Our current economic system operates on a fundamental logic of short-term profit maximization that drives unsustainable behaviour and accelerates resource depletion and climate crisis*. In this project, we have identified the key barriers preventing businesses and society from making genuine leaps toward sustainable and circular business models.​This research project aims to visualize how our economic and financial systems work today, identify and understand phenomena that make change difficult, and identify the most effective leverage points where policy can ways to drive transformative innovation. Through extensive stakeholder engagement with business leaders, finance professionals, policymakers, public sector representatives, and civil society, and with complements from literature, we’ve developed a comprehensive map of levers to stimulate change towards a sustainable system. The hope is that the results- empowered by visualizations- will contribute to transformative policymaking that creates a sustainable, safe, and sound economy operating within planetary boundaries - the environmental limits within which humanity can safely thrive.​

Our current economic system poses a threat to humanity. The project presented here mapped how current economic systems function, why they resist change, and identifies key policy leverage points through stakeholder collaboration. The objective is to promote transformative policies that establish a sustainable economy within Earth's environmental limits. ​

För att branschen ska klara framtida kompetensförsörjning behöver sjöfart vara ett attraktivt yrkesval för fler än idag. När vi säger att sjöfart är för alla behöver det också upplevas på det sättet och med det följer ett aktivt arbete för en inkluderande arbetsplatskultur. Denna rapport beskriver hur Redo2 har arbetat fram verktyg och metoder för att i praktiken stötta rederier, befäl och medarbetare i denna riktning.

Vi har valt att arbeta med de tre hörnstenarna trygghet, inkludering och motivation som bidrag till en bra social arbetsmiljö. Målet är att skapa en bransch där alla, oavsett kön eller bakgrund, känner sig trygga och inkluderade.

Att utveckla den sociala arbetsmiljön är en del av social hållbarhet och arbetsmiljöarbetet och bör därför ha förebyggande åtgärder på alla nivåer. Arbetsplatskultur måste vara en del av det ordinarie arbetsmiljöarbetet och bäras av både ledare och medarbetare. För att åstadkomma en hållbar förändring behöver vi arbeta med både strukturer och relationer ombord.

De huvudsakliga leveranserna består av verktyg och metoder för att främja en inkluderande arbetsplats. Ledarskapsutbildning för sjöbefäl på Chalmers bygger nu på principerna för psykologisk trygghet och en kurs för yrkesverksamma med samma tema har utvecklats. Trygga rum för samtal och Årshjulet är två omfattande workshopserier med förebyggande insatser att använda på arbetsplatsträffar ombord. I samma anda har vi undersökt möjligheter och utmaningar med spelifiering av metodmaterial i Challenge Archipelago. Dessutom har nu WISTA Sweden ett mentorprogram för kvinnliga sistaårselever på sjöbefäls- och logistikprogram och på Sjöfartsverket är ett nätverk för kvinnor inom operativ verksamhet igång. Projektet har också ägnat uppmärksamhet åt livspusslet för ombordanställda föräldrar, slagit hål på en del myter och lyfter fram rekommendationer för framtiden.

Rapporten beskriver sammanfattat projektets resultat. De fem annexen beskriver hur dessa resultat har arbetats fram tillsammans med samarbetspartners och rederier. Metodmaterialen finns med som bilagor till annex 2-4.

Open innovation, especially through processes that support remote collaboration such as gamification, has the potential to support multi-stakeholder collaboration for circular innovation. This study explores how companies want to collaborate for circular innovation, specifically with end-users. We identify how gamification can support companies and end-users in open circular innovation processes. We use a research-through-design approach and offer a game concept for remote digital co-design in the context of circular innovation to elicit company responses to such a game. We collect data from interviews with 15 company representatives. The results reveal a tension: Although previous research stresses the importance of involving end-users in circular innovation, some companies are skeptical. Companies prefer to extract insights from end-users and collect feedback on ideas generated by the companies themselves. However, the companies appear eager to engage with other companies in open circular innovation. The study contributes to circular economy literature by mapping co-design and circular co-design processes to theoretically ground the latter within co-design literature. It also identifies challenges related to open circular innovation, especially in the integration of end-users. From a practical standpoint, we offer insights on how to approach and structure collaborative efforts for designers and innovation managers aiming to transition toward circular business models in their organizations

Previous research emphasises the importance of actor engagement in circular business model innovation processes. Both co-design and serious games have been advocated as approaches to engage with end-users. However, there is limited research focused on applying these approaches to circular business model innovation. This paper therefore explores the role users can play in co-design of circular business models and how games could be used to support such co-design. First, roles users can play in co-design of circular business models are identified through company interviews. Several characteristics for games that can support co-design of circular business models are then offered. Finally, four game concepts are presented to illustrate how games could facilitate co-design of circular business models.

The results suggest that by engaging with users in co-design, companies could gain insights which could serve as inputs to circular business model development. This includes learning about users' needs, preferences, and product use patterns. Users can also be invited to take part in ideating, testing, and validating existing and new products and services so that companies can identify opportunities for desirable and attractive offers. Furthermore, the differing directions of the presented game concepts show there are several ways to engage with users through game approaches. As the paper presents possible roles for users in codesign of circular economy and illustrates various ways this could be approached using games, the findings are expected to be relevant to researchers and practitioners who are interested to engage users in circular business model innovation.

Circular value propositions enable companies to build business models based on value preservation and circular resource flows. Circular value propositions also allow people to live more sustainably by facilitating increased utilization and resource efficiency. However, despite potential, transitions to circular business models remain low. One reason may be that circular value propositions are less attractive because they are often not developed with a user-centered approach and thus fail to meet people’s everyday needs. Through interviews with 13 companies and a literature study, this paper explores how companies consider user needs and involve users during development of circular value propositions. It also identifies conditions and actions that aid development of attractive circular offers. The findings are synthesized in a framework describing six enabling conditions and a definition of user-centered circular value propositions useful for circular economy practice and research. 

The circular economy promotes a transition away from linear modes of production and consumption to systems with circular material flows that can significantly improve resource productivity. However, transforming linear business models to circular business models posits a number of financial consequences for product companies as they need to secure more capital in a stock of products that will be rented out over time and therefore will encounter a slower, more volatile cash flow in the short term compared to linear direct sales of products. This paper discusses the role of financial actors in circular business ecosystems and alternative financing solutions when moving from product-dominant business models to Product-as-a-Service (PaaS) or function-based business models. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates a solution where state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) modeling can be incorporated for financial risk assessment. We provide an open implementation and a thorough empirical evaluation of an AI-model, which learns to predict residual value of stocks of used items. Furthermore, the paper highlights solutions, managerial implications, and potentials for financing circular business models, argues the importance of different forms of data in future business ecosystems, and offers recommendations for how AI can help mitigate some of the challenges businesses face as they transition to circular business models. © 2022 The Authors. 

Widespread adoption of circular offerings, including those based on products with prolonged lifetimes, depend on offers which are attractive to users. To develop such offers, user needs must be considered in depth during the development process. Co-design is a promising approach to develop user-centered solutions but is yet underexplored when it comes to design of circular offerings. To facilitate co-design of circular offerings, games present one opportunity but have previously primarily been used to support understanding, creation, and learning in relation to circular economy. This paper explores how games can support co-design of user-centred circular offerings by presenting insights from an analysis of existing circularity-related games and summarizing insights from literature. Eight circularity-related games were played to identify benefits and drawbacks. Relevant literature was also reviewed to synthesise recommendations for a game aimed at supporting co-design of user-centred circular offerings. The results show none of the existing circularity-related games include a deep understanding of users’ needs and only a few go beyond mere learning and actually contribute to developing companies’ offerings. Identified recommendations suggest games will have higher potential to support co-design of user-centred circular offerings if they, for example, enable co-design with users and co-creation with multiple stakeholders in the business ecosystem, provide game elements that represent circular challenges and opportunities in a realistic and dynamic way, and create bridges from the game to the real world. Future game development should hence take such recommendations into account, while ensuring the developed games do not become too complicated to play.