Towards Circular Business Models for Sustainability : Exploring Innovation, Implementation, & Environmental Impact

Businesses play a key role in transforming production and consumption for sustainability,where circular business models (CBMs) offer one solution to reduce waste and rethink resource use.Although CBMs may be able to provide environmental and economic benefits, it is unclear how they canbe implemented effectively and contribute to sustainability goals. To understand how CBMs cancontribute to broader sustainability transformation, this thesis explores the implementation processesand environmental impacts of CBMs. The research was conducted utilizing an inter- and transdisciplinaryapproach, consisting primarily of qualitative analysis of in-depth case studies, followed by a systematicliterature review, and including the quantitative method of life-cycle assessment.The findings highlight a range of capabilities that are needed for the implementation of CBMs fromoperational capabilities such as digitalization and service integration to strategic capabilities likemanaging organizational ambidexterity and cultivating mindset shifts. A key contribution of thedissertation is showing that these capabilities are enabled and developed through dynamic collaborationprocesses–– both internally through cross-functional teams and externally through strategic partnershipsthat facilitate resource sharing, joint experimentation and learning. The research also contributes novelempirical insight into the environmental impacts of CBMs, demonstrating that such impacts are highlycontext-dependent and influenced by business model design and consumer behavior. Through originaland aggregated life cycle assessments, the dissertation highlights critical impact factors such assubstitution rates, infrastructure, and transport, and discusses environmental trade-offs.The varied environmental outcomes of CBMs can also be attributed to their primary reliance on efficiencystrategies to reduce waste without questioning overproduction and consumption. The dissertationextends the conceptual framing of CBMs by integrating sufficiency perspectives, advocating forproduction-oriented strategies that target absolute reductions in resource use such as made-to-orderproduction and limited marketing. It also emphasizes the need to critically examine how organizationalstructures influence strategic decisions that often encourage continuous growth without question. Byanalyzing both implementation processes and environmental impacts, the dissertation offers acomprehensive understanding of how business models can more effectively support a circular economythat contributes to transformative sustainability in production and consumption.