Exploring the business and environmental value of circular maintenance services: A case study in the consumer goods industry

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Engineering | Master's thesis

Authors

Date

2025-09-26

Department

Major/Subject

Zero Defect Manufacture for a Circular Economy

Mcode

Degree programme

Master's Programme in Manufacturing

Language

en

Pages

57

Series

Abstract

This study investigates how circular economy (CE) practices, specifically repair and reuse, can be used by consumer goods firms to create business value and support sustainability transitions. The study focused on two initiatives introduced by the case company: a Repair service for recoating ceramic cookware and a Reuse service for reselling used crockery via a tack-back scheme. Making use of a qualitative exploratory case study approach, data was collected using semi-structured interviews with eight managers and executives across sustainability, product development, retails and supply chain functions. These interviews were supplemented by data collected from company sustainability and corporate reports. Excel based thematic coding was used to triangulate data from both sources. Findings highlight that circular business models (CBMs), particularly those based on product life extension (PLE), contribute to regulatory alignment and consumer trust but their indirect business is understudied and underreported. The results supported the need for further data collection as part of digital industrial transformation to complement business impact data for CBMs. The study proposes metrics for measuring indirect business benefits, including cross-selling, loyalty effects from tracking gift card usage, alongside a framework to measure other business impact with regulatory compliance. By doing so, it advances CE research beyond ecological benefits and sets up firms to better integrate circular services into existing industrial transformation strategies.

Description

Supervisor

Salmi, Mika

Keywords

circular economy (CE), circular business models (CBMs), indirect business impact, product life extension (PLE), repair and reuse services, consumer goods industry, industrial transformation

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Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202510208313

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[dipl] Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu / ENG