Circular Value Toolkit: a Novel Route to Value Preservation in a Sufficiency-Based Circular Economy

Abstract

Companies are pivotal in transitioning from a linear economy to a sufficiency-based circular economy. However, circular research lacks the necessary tools and processes to engage companies, customers, and downstream suppliers in preserving the value of their products post-launch. Effective value preservation requires close collaboration among producing companies and their ecosystem stakeholders to identify when value is decreased or destroyed over the product’s lifetime and to develop shared strategies to preserve or increase this value. This paper contributes to the development and empirical evaluation of the Circular Value toolkit. Based on demonstration with 15 SMEs and 24 PhD students, we found that the Circular Value toolkit supports companies in 1) identifying the points in the product lifetime where value is currently decreased or destroyed; 2) developing ideas and concepts to prevent value destruction; and 3) identifying barriers and opportunities for initiating collaboration with ecosystem stakeholders to ensure the efficient preservation of product value throughout the product’s lifetime. A valuable next step will be to validate the toolkit’s long‑term effects and examine its implementation within large organisations.

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