From compliance-driven approaches to value-driven innovation - case urban e-micromobility

Opportunity management is broadly understood as the systematic process of identifying, evaluating, and exploiting opportunities that can create value for an organization. In the context of CRMs, opportunity management is seen as a strategic process to unlock circular business models, such as:
• Material recovery and recycling (urban mining, industrial symbiosis)
• Substitution of CRMs with more abundant or renewable alternatives
• Design for disassembly and reuse (products that are easier to reclaim materials from)
• Service-based models (e.g. leasing rather than owning, to retain control over materials)
This work gives a systematic analysis of business model opportunities in the context of urban e-micromobility. The starting point is the 9R circularity framework for modelling the possibilities of circular strategies related to both the product lifespan and the lifecycle of materials contained in the product. The framework can provide an increased understanding in mapping interdependencies among ecosystem actors when implementing circular strategies around specific CRM containing product categories. For example, in the case of urban e-mobility re-celling (remanufacturing) batteries is important for increasing material circularity but is not sufficient on its own. The benefits are more broadly realized by scaling vehicle reuse activities, which requires developing, among others, the reliability of the second-hand market. The challenge is compounded by battery manufacturers’ hesitation to promote third-party remanufacturing, even though they can play a key role in implementing reduce strategies at a higher level of the framework. Interviews with product and services providing companies and stakeholders indicated that, in some cases, the same actors can, with their decisions and actions, increase material circularity at one level while complicating or even denying it at another level. This highlights the importance of understanding cause-and-effect relationships in material circularity, allowing for more proactive influence on strategies at the highest possible levels of the 9R hierarchy.