From theory to practice: Circular product design guidelines for sustainable innovation

This study aims to define circular product design and to develop a set of circular product design guidelines to help designers understand and implement circular product design. This study first employed a systematic literature review and semi-structured expert interviews to collect knowledge and experience that can guide circular product design, then used thematic analysis to identify a series of circular product design guidelines from the collected knowledge and experience, and finally demonstrated the application of this set of design guidelines through the Sounds Wood design practice case. This set of design guidelines adopts materials, structure, manufacturing process, surface treatment process, energy, packaging, user experience, business model innovation, and stakeholder collaboration as design dimensions, and adopts narrowing, slowing, and closing resource flows throughout the product life cycle as design principles to guide designers in designing circular products, thereby promoting sustainable innovation.