- What’s the traditional business model?
- i.e. linear business models only worry about the costs of using resources to make a product
- They focus producing, selling, using and throwing away products
- They aren’t concerned about environmental impacts
- i.e. shirt: take cotton from Earth, make t-shirt, it goes to waste
THE CIRCULAR BUSINESS MODEL
- The CBM is a tool that encourages businesses to consider the environmental impacts of business activities
- Reduce, reuse, recycle, and REPAIR
o i.e. upselling products (recycling old phones)
- Example: IKEA clearance, used cars, PEEL cases
- Resource recovery model: recover resources by reprocessing waste into new and usable materials
- Industrial symbiosis: waste/byproducts of one industrial process is used as a raw material for another industrial process
o i.e. coconut waste to biofuel
o chopsticks to table
- C2C design and manufacturing means products are designed so that when the product is at the end of its lifecycle, the used product can be reused to make a new product
- Has to be accessible to customers.
- Closed-loop recycling
- Product life extension model: make products last longer
o To reduce waste, compete with low quality and low cost products
- Sharing model: Airbnb, Uber: share products
o Benefits: using underused products, reduces demand for raw materials, therefore reduces environmental burdens
- Product service system model: services that functions like a product without being a physical product
o Environmentally friendly and efficient
o Spotify, Google Drive, Michelin tires, Netflix
Traditional business model: focus on profit. CBM: focus on people and the planet
- Important because consumers are using products for less than their lifespan, and throwing away those products (bad for the environment)