Sustainable Product-Service Systems and Circular Economies

Abstract

Sustainable product-service systems (PSSs) have proven to be a very good alternative for developing new business models and transforming traditional offers into sustainable ones. Environmental, social and economic benefits support the idea of developing this type of system. However, there are identified challenges that have stopped the expansion of the concept into the market. The framework that explains the principles and building blocks of a circular economy according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation can be an interesting lens to analyse the challenges companies faced when they wanted to implement a sustainable PSS. This framework is particularly useful to understand the internal and external forces companies are dealing with in a transformation from traditional business models to ones like sustainable PSSs that need special conditions of operation. Design for sustainability as an area of study will shift in the coming years to focus its attention on the requirements of circular economics as the paradigm of production and consumption. Sustainable products, services and systems will be developed according to the conditions established by those circular conditions.

The Differences across Future Teachers Regarding Attitudes on Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development

“…In case we, as individuals, should make our personal contribution as those responsible for the environment, we could be supported by institutions and companies through pro-environmental changes to the practices of the aforementioned social groups, which will, at the same time, facilitate the functioning of society in an individual way [14,23,26,83]. As already indicated by other authors, norms developed through environmental and educational policies favour environmentally friendly skills and actions in each and every one of us [24,25].…”

“…Likewise, an individual may also act to promote Corporate Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development (CSRSD) as a member of a company, which could contribute to the well-being of society [19]. Their responsibility as agents of pro-environmental social change is centred on decision making and the implementation of economic actions, which are mainly influenced by the most sustainable ones, such as a common good economy, fair trade, or circular economy, with the capacity to address products to an ethical consumer, to a greater or lesser extent [17,[20][21][22][23][24]; all this is based on the creation of a European ethical market [25]. Therefore, companies would be able to offer more sustainable products, and as a result, favour specific consumption trends [13,14,17,26].…”

Empowering Sustainable Consumption by Giving Back to Consumers the ‘Right to Repair’

“…Even in well-intentioned offers like product-service systems [27], that have the potential to be sustainable [28,29] and that in some cases work under the requirements of a circular economy, there is no need to provide the parts and information to repair a product. Even more, repair is frequently part of the business model [30] and there is no real incentive for producers to provide parts and information for someone else to perform the repairs that for them could represent income.…”

Analysing the risks of adopting circular economy initiatives in manufacturing supply chains

“…Similarly, a well‐knit supply chain forms the foundation to develop the closed‐loop system to minimise wastage and energy leakages and to eliminate the solid wastes and tackle unnecessary resource consumption (Gnoni, Tornese, Thorn, Carrano, & Pazour, 2018; Gaustad, Krystofik, Bustamante, & Badami, 2018; Perey, Benn, Agarwal, & Edwards, 2018; Centobelli, Cerchione & Ertz, 2020). CE's circular supply chain (CSC) approach, by adapting eco‐friendly concepts, has attracted major global companies such as Renault, Unilever and Google because of its financial and environmental benefits (De Angelis, Howard, & Miemczyk, 2018; Dey et al, 2020; Hernandez, 2019). Adoption of newer concepts in a supply chain (SC) is prone to risks and disruption of the SC.…”