This paper presents an in-depth case study detailing the history, experiences and wider practitioner and policy lessons from a circular economy business model over a thirty-year period highlighting the successes, difficulties and conflicts of adopting a circular economy model. The case is based on interviews, key documents and customer insight. The findings demonstrate how sustained circular economy business practices can deliver significant new revenues, resource productivity and business continuity benefits, but also require managers and practitioners to develop competencies and capabilities, such as balancing linear and circular systems, to address complex and highly dynamic factors including rapid technological shifts and market volatility. IntroductionThe term circular economy (CE) has a long history, multiple definitions and distinctive developments in different global contexts 1 . In Europe and increasingly in other global regions a CE framework, originally devised and developed in the UK by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) 2 , has been a catalyst at EU policy level 3 and has become influential in business circles. A key reason for the popularity of this framework, sometimes referred to as the 'butterfly model' (see Figure 1) is that it aligns a compelling business rationale 4 with the need to decouple wealth creation from the consumption of finite resources 5 .Despite the growing interest in circular economy practices, there are few published empirically based evaluative studies into the actual experiences and outcomes within specific businesses through time. The present paper contributes to the literature by providing a detailed case study of the successes of implementing a circular economy system over many years via unprecedented access to a key manufacturer and combining the technical/design, supply chain, (reverse) logistics challenges also from a business model and management of a circular transition perspective. The case study also details the difficulties of trying to move away from the linear 2 economy and how even the best laid plans and a management committed to the principles of CE can be challenged by external environmental factors. This provides an important first-hand insight for senior executives into the management journey of one of the communities best known CE-case examples in an industry which exhibits many similarities with many other manufacturing and high-tech businesses in a fast changing environment.A circular economy aims to upgrade the linear take-make-dispose economy to one that is restorative by design 6 . One well-known visual depiction of a circular economy is shown in Figure 1 7 . In the technical sphere (right-hand side, and the focus of this paper) value creation lies in the ability to preserve the embedded labor, energy, material and capital costs in higher forms of product and component integrity and can be achieved through four primary ways 8 . Firstly, via performance business models 9 and maintenance which allows the extension of product usage 10 .Second...

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The role of closed loop supply chains (CLSC) for creating and recovering value is widely acknowledged in supply chain management and there are many examples, mainly in the business-to-business sector, of successful OEM remanufacturing. The integration of value creation and recovery activities into retail customer value propositions is, however, under researched and raises many challenges, especially in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) retail where few real world examples have been published. The recent emergence of the term 'circular economy' has initiated further debate about closed loop value propositions and closed loop supply chain implications. This paper selects four circular economy-led closed loop product case examples from a major European FMCG company, and assesses, at a high level, how these cases created value, for whom value was created, and key challenges in their implementation. The findings highlight that each case is different. Closing loops and creating successful value propositions is complex and requires simultaneous reconfiguration of key building blocks to ensure customer acceptance and business viability. The paper proposes the term 'circular supply chain' for cases where circular economy principles are explicitly incorporated in CLSC for value creation.

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