A Framework for Sustainable Circular Business Model Innovation

The circular economy concept is a novel economic model aiming to foster sustainable economic growth, boost global competitiveness, and generate new jobs. In order to make the circular economy mainstream, radical and systemic innovation is needed. Currently, a majority of the business modelling tools and methods lack at least some of the identified and needed elements for innovating business models in a circular economy. In this article, we build a framework for sustainable circular business model innovation by adding important perspectives: recognizing trends and drivers at the ecosystem level; understanding value to partners and stakeholders within a business; and evaluating the impact of sustainability and circularity. We present the results of a case study with a startup company, which was designed to test the framework and provide a concrete example of its usage and future development needs.