Towards circular economy business models

There is a need to accelerate the change from the current linear economy towards a circular economy (CE), which is regenerative by intention and design. The transformation towards CE entails radical changes in the business environment. Thus, in CE-based business model (BM) innovation, we need to understand consumer preferences, their everyday life, and the role of material objects. We here build a preliminary framework based on consumer practices and the product-service system (PSS) literature. We also present the results of a small survey investigating consumers' opinions about BMs based on services, which was carried out (n=239) at the Housing Fair in Finland in 2015. The findings indicated consumers' past experiences were most strongly related to conventional service use, such as a car utilisation, though consumers also indicated interest in trying other CE-based services. Consumers seem to more easily adopt a BM that does not require dramatic changes in their practices.