Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - R2PI (TRANSITION FROM LINEAR 2 CIRCULAR: POLICY AND INNOVATION)

Teaser

R2π – Transition from Linear to Circular is a European Union Horizon 2020 project focused on enabling organisations and their value chains to transition towards a more viable, sustainable and competitive economic model. The project supports the achievement of the European...

Summary

R2π – Transition from Linear to Circular is a European Union Horizon 2020 project focused on enabling organisations and their value chains to transition towards a more viable, sustainable and competitive economic model. The project supports the achievement of the European Union’s strategy on sustainability and competitiveness by positioning the EU as a world leader in the circular economy.

R2Ï€ examines the shift from the broad concept of a Circular Economy (CE) to one of Circular Economy Business Models (CEBM) by tackling market opportunities and failures (businesses, consumers) as well as policy opportunities and failures (assumptions, unintended consequences). Its innovation lies in having a strong business-model focus (including designing transition guidelines) as well as in the role of policy development (including designing policy packages). R2Ï€ unfolds in diverse contexts with a strong emphasis on stakeholder involvement and exchange, employing mixed-methods, case studies, desktop research, feasibility assessments (including surveys where applicable), business guidelines and policy formulation.

The ultimate objective of the R2Ï€ project is to accelerate widespread implementation of a circular economy based on successful business models and effective policies:
to ensure sustained economic development,
to minimize environmental impact and
to maximize social welfare.

The mission of the project is therefore to identify and develop business models and guidelines that will facilitate a sustainable, circular economy and to propose policy packages that will support the implementation of these models.

Work performed

Thus far, the project has developed its conceptual framework and begun collecting stakeholder views and data on existing business models and policies, including identifying seven business model patterns for analysing 18 circular business model case studies, which are now being completed.  These 18 cases focus on the EU\'s identified priority areas of Plastics, Food Waste, Biomass/Biobased, Important Raw Materials and Contruction & Demolition.  Additionally, the cases were selected to ensure learning in each of the seven business model patterns defined in the project: Re-make, Re-condition, Circular Sourcing, Co-product Recovery, Access, Performance and Resource Recovery. To gather wide-ranging lessons from differing company sizes and maturities, the following were selected: 7 large corporations, 8 small, medium enterprises, 1 public entity, 1 entire value chain with both public and private organisations and 1 social project.

The key exploitable results on business guidelines and policy packages will be produced in the next phases, however, the R2Π deliverable on the current state-of-the-art of circular economy research is valuable to others in beginning their investigations on the topic. Furthermore, the three parts of the R2Π ontology, on circular economy, the seven patterns of circular economy business models and the analysis of both EU-level and national level circular economy policy provide a strong foundation for the transition towards circularity. The mixed methods approach and tools for the case study data collection and analysis may also prove advantageous to those undertaking complex, multidimensional investigations of real world business models. Additionally, a dedicated circular economy higher education module has been designed and incorporated into our partner’s business school curriculum to assist the leaders of tomorrow in understanding circular concepts and business models.

Final results

The expected impacts on Societal Challenges are to design regenerative systems to avoid the use of virgin materials, reduce energy consumption and increase resource efficiency and value retention across entire value chains, leading to reduced negative environmental and climate consequences as well as sustaining economic development and maximizing social welfare.  

Website & more info

More info: http://www.r2piproject.eu/.