Investigating Business Potential and Users’ Acceptance of Circular Economy: A Survey and an Evaluation Model

Gianmarco Bressanelli,Nicola Saccani,Marco Perona

doi:10.3390/su14020609

Abstract

Circular economy is gaining attention in business and society to advance sustainability. This paradigm is particularly relevant for energy-consuming products such as washing machines, where alternatives to linear economy such as pay-per-use and refurbishment are gaining ground. To succeed, these business models should achieve consensus and acceptance among users. However, little attention has been paid to customers’ interest for circular economy business models so far. This paper aims to compare the economic and environmental impacts of pay-per wash and refurbishment business models, while investigating the degree of users’ acceptance and factors influencing it. A survey has been designed to collect users’ data regarding washing machine consumption patterns and acceptance rates of the circular business models. An evaluation model was developed to assess the economic and environmental impacts of pay-per-wash and refurbishment against a traditional linear model, fed with data from 279 Italian households collected through the survey. Finally, logistic regressions were carried out to investigate the influence of different customer, product, and usage factors on the acceptance rates of the two circular business models. Results show that, on average, pay-per-wash business models and washing machine refurbishment can guarantee environmental savings. However, only refurbishment generates economic savings for users. Moreover, only around half of the users’ sample shows a positive degree of acceptance of such alternatives. Respondent age has been found as a significant factor influencing the interest towards a refurbishment model, while the washing machine failures experienced by users and the relevance of the environmental gains achievable influence the acceptance rate of pay-per-wash models. Thus, when offering pay-per-wash schemes, suppliers should emphasize the information on the environmental benefits of this alternative, and that with such models they take over the responsibility and costs for maintenance and repair. On the other hand, providers of refurbished products should target younger consumers, who are less affected by a bias against second-hand goods.

Highlights

Introduction iationsThe circular economy (CE) is gaining attention among academia and managerial communities as a means to reach sustainability by decoupling economic growth from resource extraction and environmental losses [1,2]
From an environmental point of view, it is interesting to note that a large share of washing machines (WM) have ansection, Efficiency Class (EEC) greater than ‘A’
While several studies focused on product design [9,67], our study considers the potential of the current WM installed base to be cost- and environmentally effective with a refurbishment business model

Summary

Introduction

Introduction iationsThe circular economy (CE) is gaining attention among academia and managerial communities as a means to reach sustainability by decoupling economic growth from resource extraction and environmental losses [1,2]. CE can be analyzed at the micro, meso, and macro levels [3,4]. The micro-level is focused on the practices of CE applied at the single firm implementation level. The meso level is focused on industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis, and on the supply chain structure and relationships among firms [5]. The macro level is focused on general policies and plans at the level of cities, regions, and countries. From a more practical perspective, companies wishing to move towards CE may adopt many levers, and exploit several enabling factors [6,7]. Products should be designed to enable circularity, by e.g., extending their lifespan through the upgrading of their components, improving their disassembly and recycling ability to Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

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