Consumer service innovation in a circular economy

We are currently exceeding the environmental capacity of our planet, and our consumption is constantly growing. There are also many factors accelerating our transformation towards a sustainable and preserving circular economy (CE), such as urbanisation, unemployment, environmental consciousness, tightening legislation and technological leaps. The transition towards a CE requires a fundamental redesign of business models and our end-to-end value chains. Instead of selling products, companies should move to retain ownership and sell their use as a service, allowing them to optimize the use of resources. Thus, buying a service creates value differently for consumers than buying a product. Therefore, we need to understand how CE-based services create value for consumers. Our data are derived from a consumer workshop that took place in February 2016. We found practical, economic and personal benefits could be gained from three potential CE rental services: a sofa, a washing machine and clothing. Perceived sacrifices related to economic and psychological factors.