A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. Circularity changes the value organizations offer and, thus, their business model. Digital technologies enable the realization of circular strategies in various ways to create circular value through innovative business models. In this talk, I will introduce the foundations of digital circular business models and present a framework for using different digital technologies to enable specific circularity strategies in manufacturing. I will go over an example technology, blockchain, to depict how it can enable the design of circular business models based on our experiences in a petrochemical manufacturing ecosystem. I will briefly cover the importance of performance measurement for business models for achieving circularity objectives.  

CORE Changemakers is a student driven organization with the focus on solving difficult circular challenges like solar panel recycling, stopping waste fires from happening and automating inspection. Wanna know what AI can do to make circularity possible?

Digital technologies — such as the Internet of Things, big data and advanced analytics, additive manufacturing and 3D printing, blockchain and online platforms — are regarded as key enablers for a circular economy. A systematic literature review and analysis of 48 scientific articles published in the last five years was conducted to identify the first-, second- and third-order sustainability effects of a digital circular economy. Second-order environmental effects such as improved resource efficiency and reduction of emissions, waste and material use in products and production processes are often envisaged. However, limited attention is given to social and economic impact, and rebound effects. Existing literature also lacks a solid assessment of actual (vs expected) impact, and a more balanced consideration of negative (vs positive) effects.

Unused medication, stemming from excessive packaging or inflexible dosing, contributes to substantial waste and environmental harm. Manual tablet crushing is a common practice to adjust doses for certain patients, such as neonates and toddlers, and in veterinary care. However, this method increases medication waste and pollution. The lack of dosage flexibility in conventional tablets exacerbates this issue. Precision pharmacy, enabled by advancements in genomics and pharmacology, promotes dosing tailored to individual needs. mini-tablets offer a solution, allowing precise dosing adjustments and stability across age groups. If embraced by the pharmaceutical industry, mini-tablets could significantly reduce drug waste and environmental impact. In this project, we investigate different aspects to facilitate the adoption of mini-tablets. We will present the latest results from a life cycle assessment of mini-tablets and a compaction simulation approach for the manufacturing of mini-tablets to support their environmentally-conscious development.

REPAiR was an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project, which ran from 2016 to 2020, and aimed to provide local and regional authorities with a transdisciplinary open source geodesign decision support environment (GDSE) developed and implemented in living labs in six metropolitan areas. The GDSE allows for the co-creation of integrated, place-based eco-innovative spatial development strategies aiming at a quantitative reduction of waste flows in the strategic interface of peri-urban areas. The GDSE features an open source prototype web application that supports both the decision-making process and the research required for each of the five steps to guide the living lab process that starts with identifying a key waste flows, continues with mapping these flows, and ends with proposed spatial interventions to reduce waste quantities in these flows. The GDSE was implemented in Amsterdam (NL), Naples (IT), Gent (BE), Hamburg (DE), Pécs (HU) and Wroclaw (PL).