Change and service life in focus when designing circular products

As a researcher in the circular economy, he and his colleagues at RISE have developed a toolbox to attain this future preparedness early in the design process. The idea revolves around modularity and identifying what will happen to a product during its service life, in brief: 

• Division of the product architecture into different layers. Interconnected yet interchangeable modules and production methods where new and old parts fit together 

• Defined module service life. What can be replaced, how can new technology be implemented during use? 

• Development of new services. How can the product be updated with new services and remain usable? 

• Discovery of a possible chain of customers as early as in the design phase. Is there an aftermarket for the product or its components that can capture product values over time? 

“When designing a circular product in this way, the design must be closely linked to business development,” says Thomas Nyström.  

“In the vast majority of cases, it is the business model that dominates the design of the product, in such things as material selection, production volumes or longevity. 

“Many people think primarily of material recycling when it comes to circularity. But where we at RISE see the greatest potential when it comes to reducing climate and environmental impact, is to extend the service life of products with a large ‘production burden’, making them more energy and resource efficient. It's about using and sharing products for several years instead of having to manufacture and sell more.” 

Europe's oldest vehicle fleet 

A clear example with major potential is the Swedish vehicle fleet, one of Europe's oldest.  

“One product group that should not be included in circular systems is motor vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. We in Sweden must halve CO2 emissions per kilometre, and as long as we cannot produce fuels from previously emitted carbon dioxide, it is important to get more electric vehicles out on the roads, which we also need to share more.” 

Thomas Nyström emphasises that today's linear operations and design logic in the automotive industry must thus become more circular. A few important factors: 

Build electric vehicles more modularly to facilitate battery and component replacement. Increase the service life of what is presently standard for today's heavy vehicles. Package products as a service to both meet people's needs and increase the utilisation rate of each individual vehicle. 

“The auto industry needs to pick up the pace.” 

Control of product flows 

In addition to the light and heavy vehicle industry, furniture, lifts, forklift trucks and clothing have been some of the product groups that have served as circular cases in various RISE projects. An important aspect is gaining control of their product flows in order to recover the value of the materials through further use of, for example, mobile phones or cars. In today's linear business operations, only a fraction of the values is typically recovered in often inefficient recycling processes. 

Business models require innovation 

Another focus of RISE's projects is on connecting together different value chains, and finding new players who can help existing manufacturers reach out with circular products and services in the marketplace. 

“What we're seeing in industry is that we're focusing a lot on technological innovations. It is rather innovation in business models that needs to be improved. 

“We have the technologies we need for global transition, but this is something that's hindering the breakthrough. We have enough knowledge as well as the prerequisites to use materials more efficiently and reduce our resource impact by 90 percent.” 

Change takes time 

Thomas Nyström mentions the established companies in the automotive industry that have had 100 years to get their business models in place. Quickly changing such a structure is undoubtedly difficult. 

"Such an established business model can even be difficult to identify. It sometimes steers in operations like an invisible hand.”