Session
WE.1.D || Sustainability of Business Models and Innovations
Authors
Hagedorn, Wiebke; Greiff, Kathrin; Bienge, Katrin
Abstract
One major challenge for society is the environmental burden caused by global pro-duction and consumption of goods and services. A significant share of global emis-sions caused by industry goes back to the steel sector – around 25% (Allwood 2011). This means a total impact of 3.3 billion t CO2 eq emitted during total steel produc-tion and processing in 2018 (worldsteel 2019). Here, the circular economy (CE) of-fers a solution to fundamentally change production systems, at the same time re-quiring value chains to fundamentally change. Within the research project Circle of Tools (CoT) the CE concepts remanufacturing and repurposing are implemented in the metalworking industry. The case study shows how the integration of value chains can contribute to the avoidance of raw material and thus energy-intensive remelting processes. However, it is a long way to establish a viable circular business model from existing value chains. Here, the cooperation with three industrial partners allows deeper insights in the practical feasibility and the requirements for the development of such business cases. This contribution focuses on the redesign of the value chain. The questions ad-dressed are: How does the production process need to be adjusted to replace the primary raw material and use disposed products instead? And which requirements does this imply for the value chain? Generally, barriers such as loss of information, returning products to the manufacturer instead of using existing recycling and waste management routes as well as the circumvention of waste declaration are investigated. The analysis and development of business model is accompanied by economic and ecological investigations such as the business model canvas and LCA.