Sustaining circular business models: an analysis of successful cases in manufacturing industries

Abstract

Recognizing the significance of sustainability, businesses are striving to address the emerging sustainable challenges. Circularity, particularly through Circular Business Models (CBMs), plays a crucial role in tackling these sustainability issues by transforming traditional linear business practices into more circular and sustainable ones. However, the adoption of CBMs has been sluggish, with a noticeable decline in their practical implementation over the past few years [1], suggesting that an effective business model to support them is still absent. Therefore, focusing on successful CBM practices is needed [2]. According to existing research, most challenges related to CBMs are encountered within their circular supply chain due to complexities in reverse logistics, sourcing, and collaboration. Thus, we stress the urgent need to analyze successful operational practices related to resilience in supply chains of CBMs. Through this research, we aim to identify the patterns and specifics of cases that have succeeded in sustaining CBMs, as well as to pinpoint effective resilience-related practices (RRPs) for CBMs’ supply chains through addressing the following research questions: RQ1- Which industries are demonstrating consistent operational success as CBMs? RQ2- What sort of practices have these successful CBMs adopted to build up resilience?