Slowing resource loops in the Circular Economy: an experimentation approach in fashion retail

The Circular Economy is viewed as an important driver for resolving resource issues and tackling sustainability issues more broadly. The fashion industry operates in a largely linear way and suffers from various environmental, societal and economic challenges. In a Circular Economy, first and foremost, products need to be retained at the highest level, thus slowing resource loops. Slowing resource loops goes against current fast fashion trends and therefore appears the most difficult approach to pursue. This paper investigates how a large established retailer aims to slow resource loops as part of a broader project targeted to significantly reduce textile waste to landfill. The retailer collaborated with a university partner to pursue circular business model experiments. This paper reports on the approach for a slowing resource loops experiment around building sewing capabilities. Suggestions for future research and practice on circular business model experimentation are included

Slowing resource loops in the clothing industry through circular business model experimentation

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Mythen der Circular Economy

Wenn in Deutschland von Circular Economy gesprochen wird, denken wir schnell an Plastik, Recycling und wie unsere Abfallwirtschaft funktioniert. Dass hinter der Circular Economy wesentlich mehr Aspekte stecken, zeigt das Buch ‘Mythen der Circular Economy’. 32 Autor*innen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis sind dem Aufruf der Herausgebenden Alexa Böckel, Jan Quaing, Ilka Weissbrod und Julia Böhm gefolgt und haben sich mit den Mythen beschäftigt, die ihnen im Arbeitsalltag begegnen. Das Buch ist für alle Interessierten, Skeptiker*innen, enthusiastische Fürsprecher*innen und Zweifler*innen der Circular Economy. Die Take Aways am Ende der Kapitel und die Handlungsempfehlungen ermöglichen ein zielgerichtetes Lesen, das in die Umsetzung führt. In verständlicher Sprache führen Unternehmensgründer*innen und Wissenschaftler*innen in die Circular Economy ein und erklären, was im aktuellen Diskurs unter das Konzept fällt. Beispielsweise gibt es die sogenannten R-Strategien, die auch Recycling umfassen, aber sich auch mit suffizienteren Ansätzen beschäftigen. Die Circular Economy umfasst auch soziale Aspekte, denn ohne die Konsumierenden und den Wille der Bürger*innen kann eine Transformation nicht stattfinden. Zudem liefert der Sammelband eine Übersicht an aktuell existierenden Mythen und wie sie sich in Geschäftsmodellen und digitalen Technologien verbreiten. Gleichzeitig wird jeder Mythos von einem Gegenbeispiel aus der Praxis begleitet und zeigt damit, wie viel bereits möglich ist. Dabei werden vor allem die Bereiche des Bauens und der Mode in den Fokus genommen

Business experimentation for sustainability

Carbon emissions and natural resource depletion are associated with urgent, linear timelines and irreversible damage. In contrast, the commercialization of radical innovations is associated with timelines of 20-40 years. These two timelines are at tension with each other and a shortening of the organizational radical innovation timeline is needed to address urgent sustainable development challenges through new product and service offers. This transdisciplinary PhD research investigates the practice of radical innovation in large firms. It generates insights on how firms pursue explorative innovation activities with the goal of creating social and environmental value whilst capturing economic value. The organizational capability of ‘experimentation’ has been highlighted as the key to improve radical innovation performance in established firms. However, the details of what the experimentation capability might be, and entail in the context of sustainable development challenges is unknown. Furthermore, how experimentation may address the contrasting timelines of organizational innovation and sustainable development challenges has not been explored. To address this gap in the knowledge, this research gathered qualitative data from leading practitioners through semi-structured interviews, followed by an in-depth case study. The insights generated through the data analysis contribute to knowledge in the strategic management and sustainability literature. This research offers a descriptive framework on how firms might build on the innovation process used in lean startup thinking to shorten the radical innovation timeline with the view to develop products and services that create environmental and social value whilst capturing economic value.Open Acces

Developing sustainable business experimentation capability: A case study

This research paper shows how a firm pursues innovation activities for economic, social and environmental value creation in the context of time sensitivity. We make a conceptual link between lean startup thinking, triple bottom line value creation, and organizational capabilities. The case study firm uses a novel experimentation approach to pursue the goal of diverting all of its sold clothing from landfill through a two-year project. This requires substantial changes to the current business practice because in 2012, the clothing retailer recovered 1% of all garments sold. The fibre input value for all garments sold in 2012 exceeded $7m. We found that despite a stated need for fast learning through project experiments, the experiments were not executed quickly. (1) The desire to plan project activities and the lack of lean startup approach expertise across the whole project team hampered fast action. This led to the extension of the project timeline. However, project team confidence about learning by doing increasedthrough privately executed experiments. (2) Some project experiments were not fit to meet the triple bottom value creation project goal and were dropped from the project. Overall, the corporate mindset of economic value creation still dominated.Circular Product Desig

Business Model Experimentation for the Circular Economy:Definition and Approaches

Business model experimentation has been identified as a key driver for business competitiveness but is underexplored in the sustainability and circular economy spheres. What is business model experimentation for the circular economy? This study follows a two-step approach: a literature analysis followed by a qualitative practitioner study. Based on these, circular business model experimentation is defined as an iterative approach to develop and test circular value propositions in a real-life context with customers and stakeholders, starting with a shared goal. It involves rapid learning based on empirical data to provide evidence on the viability of circular value propositions. Iterations involve increased complexity of experiments. There is a learning focus on initiating wider transitions, such as transforming consumer behaviours for the circular economy. We visualise the emerging research landscape, including research streams from business, transitions, engineering, and design. Practically, we illuminate how practitioners view the concept and current experimentation tools and approaches

Business model experimentation for sustainability

Business experimentation is a key avenue for accelerating change for sustainability. In contrast to experimentation in natural sciences, benefitting from controlled situations, business experimentation aims to explore the diverse possibilities that a business could create value from, or understand what works in which particular situations in a real life business context. While at present most popular with start-ups, this paper argues that large businesses can also find inspiration in business experimentation to develop sustainable business models and accelerate positive change for sustainability. Five illustrative cases are included of business experimentation for sustainability by focusing on pivots (modifications) in the business model. This paper only scratches the surface of the potential impactful new research field of business (model) experimentation for sustainability. Future work on sustainable business experimentation for start-ups and mature businesses is viewed as a powerful future research avenue to accelerate change in industries

Mythen der Circular Economy

Wenn in Deutschland von Circular Economy gesprochen wird, denken wir schnell an Plastik, Recycling und wie unsere Abfallwirtschaft funktioniert. Dass hinter der Circular Economy wesentlich mehr Aspekte stecken, zeigt das Buch ‘Mythen der Circular Economy’. 32 Autor*innen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis sind dem Aufruf der Herausgebenden Alexa Böckel, Jan Quaing, Ilka Weissbrod und Julia Böhm gefolgt und haben sich mit den Mythen beschäftigt, die ihnen im Arbeitsalltag begegnen. Das Buch ist für alle Interessierten, Skeptiker*innen, enthusiastische Fürsprecher*innen und Zweifler*innen der Circular Economy. Die Take Aways am Ende der Kapitel und die Handlungsempfehlungen ermöglichen ein zielgerichtetes Lesen, das in die Umsetzung führt. In verständlicher Sprache führen Unternehmensgründer*innen und Wissenschaftler*innen in die Circular Economy ein und erklären, was im aktuellen Diskurs unter das Konzept fällt. Beispielsweise gibt es die sogenannten R-Strategien, die auch Recycling umfassen, aber sich auch mit suffizienteren Ansätzen beschäftigen. Die Circular Economy umfasst auch soziale Aspekte, denn ohne die Konsumierenden und den Wille der Bürger*innen kann eine Transformation nicht stattfinden. Zudem liefert der Sammelband eine Übersicht an aktuell existierenden Mythen und wie sie sich in Geschäftsmodellen und digitalen Technologien verbreiten. Gleichzeitig wird jeder Mythos von einem Gegenbeispiel aus der Praxis begleitet und zeigt damit, wie viel bereits möglich ist. Dabei werden vor allem die Bereiche des Bauens und der Mode in den Fokus genommen