Design Guidelines to Develop Circular Products: Action Research on Nordic Industry

Sasha Shahbazi and Anna Karin Jönbrink
Additional contact information
Sasha Shahbazi: RISE IVF, 43 122 Mölndal, Sweden
Anna Karin Jönbrink: Environment and Sustainability Section, Afry, 401 51 Göteborg, Sweden

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: Product design and development are key to moving towards a circular economy; however, the majority of products and components that are currently recirculated have not been designed for circulation of any sort. Circular economy business models and closing the loop can be functional only if the products and services are designed for circularity. This paper presents a set of generic design guidelines for different circular strategies. The guidelines are then used to map companies’ circular product design initiatives in the early stages of product design and development. The guidelines have proved to support decision-making and enhance the circularity of products. The guidelines were developed, validated, and tested at four companies within the Nordic countries through an action research approach. Sourcing raw materials, recycling, and ensuring the robustness of products for the use phase are the most common strategies used by the studied companies. There is an ongoing transition towards other recirculation strategies, such as repair, remanufacture, and reuse.

Keywords: eco-design; product development; circular economy; circular product development: product design for the environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3679/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3679/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:9:p:3679-:d:353337

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().