Note that this manuscript is submitted as a letter to the editor (4,000 words at maximum), and not as one of the other categories such as original research or review article. In addition, it intends to serve as an editorial note for a virtual special issue (VSI) containing the six articles referred to in this letter.

The circular economy provides a potential solution to the take–make–dispose model of resource use that currently characterizes the economy. Guidelines for the circular economy often consist of prioritized lists of measures to achieve resource efficiency. However, for the purpose of designing products, such general prioritizations of measures are less useful. Instead, the tool developed in this study is based on learnings from numerous life cycle assessments and provides design recommendations for the improved resource efficiency of products based on product characteristics. The tool includes measures over the whole lifecycle of different products that lead to improved resource efficiency. The tool also demonstrates how different product types, such as different varieties of durable and consumable products, can become more resource-efficient and when trade-offs occur over the lifecycle of a product. The tool was tested in a design case where its usefulness and usability were evaluated using a comparative life cycle assessment and a questionnaire. The evaluation shows the tool is informative and provides design suggestions that lead to improved resource efficiency. The tool is considered usable and could be implemented in design practice.

Over the last decade, product/service systems (PSSs) have become a research issue in several disciplines, such as engineering design and marketing. The inherent interdisciplinary nature of this research issue has however remained unexploited. In order to bridge these silos and foster more interaction across relevant disciplines, this research examines PSSs from an interdisciplinary angle by analyzing how engineering design and marketing inform one another, as well as presents insights for PSS design. The research is carried out using a three-stage process for analyzing and evaluating interdisciplinary research: first, through a systematic literature review to identify relevant papers and their level of utilization across disciplines; second, by using a qualitative thematic analysis looking for different perspectives in order to find themes to bridge the gap between the disciplines; and third, by providing a research agenda to advance research by moving from silos to synergy. The results show a limited use of theories, frameworks, methods and tools across disciplines thus far, while the major contribution of this article lies in the implications derived for PSS design for academics and practitioners alike, which are categorized into seven specific themes: business orientation, collaboration, cost aspects, flexibility, performance indicators, requirements and services.

Recently, a circular economy has attracted global attention as an approach for addressing material security and resource‐efficiency issues. As our societies shift toward a circular economy, manufacturers need to not only produce environmentally conscious products but to also realize reliable systems that will ensure the closure of the loops of the products, components, and materials. To do so, early‐stage design is crucial to effectively and efficiently detect possible failures and then take adequate countermeasures against them. Although a few methods of failure analysis have been proposed to address environmental issues, these methods have failed to consider the cause–effect relationships among failures. This will hinder manufacturers from identifying core problems that should be addressed in a given system. Therefore, this study extends failure mode and effect analysis, which is an engineering technique used to address potential failures, by addressing the entire system reliability in relation to circularity. As a result of a case study of a manufacturer aiming to increase circularity with their products on the market, we revealed that the proposed method is useful in the early stage of design to (a) identify failure modes where effects are largely given to or received from other failures, (b) develop countermeasures effectively by addressing root causes of failures, and (c) find an opportunity to collaborate with external actors.

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