: An integrative framework

Abstract

To turn the current take-make-dispose economy into a circular one, companies need to employ circular design practices that induce systemic change by scaling up circular ecosystems. However, the research streams of circular design practices and circular ecosystems have developed separately, leaving a gap to understanding how companies can scale up circular ecosystems through circular product design. To address this gap, we bridge two perspectives. We develop a research framework which interlinks circular product design with circular ecosystem scalability and employ it in an exploratory empirical analysis. The resulting integrative framework illustrates the role of circular product design in enabling circular ecosystem scalability. For scaling circular ecosystems, we identify circular product design practices aimed to extend product lifecycle and particularly design for modularity/standardization as key practices, and functional scalability as a key scalability feature. The findings provide one of the first attempts to identify the most effective ways to scale up circular ecosystems by design, and analyze the number of circular ecosystem scalability features each circular product design dimension enables. We advance the academic debate about systemic circularity by positing the enabling role of circular product design in achieving circular ecosystem scalability. Our insights provide practical guidelines for managers and policymakers seeking to scale circular businesses with an ecosystem approach.