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Waste Benchmarking tool: developing a tool to support a designer’s role for the Circular Economy F. Costa Department of Applied Science, Cranfield University, Cranfield MK430FS, UK

A B S T R A C T

Keywords:Circular Economy Waste resources BenchmarkingEcodesign toolsDesigner role

Times are changing and the linear mode of consumption ‘take-make-dispose’ needs to change and align more closely with natural systems, using waste and materials as resources. This sustainable concept is the Circular Economy and challenges different players in rethinking the economic way of ‘business as usual’. Due to the significant environmental, social and econo-mic impact of design a Designer is one of the key players. Designers have a vital role due to their ability to re-design products with significantly less waste impact and efficient use of resources. However, the available Ecodesign tools for designers aren’t being focused on this specific con-cept, and these tools aren’t being widely implemented by the design community, as referred in the literature review and further demonstrated by a survey conducted in this paper. This article proposes a new tool, to assist designers with benchmarking product’s performance against a list of indicators that support the Circular Economy and identify strategic design improvements. The list of indicators was created based on critical analysis of literature and tested and refined among a group of 17 different experts within individual workshops. The results confirmed a final list of 15 indicators and also validate the argument that there is no universal tool and that the solution is most useful when used in combination with other tools. To evaluate the final list of indicators, two Ecodesign experts confirmed the importance of all indicators and its value on arising the awareness of Circular Economy indicators into compa-nies and motivate them to change their traditional way of doing business.

1. Introduction

The society as known now has become weal-thier compared with the past, meaning people are buying more products and ultimately generating more waste, for example EU citizens produced approximately 5.4 ton-nes in 2008 (EEA, 2012). Waste generation is an envi-ronmental problem that causes the release of methane emissions that contribute to climate change, as well as significant losses of raw materials, which Europe Union (EU) is highly dependent on imported raw materials. The amount of raw material that entered the global economic system in 2010 was approximately 65 billion tons and is expected to grow to 82 billion tons in 2020 (EEA, 2012; Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013). Another important factor is that the population is growing and is it is estima-ted that 3 billion people will join the ranks of middle-class consumers by 2030. Nature has the capability to transform its produ-ced waste into a food/raw material, never needing to dis-pose of it like humans do by using landfills (McDonough and Braungart, 2002). In the last 20 years different au-thors have been discussing solutions to the waste pro-blem by changing the way of looking to waste and ma-terials, to look as a valuable resource, a lot like nature does (Copper, 1994; Hawken et al., 1999; McDonough and Braungart, 2002: Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013; The Great Recovery, 2013). The latest movement of this

topic is the concept of ‘Circular Economy’, which denotes an industrial economy that is restorative by intention and design (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013). The word de-sign isn’t just associated to designing circular systems but also implies designing products considering the Circular Economy factors. Designers have a huge responsibility in the early stages of product development, due to the fact that approximately 80% of a product’s environmental im-pacts are determined at this phase, the design communi-ty has its own role on helping creating products with less waste impact (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003; Bhamra and Lofthouse, 2007; Lofthouse, 2007; EEA, 2009; EC, 2013). To support designers, manufactures and engine-ers on making products with reduced environmental im-pact there are several Ecodesign tools available however their implementation within the design community is low. Besides this, no tools focusing on supporting the desig-ner role on the Circular Economy has been found. Therefore, this research proposes the develop-ment of a new tool, a waste benchmarking tool focusing on the designers role for the Circular Economy. This pa-per shows how a list of indicators was created, tested, refined and evaluated among a group of experts. A final tool is presented, composed of a list of indicators, where each indicator and its units of measurement are explai-ned. The process required completing, a flowchart on how to perform the waste benchmarking tool is also des-cribed.

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shorter lifespans and easily out-date either because they are no longer fashionable or they have been superseded by more advanced technology or they have broken and are uneconomic to repair, is still the way most of today’s products are being designed. As the world is full of prod-ucts that follow a linear model, re-designing the system towards a circular model is extremely important for a sus-tainable future. If there is a shift on looking to waste as a resource, a shift is also needed in the product design approach. During the NPD process, the concept design phase is considered one of the most vital phases due to the fact that about 80% of a product’s environmental impacts are determined at this phase, as well the costs, appearance, materials selection, innovations, performance and per-ception of quality (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003; Bham-ra and Lofthouse, 2007; Lofthouse, 2007; EEA, 2009; EC, 2013). Therefore, the designer plays a vital role in re-designing products with less waste generation and product’s environmental impact, efficient use of resource to ultimately, contribute for a sustainable development. In 2013, The Great Recovery (2013) presented the design role on the Circular Economy: - Design products which can be economically repaired or fixed,- Give accessible information on how to fix products, - Design products able to be upgraded like personal computers where hardware can be easily add via USB ports,- Design products that can be remanufactured, meaning the product needs to be easily disassembled for restoring used components for new products or adaptable to do another function,- Design for an emotionally desirable product, reducing consumption and waste.

Alongside these responsibilities, it is also the designer role to embed into good design practices (The Great Recovery, 2013).

2.2. Ecodesign tools

In 2008, the European Union (EU) developed a waste directive, Directive 2008/98/EC, based on this new way of seeing waste as resource. It established a new waste hierarchy encouraging first waste preven-tion, then re-use, followed by recycling, recovery and finally disposal (EEA, 2008). The way this Directive pro-motes waste prevention is by encouraging designers to implement environmental assessment of the whole life cycle of products and materials (e.g. use of raw material, manufacturing, distribution, product use and end-of-life) into the design process. This methodology is called Ecodesign (Wimmer et al., 2004; EEA, 2008). Ecodesign tools have been developed to help and support mainly designers, industrial designers, en-

This research has a significant impact not only amongst the design community but also to new product development (NPD) companies, academics and univer-sities specifically Design, Strategic Business, Marketing and Environmental Engineering courses.

2 Literature Review

In order to develop the waste benchmarking tool, there is some prior work in separate areas of Circular Economy and Ecodesign tools that needs to be critically analysed. This section studies the literature in both areas and defines the research aim and objectives.

2.1 Circular Economy: the designer role

Traditional economic development follows a lin-ear manufacturing model of materials-products-waste, resulting in: excessive consumption of resources and discharge of waste; the exhaustion of resources; and the environment deterioration (Chen, 2009). In this traditional model, no considerations are given to the materials and to the environment, going in contradiction of the 2006 EU Sustainable Development Strategy of ‘avoiding the gen-eration of waste and enhancing efficient use of natural resources by applying the concept of life-cycle thinking and promoting reuse and recycling’ (EEA, 2012). Bringing life cycle thinking on how to design and manufacture products can create further economic op-portunities and prevent waste disposal once it is used as a resource. This thinking is called Circular Economy, which in essence is a closed feedback circulatory process of materials- products- recycled/ reuse/ disassembly/ re-pair/ upgrade/ refurbishment materials (Chen, 2009; El-len Macarthur Foundation, 2013). Many authors have been presenting ways cre-ating a circular feedback process: in 1994, Tim Cooper (1994), argued that to minimize waste, the key element was to increase product durability; in 1999, Paul Hawken et al., (1999) proposed five key ways to keep materials on a continuous feedback loop: repair the products (e.g. de-sign to facilitate the repair), reuse products (e.g. pass to a new user or life with different purpose), remanufacturing products (e.g. design to easily disassemble, saving ener-gy and raw materials), recycle (e.g. choosing recyclable materials to reconstitute to another or similar product) and last, recovery (e.g. ground, melted or dissolved to its basic materials to be include for other purpose); and in 2007, Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007) emphases the importance designing product for durability which gener-ally consumes less materials and energy and therefore generates less waste, as also designing with end-of-life strategies such as: remanufacturing, component reuse and recycling. Unfortunately, Tim Copper’s (1994) explanation on how common it is for products to be designed to have

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gineering designers, environmental managers, product managers and manufactures on making decisions (Vallet et al., 2013). In Ecodesign practise, there are 3 key fac-tors that should be followed: integration of the environ-mental aspects into the early stage of design process; life cycle approach; and take into account the product’s functions/ requirements (Bovea and Pérez-Belis, 2011). The Table 1 presents a list of the Ecodesign tools and it categorizes each tool based on (Knight and Jen-kins, 2008; Vallet et al., 2013):- Checklists: ‘providing in depth, but narrow application at selected stages of the product development process or life cycle’,- Guidelines: broad support, with little detail across the whole product development or life cycle,- Analytical: a detailed, systematic analysis of whole product development or life cycle.

The methods of assessment of each Ecodesign tool influence their capability to be implemented in the ear-ly stages of the product development. Tools using quan-titative approach, such Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), require a significant amount of data about the product before designing it, meaning that these tools are most-ly used in the later stages of the design process, when changes are harder to implement. The exception found was the Eco-Indicator 99, which is an impact assessment method in LCA, being considered to be a light LCA tool (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003; Collado-Ruiz and Ost-ad-Ahmad-Ghorabi, 2010; Bovea & Pérez-Belis, 2011). As for Ecodesign tools using qualitative or semi-quantita-tive approaches, they have potential to be faster and fair-ly simple to use therefore can be implemented during the early design stages. However this method is less reliable than the quantitative (Bovea & Pérez-Belis, 2011). In the work conducted by Bovea & Pérez-Be-lis (2011) it was concluded that most Ecodesign tools presented a medium-high level of difficulty and time re-quired on implementing (e.g. MET Matrix, LCA) them in the design process, except for the tools with the check-list category (AT&T, Kodak). Many authors defend these complexities of implementation, as being the reason why is not widely adopted by most companies (Knight and Jenkins, 2008; Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi, 2010). The LCA tool is the most well known Ecodesign tool (Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi, 2010). For Vallet et al., (2013) ‘(…) LCA remains an expert tool’ that have been introduced by large companies, however for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is rarely imple-mented due to the lack of human resources, time and ex-pertise (Knight and Jenkins, 2008). The main reasons for its difficulties on its implementation in the design commu-nity are (Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi, 2010): - Training, - Time consuming,

- Much information that, normally, isn’t easily available,- Level of uncertainty.

Another interesting point defended by Colla-do-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi (2010) is that de-tailed LCA decreases the designer’s creativity and con-sequently generates incremental products (e.g. changing materials or reducing weight). He defends that having general comments on the product’s environmental im-pacts in the early design stage is better for designer’s creativity than having the traditional detailed information. Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007) argue that it is not recom-mended to designers to even use LCA tool because of the time involved. Therefore to help designers to make strategic decisions in the early stages of the product development and not limiting their creativity and potentials innovation, the Ecodesign tool needs to:- Be easily implemented in the early design stage, mean-ing it doesn’t require training,- Present soft information, instead of detailed information (e.g. LCA). Even Bovea & Pérez-Belis (2011) argued that a qualitative approach is less reliable than the quantita-tive, however when balancing with creativity aspect, it is preferable to emphasise creativity once it conducts to in-novation; an extremely valued aspect by companies,- Requires some amount of data, meaning using a quali-tative or semi-quantitative approach and also being less time consuming,- Analyse the whole lifecycle,- Take into account the product functions/ requirements.

However there is no perfect tool that congre-gates these entire requirements without comprising one or more of them. Perhaps, the solution comes with com-bining tools and balancing them. One of the tools that are able to gather most of the requirement above, except the product functions/ requirements, is the Environmental Benchmarking tool. In addition, it is widely used amongst NPD companies, being used to compare products perfor-mance, as well information on the strengths and weak-nesses of the competition (Ulrich and Eppinger, 2003). Therefore, this familiarity with performing a benchmark-ing tool on products can only be beneficial when using it as model for the proposed new tool on supporting a designer’s role on the Circular Economy.

2.2.1 Environmental Benchmarking tool

There have been several definitions for bench-marking depending on the organization goals and their performance measures, however according to the Inter-national Benchmarking Clearinghouse ‘benchmarking is a systematic and continuous measurement process; a process of continuously measuring and comparing an or-ganization’s business process against business process

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of at a global level like in the Philips case. This method could allow designers to refine product specifications in the early stage of product development, not limiting the designer creativity and still analysing the products lifecy-cle. The most common environmental indicators ap-plied for products environmental benchmarking founded in the literature were: energy (e.g. energy consumption) and waste (e.g. materials consumption, packaging, po-tentially toxic substances, recyclability/durability, etc) (Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003; Wever et al., 2007; Amin and Banerjee, 2010). Besides, in general, products are designed from a list of requirements and functions, which also need to be taken into account on the design process in order to create a commercially viable product (Vallet et al., 2013). Without compromising the environmental as-pects or the products demand, designers must seek for a balance between both sides (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003). In Lagerstedt and Lindfors (2003) work, he pro-posed a qualitative tool, the Functional Profile, which cat-egorizes in general the functions of the product in the ear-ly stage of product development process (Table 2). This tool is to input the products requirement from the cus-tomer perspective, so designers can understand which categories can have an environmental improvement.

leaders anywhere in the world to gain information which will help the organization take action to improve its perfor-mance’ (Hong et al., 2012; APQC, 2013). The author Watson (1993), in his book ‘Strategic Benchmarking: how to rate your company’s performance against the world’s best’ defends that benchmarking is more than a comparison of product’s characteristics and knowing which ones perform best. It is a strategic tool lying on two parts: measuring performance and identi-fying what causes a product to perform better than the others so it can be implemented. This is aligned with the benchmarking cycle presented in Hong et al., (2012) work: starting the cycle with measurement followed by comparison, improvement, continuity and learning to gain sustainable competitive advantage. From the literature review on benchmarking practices, Hong et al., (2012) concluded that environ-mental benchmarking studies are a new trend, especially in regulatory, gross emissions, efficiency and life cycle approaches, due to the increase of the demand from companies. However, when searching for environmental benchmarking applied to products, little information was founded in the literature review. For example, in Watson (1993) ‘ The Strategic Benchmarking’ and Andersen and Pettersen (1996) ‘The Benchmarking Handbook’ books, benchmarking on products was not referred. Despite of this recent demand, Phillips Con-sumer Electronics (CE) Company has been creating environmental benchmarking reports for their products since the mid-1990s. They define it as ‘(…) an import-ant tool for generation and prioritisation of environmental product improvement options.’ (Boks and Diehl, 2005). Their benchmarking tool has been changing over time becoming closer to what Watson (1993) defines as being a benchmarking study (Wever et al., 2007). In the first part, corresponding also to the early stage of product development, products are select to be compared and evaluated on their environmental performance; then new design improvements are identified, tested and validated with an LCA tool. For the second part, Ideation phase occurs with environmental benchmarking results; then in the Prioritization phase, other aspects are considered in the product design (environment, consumer, societal and company feasibilities); at last, the chosen (re)design im-provements are implemented, within the implementation phase (Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003). This combination of environmental benchmark-ing tool and LCA tool permits to Phillips Consumer Elec-tronics perform the Ecodesign practice referred by Bovea & Pérez-Belis (2011). However is important to highlight, that this is a company with many available human re-sources, such as LCA practitioners. In case of SME’s this methodology still presents considerable challenges. In Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi (2012) study, proposed the use of environmental bench-marking at each stage of the product life cycle instead

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Table 1Characterization of the Ecodesign tools (adapted from literature review)

Name of the Ecode-sign tool Category Method of

Assessment

Early stage of the product development process

References

AT&T Checklist Qualitative Yes Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

Fast Five Philips Checklist Qualitative Yes Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007);Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

Kodak Checklist Qualitative Yes Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

(MET) Matrix Analytical Qualitative YesBhamra and Lofthouse (2007); Knight and Jenkins (2008); Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

Ten Golden Rules Guideline Qualitative Yes Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

Environmentally Re-sponsibleProduct/Process As-sessment Matrix (ERP)

Analytical Semi-quantitative No Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

Streamlined Life cycle Assessment (SLCA)

Analytical Semi-quantitative Yes Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

Ecodesign (PILOT) Guideline Semi-quantitative YesWimmer et al., (2004); Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011); Vallet et al., (2013)

Eco-Indicator 99 Analytical Quantitative NoBhamra and Lofthouse (2007); Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011); Knight and Jenkins (2008); Vallet et al., (2013)

Environmental Bench-marking Analytical Qualitative Yes Wimmer et al., (2004)

Life cycle assessment (LCA)

Analytical Quantitative No

Wimmer et al., (2004); Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011); Knight and Jenkins (2008); Collado-Ruiz (2010); Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007)

Information Inspiration Guideline Qualitative Yes Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007); Vallet et al., (2013)

ISO/TR 14062 Guide-lines on integrating environmental aspects into product design and development

Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)

BS 8887-1 Guidelines on design for manu-facturing, assembly, disassembly and end-of-life processing (MADE)

Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)

GG427 Guidelines on sustainable design of electrical and electron-ic products to control costs and comply with legislation

Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)

Smiths Group Eco-De-sign Guides

Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)

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Table 1 (continued)

Name of the Ecode-sign tool Category Method of

AssessmentEarly stage of the product development process Reference

Smiths Group Eco-De-sign Guide Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)

Environmental Prod-uct LifeCycle Matrix (EPLC)

Analytical Semi-quantitative No Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

Eco-design Checklist Method (ECM) Checklist Qualitative Yes Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)

Design Abacus Analytical Qualitative Yes Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007)

GG427 Guidelines on sustainable design of electrical and electron-ic products to control costs and comply with legislation

Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)

Table 2 Functional Profile (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003)

Product Functional Description:

Functional Category Value (0-10) Comment

Physical lifetime

Usetime

Reliability

Human/ ma-chine interaction

Safety

Economics

Technical fea-sibility

Environmental Demand

Once again, Phillips Consumer Electronics (CE) Company is a good example of balancing the environ-mental issues and the products requirements, using in the Prioritization phase four categories: environment fea-sibility (e.g. if the product changes indeed reduces the environmental impact), consumer feasibility (e.g. if con-sumer is likely to accept the changes), societal (e.g. what the society beneficial from the change) and company fea-sibilities (e.g. technically feasible and financial feasibility) (Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003; Boks and Diehl, 2005). As a result, this integration meets one of the key factors of the Ecodesign process: take into account the product

requirements; referred by Bovea & Pérez-Belis (2011).

2. 4 Waste Benchmarking tool

When searching ‘waste benchmarking tool for products’ no results were found in the literature. Perhaps, there has been no need on performing a tool dedicated to waste, as Ecodesign follows not just one key environ-mental aspect of the product lifecycle. However, Circular Economy thinking is a topic discussed in literature since 2002 and even, some countries are promoting it. For ex-ample, China has identified as national policy in 2006 and in UK several organizations are promoting the Circular Economy among business, industry and education, such as Ellen Macarthur Foundation, The Great Recovery and WRAP (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013; The Great Recovery, 2013; WRAP, 2013). Despite environmental benchmarking tools evaluating waste indicators along the whole lifecycle, it doesn’t fully contribute to support the designer role on the Circular Economy because it wasn’t designed for that purpose. Alongside with this and the fact there aren’t tools supporting the designer role in the Circular Econo-my, this research seeks on fulfilling this gap. The aim of the research is to develop a new tool, the benchmarking framework as a foundation for measuring and comparing products under indicators that support a designer’s role for the Circular Economy; this tool is called the Waste Benchmarking tool. Following the Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ah-mad-Ghorabi (2012) suggested approach of benchmark-ing at each stage of the life cycle, the research scope was focused on the end-of-life cycle of products, because this is where opportunities for Circular Economy thinking are. Other scope limitation is to just consider consumer good type of product (e.g. electronic appliance), because they

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was targeting Designers and relates to Product Design. From the 21 responses, 10 were Industrial Designers, 7 Product Designer, 2 Environmental Engineers and 2 De-sign Engineers with an average of 8 years of experience. The results are presented in in Table 3. In the first part of the survey, it was asked the reasons for not using Ecodesign tools when developing or redesigning a product. From 15 responses, there were two types of answers, 80% replied: ‘not in my project scope’ and 20% respond: ‘no need to (…) no customer has asked for it’. As for the participants who responded that they have used Ecodesign tools and selected which ones, 50% considered them ‘(…) more complete, practi-cal and look into whole life cycle of the product’, and the other 50% said they used because it was a ‘in context of training o recommendation by their employer’. In the second part of the survey, from the 21 re-sponses, the most used factors in the design process have been physical product lifetime, modularity and reparability and the least used is remanufacturing. The reasons supporting these choices were asked as a open question and essentially five types of answers were giv-en: normal thinking (30%) ‘They are normal design/ en-gineering thinking process’; sustainable thinking (25%) ‘Achieving more sustainable products’, ‘easier to rede-sign’; client demand (20%) ‘Specifications directly from my client’; customer satisfaction (13%) ‘Reduce cost to end user”; and, product value (12%) “ Increase product quality and lifetime’.

4. Methodology

Incorporating the double diamond design meth-odology (Design Council, 2005), Fig. 2 presents the over-all structure of creating the waste benchmarking tool. The development of the tool requires two parts: the tool design part and tool evaluation part. Each part has one divergent-convergent diamond, however in the first part the diamond is bigger than in the second part, stressing a funnel idea of clarity and focus during the research pro-cess. In the next sections it will be explained in further detail, each part of the methodology in Section 4.1 and Section 4.2, the data collection and analysis methods in Section 4.3 and the methodology limitations in Section 4.4.

4.1 Tool Design This part is composed by discover and define phase.

4.1.1. Discover phase This research starts with the discover phase by searching on key themes: the waste and materials problems, thesolutions presented by Circular Economy thinking and the Designer role on it, the available tools

are in mass market. Since time is a limiting factor for this research (4 months), this benchmarking tool will not be focusing on combining tools that are dedicated to product require-ments (e.g. Functional Profile tool) or to economic/busi-ness benefit of the new opportunities out coming from the tool (e.g. cost models). The Fig. 1 presents the waste benchmarking features: a combination of the listed requirements for an Ecodesign tool referred to in Section 2.2 with the defini-tion of benchmarking stated by Watson (1993).

Waste Benchmarking

tool

Ecodesing tool

Strategic tool

Qualitative approach

Analytical category

Indicators supporting the Circular Economy

End-of-lifeproduct cycle

(Re)design consumer good type of products

Early stages of product development Ch

arac

teris

tics

Measure

Application

Fig.1 Waste Benchmarking features.

In order to achieve the aim, the objectives of this research are to: 1. Conduct a critical review of literature on: Circular Econ-omy, Ecodesign tools, legislation on waste and Ecode-sign and benchmarking tools,2. Develop a list of indicators based on the findings from objective 1, 3. Define the methodology and methods to test and refine the list of indicators,4. Improve the list of indicators with the results from ob-jective 3,5. Evaluate the final list among experts that will be using the tool.

3. Research Motivation

To validate and further explore the findings of the literature review, which suggest a lack of use of Ecode-sign tools by the design community, a survey was pre-pared. It’s purpose was to investigate if designers are using these tools and why and also, if they are taking into consideration in the design process, the listed fac-tors, presented in the literature review, according to the designer role on supporting the circular economy. A concise survey of 8 questions (Table A.1), con-sisting of open ended and closed was distributed through on-line Social Media platforms (e.g. Facebook groups) and to contacts by email. It was explicit that the survey

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to address the problem (e.g. Ecodesign tools) and infor-mation on existing benchmarking tools (e.g. environmental benchmarking on products).

Table 3 Survey results

Survey parts Questions Answers % No. of respons-es

1. Ecodesign tools Have you used Ecodesign tools when devel-oping or redesigning a product?

Yes 28,57 6

No 71,43 15

Please select which Ecodesign tools have you used. (List of Ecodesign tools from Table 1)

Design Abacus 50 3

Eco-Indicator 99 50 3

2. Factors supporting the Designer role in the Circular Economy

From the list, select the factor(s) you have considered in the design process. (List of factors from Table 4)

Physical Product Lifetime 77,78 14

Modularity 72,33 13

Reparability 55,56 10

Use of recycled materials 44,44 8

Reused materials 38,89 7

Time of disassembly 33,33 6

Upgradability 27,78 5

Adaptability 27,78 5

Remanufacture 22,22 4

None 5,56 1

17 Individual workshops

Literature search

Final list of indicators

List of indicators

Conferences/ExihibitionData analysis

Group Activity

discoverdefine

developdeliver

Workshops

TOOL EVALUATION

List of indicators refined

Survey

Aim and objectives

A literature search method was used on: direc-tives, reports, books and articles and the findings have been already presented in Section 2. Other methods were also used, such as, assisting talks in conferences (e.g. The Great Recovery and Ellen Macarthur Foundation), go-ing to exhibitions (e.g. New Designers 2013), participating in a group activity (e.g. household waste audit) and partici-pating in 2 workshops (e.g. Redesign sessions with Waste

Community). Even with less impact on the research pro-cess, these methods have given inspiration, motivation and opportunity to be in contact with the waste problem.

4.1.2 Define phase In this phase, it was chosen to create an on-line small survey because comparing with interviews this method takes less time consuming plus transcription time

Fig. 2. Research methodology.

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and generates more data for being easy to be done by re-sponders (Robson, 1993) (Section 3). Its purpose was to confirm some of the findings in the literature review: the problem of the use of eco-design tool among the design community as well understand which factors from the Cir-cular Economy thinking are being already considered in the design process. With findings of the literature review the aims and objectives were established (Section 2). In this phase it was also important to identifying the key indicators for the waste benchmarking tool. To select them 3 criteria’s were established: had to focus on “end-of-life” product cycle; had to support the designer role on the circular economy; and, had to minimize waste generation. Based on articles about Ecodesign tools, on Ecodesign directive and reports about the Circular Econ-omy, a list of 16 indicators was created (Table 4).

4.2 Tool evaluation This part is composed by develop and deliver phase.

4.2.1 Develop phase This is the data collection phase where the list of indicators was tested. It was chosen to use individual workshops (e.g. single person or with two-people ses-sions) as the method to test and refine the list of indica-tors. Ideally a workshop activity would be a better solution because a group discussion could potentially generate multiple ideas and perspectives (Robson, 1993). Howev-er, within the time constraint and availability of the inter-viewees, the individual workshop was the best option.

4.2.2 Deliver phase The data collected was analyzed by quantitative and qualitative analysis (Section 5). The analysis and in-terpretation of the results permitted to refine the list of indicators and to create the final list of indicators (Section 5.1).

4.2.3 Final tool evaluation The final tool then was evaluated among experts (Section 6).

4.3 Individual workshop To test the list of indicators, 17 individual work-shops were conduced taking between 30-60 minutes, each. The interviewees selected had different back-grounds, contributing with interesting perspectives and suggestions on the discussion of the list of indicators. The group was formed by: 2 Manufacturing Production experts, 7 Designers, 2 Environmental Scientist, 4 people from Waste Community and 2 LCA experts. The work-shop took place in small and quiet office rooms, mainly from the interviewee’s office. They were recorded and structured into three parts: first a power point presenta-tion about the research so interviewees could relate to

the aim and objectives of the research; secondly it was asked to position the indicators according to their percep-tion on a Four Box tool (Fig. 3) with an axis of “Not Im-portant” and “Very Important” against “Easy to measure” and “Hard to measure”; and finally a semi-structured in-terview session asking for suggestions for new indicators and their thoughts about the tool.

4.3.1 Power Point Presentation Two different presentations were prepared ac-cording to the level of understanding of the interviewee on the specific subject and the type and number of ques-tions in the interview session. For example, in the individ-ual workshop with the LCA experts it was added to their presentation, some aspects found in Section 2 related to their knowledge field, in order to ask additional questions.

4.3.2 Four-Box tool This tool was given to each interviewee along-side the list of indicators (Table 4). Participants were asked to keep in mind 4 things on completing the tool:- Understanding that benchmarking tool would be per-formed alongside the disassembly of products, - It is applied to consumer goods type of product (e.g. electric Toothbrush), meeting the scope of research,- Supports the Circular Economy,- Position based on their perception and not the design perception even if this tool addressed to designers, oth-erwise the results wouldn’t be reliable.

Each indicator had a number and the interviewee had to position it on the tool based on: ‘How easy is to measure?’ and ‘How important is the indicator for sup-porting the Circular Economy?’

EASY TO MEASURE

HARD TO MEASURE

NOT

IMPO

RTAN

T VERY IMPORTANTFO

UR-BOX

TOOL

Fig. 3. Four-Box tool.

4.3.3. Semi-structured interview session In these interviews two major questions were asked: ‘Any new indicators for the tool?’ to possibly add more important indicators missed from the literature re-view and ‘What are your thoughts about the tool?’ to have multiple perspectives on the value of the tool, as well sug-

10

4.4 Methodology limitations This methodology is limited to the time frame given for the research project, however for further re-search should be performed a practical side of the final tool consisting in performing a design activity, such as a disassembly session of at least 2 similar products. In this session the waste benchmarking tool should be complet-ed. The outcomes of the activity should be used to refine the tool. This research has tested and refined the list of indicators within the benchmarking tool among a group of experts, however due to the lack of time of the research, the way to carry out the waste benchmark wasn’t tested. It is suggested for future improvements to test the bench-marking tool within a design activity.

5. Results

The results from the Four-Box tool are presented in the Fig. 4. In a general analysis from the 16 indica-tors 63% were considered in the area of easy to mea-sure and very important (red area), 30% of the indica-tors were considered very important but hard to measure (green area). These two areas are the most important areas of the Four-Box tool, where the interviewees po-sitioned 93% of the indicators. As for the remained 7%, some indicators were considered less important and hard to measure (4%) and just 3% of the total indicators were considered less important and easy to measure.

gestions to improve it or combine it with other tools. Then other questions were deliberately asked to some of the interviewees due to their different expertise. For exam-ple, discussing findings in literature review or asking for opinion on the different perspectives given by others in-terviewees.

4.3.4 Data analysis In order to analyze the data it was decided to car-ry both a quantitative and qualitative analysis once the results from the Four-Box tool can be easily transformed into numbers, and the results from the semi-structured in-terview were presented in the form of words. The record-ed sessions were analyzed based on partial transcrip-tion instead of a total transcription, because it requires less time and only the important data is filtered (Robson, 1993). The results presented from the Four-Box tool permitted to, quantitatively, justify the preferences the indicators and the semi-structured interviews sessions permitted qualitatively justify the improvements of the list of indicators.

Fig. 4. Results from the Four-Box tool

11

Table 4 List of indicators.

N. Indicators Unit Description References

1 Physical Products Lifetime Years The years it would last Wimmer et al., 2004; Boks and Diehl, 2005

2 Supply Parts Name; %; weight

Supply parts of the product (e.g. cables, accessories) Wimmer et al., 2004; Boks and Diehl, 2005

3 Rate of reusability %

Parts meant for reuse expressed in percentage for the total weight of the product (e.g. Valuable elec-tronics); Components from other products that are been used

Wimmer et al., 2004; EEA, 2009

4 Rate of Recyclability %

Materials destined for recycling expressed in percentage of the total weight of the product; Percentage of recycled materials in the product

Boks and Stevels, 2002; Wimmer et al., 2004; EEA, 2009

5 Hazardous Waste Gener-ated % Percentage of waste that will go to

Hazardous waste landfill EEA, 2009

6Remanufacture

% Parts able to be remanufactured Lofthouse, 2007

7Waste generated

% Percentage of waste that will go to landfill Lewis et al., 2001; EEA, 2009

8 Minimum time for availability of spare parts Years

Period of time that the manufac-tured is obliged to deliver spare parts.

EEA, 2009

9 Modularity (0-5) Designing products as series of easily accessible blocks or modules EEA, 2009

10 Reparability (0-5) Capability of being repair EEA, 2009; The Great Recovery, 2013

11Upgradability

(0-5) Capability to upgrade the product capacity (e.g. Computer memory) EEA, 2009; The Great Recovery, 2013

12 Adaptability (0-5) When product is able to be adapt to have other function The Great Recovery, 2013

13 Accessible information and product service manuals Yes/No

Products that have free and avail-able information about on how to repair, upgrade, fix it

The Great Recovery, 2013

14Time of disassembly

Min Time required for dismantling the product Boks and Stevels, 2002; Wimmer et al., 2004

15 Complexity of tools neces-sary for disassembly

(0-5) If is necessary special tool to take apart the product EEA, 2009

16Fasteners and Joints

Names and numbers

Type of fasteners and joints (e.g. snaps fits, clip and push fits, perma-nent fixings, glues, metal clamps, snap fits, etc)

Lewis et al., 2001; Wimmer et al., 2004; Bhamra and Lofthouse, 2007

12

It is not questionable that all the interviewees considered all the indicators between the scale of im-portant to very important, however their position changes when was to evaluate if it was easy or hard to measure. Although some indicators were positioned in the not important areas (yellow and blue) they hadn’t enough weight (6-18%) to be excluded from the list of indicators. The most significant aspect of the results from this tool is that all indicators have been proved as being important to very important in supporting the circular economy. From the semi-structured interviews session the results are presented in Table 5. From the 17 interview-ees only 7 have suggested new indicators, being number 1 and 6 mentioned twice from different interviewees. As for the others who didn’t suggest new indicators, pre-sented other perspectives that are addressed in question number 2.

Table 5Question 1 results.

Question 1: ‘Any new indicators for the tool?’No. Suggested indicators No. of

responses

1 Number of time material can be recycled 2

2 Updatable: product can keep up with fashion/trend

1

3 Product Maintenance 1

4 Scarcity of material 1

5 Number of components 1

6 Is the product accompanied by a service? 2

7 % of composite materials 1

When analyzing the suggested indicators all of them meet the scope of the project, however only 3 of 7 indicators were added to the final list of indicators (1, 4 and 6). The number 1 indicator suggested was added as a sub-indicator of Rate of Recyclability indicator because it was related to it and also it was suggested twice in the workshop. The indicators suggested n. 2, 5 and 7 weren’t added since they were already included, respectively, in the Upgradability, Components and Waste Generation indicators. The indicators 3 and 6 were combined into a new indicator, Service, once they were compatible. The second question was purposely an open question so the interviewee could freely expressed their opinion about the tool. From the 17 answers, four key topics were referred and their arguments presented in Table 6.

Table 6Question 2 results.

Question 2: ‘What are your thoughts about the list of indicators?’

Topics Answers

Value of the tool ‘It is interesting and important work and a lot of people have done things in the same are but not so many specifically to do with the circular econo-my, that is a really new idea.’

‘I think what you are presenting allows companies and designers in particularly to start engaging in the conversation about what is important and why one products is potentially better than another’

‘It is a very simple tool’

Environmental impact assess-

ment

One interviewee suggested the combine Eco Indicator 99 with the tool and this approach was asked to LCA experts interviewees ‘Yes I agree and also a lot of people are familiar with this Eco indicator 99 tool, because it has been around for a long time’

Cost

The word ‘cost’ was referred by 3 interviewees (18%) but with different opinions related in add-ing to the tool:- ‘You don’t have anything about cost but I don’t think is an issue because you have other tools for it. There is no need to invent any new cost tool or cost methods, just find the one better in the literature’;- ‘Just because you can close the loop because is technical possible doesn’t mean that anybody will buy it!’

User Perspec-tive

18% (3 interviewees) suggested the user per-spective inside the tool, however they present difficulty in how that approach could be imple-mented, ‘(...) it is very difficult to measure and depends on the consumer.’.

During the individual workshops some of the indicators were rephrased once 90% (15 interviewees) questioned the definition of the indicator number 1 and all interviewees questioned the definition of the indicator number 2.

5.1 Final Tool After all the results were analyzed and inter-preted, some of the indicators were rephrased, changed in order and grouped into families (sub-indicators). To facilitate the designer on completing the benchmarking tool, questions were introduced for each indicator and sub-indicators. The final list of indicators is presented in Table 7.

13

5.1.1 How to perform the waste benchmarking tool? With the findings from the work of several authors (Watson, 1993; Boks and Stevels, 2002; 2003; Wimmer et al., 2004; Boks and Diehl, 2005) on how to benchmark, it is proposed the way to carry out the waste benchmarking tool (Fig. 5). This tool has two work-sheets, the benchmarking matrix (Table B.1) and result matrix (Table B.2).

Step 1: Select the products Chose the products with similar functionality to be benchmark

Step 2: Benchmarking Matrix

Start by measuring the total weight (kg), total volume (mm3) and then disassemble each product. Complet the Measure column, then Score column and �nally Weight column (Fig. B.1)

Respond to the questions for each indicator/sub-indicator, respecting the unit measurement

Measure (M) Compare the results from measurement column among the same indicators/sub--indicator and score from*:0- not relevant1- very bad2- bad3- average4- good5- very good

Score (S) Weight (W)

Distribute the importance (%) of each indicator /sub-indicator according to their less impact on waste generation*

Step 3: Rank products Using the equation Σ Pn= S1x W1+ S2 x W2+ Sn x Wn, the product with the highest results is ranked

as number 1, and so on. Being in number 1, means product is perfoming better on waste minimization and supporting the Circular Economy than the other products.

Step 4: Results Matrix Position for each product their score results in the results matrix (Fig. B.2)

Step 5: Identify opportunities When analyzing each product performance among the indicators is possible to see potencial new

opportunities to improve the product. Aslo, to understand how one product is performing better than other

Cont

inui

ty

*di�erent perspectives/expertises can help on making decitions

6. Tool evaluation

The final list of indicators was evaluated by two members, with Ecodesign expertise, of the advice panel of a Waste- Design company. During the evalua-tion meeting the findings from Section 2, Section 4 and Section 5 were presented for context purpose and the final list of indicators was evaluated by answering four key questions presented in Table 8.

Fig. 5. Waste benchmarking flowchart.

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UNIT DESCRIPTIONIN

DIC

ATO

RS

SUPP

OR

TIN

G T

HE

CIR

CU

LAR

EC

ON

OM

Y

1 PHYSICAL PRODUCT LIFETIMEHow long does the product physically last with-out breaking?

Days/Months/Years

Measurement of the time a product is performing its function until it brakes

2 COMPONENTSHow many components does the product have?

Number Measurement of the component parts of the product (e.g. cables, accessories) and components after performing the product disassembly

2.1 What are their weight and percentage of the total weight? kg; %

3 PRODUCT DISSASSEMBLYHow long does it take to disassemble the product?

Minutes/Hours/Days

Time required for dismantling the prod-uct

3.1 Are special tools required for disassembling the product? Yes/No Ease if disassembly and if specialist

equipment is required3.2 What are the type of fasteners and joints does the product have? Type;

number

Ease of disassembly: when products have fixing snaps fits, clip and push fits rather than permanent fixings such as glues and metal clamps.

4 SCARCITY OF MATERIALSDoes the product use rare materials and if so how many?

%; Name

Amount of rare materials expressed in percentage of the total weight of the product (e.g. cobalt)

5 RATE OF REUSABILITYHow much of the product can be reused? %

Parts meant for reuse expressed in percentage of the total weight of the product (e.g. Valuable electronics)

6 RATE OF RECYCABILITYHow much of the product can be recycled? %

Materials intended for recycling ex-pressed in percentage of the total weight of the product

6.1 For how long can each material be recy-cled?

Months/Years

Period of time that the material intended for recycling can be recycled.

7 HAZARDOUS WASTE GENERATEDHow much hazardous waste is in the product? %

Components contributing to hazardous waste and landfill expressed in percent-age of the total weight of the product (e.g. mercury)

8 WASTE GENERATEDHow much waste is generated from the prod-uct?

%Materials destined for landfill expressed in percentage of the total weight of the product (e.g. composite materials)

9 REMANUFACTUREHas the product been designed for remanufac-ture?

Yes/No If the company has implemented any service of remanufacturing the product

10 MINIMUM TIME FOR AVAILABILITY SPARE PARTSHow long is the availability of products spare parts?

Months/Years

Period of time that the manufactured is obliged to deliver spare parts.

11 MODULARITYIs the product designed for modularity? Yes/No Yes, when designing products as series

of easily accessible blocks or modules.12 REPARABILITY

Is the product designed to be repaired?Yes/No

Yes, when product is designed to be easily repaired

12.1 Is the company providing any information about repair, upgrade or fixing the product?

Yes, when company gives free informa-tion about their product on how to repair, to upgrade and how to fix it.

13 UPGRADABILITYIs the product capable of being upgraded? Yes/No

Yes, when components are replaced for new and better version to perform better (e.g. computer memory) or to meet fashion/trend

14 ADAPTABILITYIs the product capable of being adapted to new function?

Yes/No Yes, when company uses their product to have other function

15 SERVICEIs the product accompanied by a service? Yes/No

Yes, when company has services linked to product, such as, leasing, mainte-nance and sharing.

Table 7

Final list of indicators

15

(presented in Section 2), as they argued that it wasn’t a customer requirement so no need to be in the project scope. This argument is also defended by one of the in-terviewees (LCA expert) during the individual workshop when asked ‘Why don’t designers use Ecodesign tools?’; he also suggested that perhaps just with strong law, de-signers would start using them. However if the aim of this survey was to understand the reasons for the lack of use of Ecodesign tools, other methods should be used ins-tead, for example the 5 whys method which helps to get to the root of the problem. As for the Ecodesign tools selected the reasons given weren’t conclusive, as one refers to the tool being ‘practical and complete’ and other used due to ‘recom-mendation by their employer’. What is relevant for the research is the type of Ecodesign tool chosen; Eco-indi-cator 99 being defended by one of the LCA expert inter-viewed as ‘(…) a lot of people are familiar with it because it has been around for a long time’ and Design Abacus which allows the analysis of the performance of a product against specific criteria’s and is therefore similar to a ben-chmarking tool (Bhamra and Lofthouse, 2007). For this reason the results matrix from the waste benchmarking tool has a similar visual look. In the second part of the survey, it was interesting to realize that all the factors presented have been consi-dered in the design process within the design community. Even with different rates, and for different reasons this suggests that these factors, also listed in the final tool, are valuable in the design process therefore this familia-rity can potentially help the designer to successfully com-plete the waste benchmarking tool. Even having a small representative sample of the design community this survey has stressed that if there is no need to used it then there is no will, there-fore these tools aren’t considered mandatory during the design process. However recently developed countries are having a shift in economic thinking implementing the Circular Economy thinking in their legislation (e.g. China). This fact and the survey results emphases the importan-ce and uniqueness of research motivation: the need for a tool, which helps designer in the early stages of the pro-duct development, redesign products by benchmarking products waste performance and supporting the Circular Economy. The development of the tool started within the tool design session (Section 4), when a list of 16 indica-tors was created. The method of creating it was based on findings from the literature review presented in Sec-tion 2. This method permitted on the second session of the methodology, in the tool evaluation session, to save time when presenting to each of the 17 interviewees the developed list and from the Four-Box tool results all of them considered them in a scale of important to very im-portant. Otherwise, the individual workshops would have taken much more time and augmented by Robson (1993)

Table 8

Tool evaluation.

No. Questions

1 What benefits /value you see on benchmarking products based on the final list of indicators?

- ‘It raises questions that companies probably where never been asked for or never had considered before, so for that is really good’; - ‘We recognize all indicators being interesting and important’ - ‘This tool can plant the initial seed in companies mind and motivate them on these subjects and motivating companies is a big challenge.’ - ‘I think there is something about this qualitative and softer tool as you have here, because you present a way to quantify products and for Engineering design focus companies this can work very well’

2 Who will benefit from performing this benchmark tool based on the final list of indicators?

‘This tool could be used with small and large companies, in the early start of the company with different stakeholders: manufacturing, sales, design, customers, suppliers and recycling organizations.’

3 How you would use it; in which context?

‘Doing a workshop and using this tool as part of a toolbox. This tool could be used first as a start point for the conversation about these subjects. Then combining with other tools to help on making deci-sions (e.g. LCA tool). Also in a more practical side, every company have their own focus so maybe it would be practical to down-select from 15 indicators to 8 or 9 that are key for them.’

4 What improvements can you suggest?

‘Could be study on how this tool could be incorporated in the exist-ing process of creating a product within a company.’

As conclusion the interviewees considered that ‘It is very useful Benchmarking in the very conceptual phase of product development to arise different stakehol-ders awareness to the Circular Economy indicators’.

7. Discussion and Conclusion

The goal of this research was to support the creation of products with less waste impact using Circu-lar Economy thinking. Given that designers have a sig-nificant responsibility in the early stages of product de-velopment, due to the fact that approximately 80% of a product’s environmental impacts are determined at this phase (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003; Bhamra and Lof-thouse, 2007; Lofthouse, 2007; EEA, 2009; EC, 2013), this research describes the development of a new Ecode-sign and strategic tool, which supports the designer role for the Circular Economy. The problem of the lack of use of Ecodesign tools during the design process by the design community was one of the key findings from Section 2. The survey presented in Section 3 validated this finding by collec-ting 71% of responses from a pool of 21 answers. The reasons presented in the survey weren’t similar to the reasons justified by Bovea & Pérez-Belis (2011) work,

16

process. As pointed out by some interviewees this tool is ‘(…) is a really new idea’ and ‘ (…) allows companies and designers in particular to start engaging in the con-versation about what is important and why one product is potentially better than another’. Not only the design community and companies can benefit from this tool, but potentially academics and universities can used it on tea-ching courses, specifically in courses such as, Design, Strategic Business, Marketing and Environmental Engi-neering. Also the designer is one of the many players in the Circular Economy, perhaps this tool could be adapted to other players, for example the Consumer/User player by creating an benchmark rating tool along the lines of ‘WHICH?’ and educating the consumer (Which, 2013). For future work the final tool should be tested in a real scenario, where different expertises should follow the steps in Fig. 5. Then, the identified new opportunities should be tested with the combine tools suggested in the results and tool evaluation sections, forming the ‘Toolbox’ suggested. Even knowing which tools combine better with the benchmarking tool would need to be tested and as well, how this ‘Toolbox’ could be successfully incorpo-rated in the existing process of creating a product within a company.

Acknowledgments

The work of this paper was supported by Cran-field University and Peoples Lab’s Design organization.

‘(…) over a hour interview may be taking unreasonable demands on busy interviewees (…)’, besides it would be requiring too much of the interviewees when coming up with indicators without guidelines. The big advantage of using the individual workshops was that any opinion was equally valid, so interviewees couldn’t be influenced by dominant opinions. When it comes to data analysis, there is no one rule on the best way to analyse data (Robson, 1993). Therefore it was chosen to use both quantitative and qualitative approach because their complementary cha-racteristics permit the collection and analysis of solid and reliable results. The results from the 17 individual workshops enabled the list of indicators to be refined (Section 5) and also validated the argument that there is no one perfect tool with all the requirements presented in Section 2. Most interviewees in the semi-structured session mentioned combining the waste benchmarking tool with other tools, such as, with an LCA tool (e.g. Eco-indicator 99), with a user requirement tool (e.g. Functional Profile) and cost tool. These suggestions are similar to Ecobenchmarking tool developed by Phillips Consumer Electronics (Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003), being an evidence of applicabi-lity of the suggestions once Philips has been doing since the mid-1990s. Having developed the final list of indicators, it was evaluated by Ecodesign experts, from an advice pa-nel of a Waste- Design company. They considered that all indicators presented were important, as well all the interviewees from the individual workshops. They argu-ment that going more deep in each indicator would make the tool more similar to a life-cycle assessment tool and that would bringing more complexity when there is alrea-dy available tools that can be combined with it. Also, they have pointed out in question n.3, the value of combining this tool with other tools, suggesting using a ‘toolbox’ to help companies on making decisions. They proposed the use of a LCA tool to validate the outcomes from this tool, meeting one of the requirements suggested by Bovea & Pérez-Belis (2011) and Ecobenchmarking from Phillips Consumer Electronics (Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003). Although they consider important the designer role, they also mentioned that other stakeholders like manufactu-ring, sales, customers, suppliers and recycling organiza-tions should also be engaged in completing this tool. This fact was also suggested in the benchmarking flowchart (Fig. 5). The most important value mentioned about the tool, was the capability to arise awareness of Circular Economy indicators into companies and motivate them to change their traditional way of doing business. Until this research there was not a tool that fo-cused on indicators that support the designer role for the Circular Economy thinking. As proved in the survey resul-ts, the designers are familiar with most indicators howe-ver not all have been equally considered in the design

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Appendix A

Table A.1Survey questions

1. What is your background?2. How many years of experience do you have on that background?3. Have you used Ecodesign tools when developing or redesigning a product? (Yes/No)List of Ecodesign tools from Table 1

4. If not, please give 3 reasons. After, just answer question 7 and 8!

5. If yes, please select which Ecodesign tools have you used from Table 1?6. Why you used that or those Ecodesign tools when developing or redesigning the product?

· Product Lifetime (Products physical lifetime)

· Modularity (Designing products as series of easily accessible blocks or modules)

· Reparability (Capability of being repair)

· Upgradability (Capability to upgrade the product capacity (e.g. Computer memory))

· Remanufactured (Possibility of being remanufactured)

· Use of recycled materials

· Reused materials

· Adaptability (When product is able to be adapt to have other function)

· Time of disassembly (Time required for dismantling the product)

· None8. Explain why those factors

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Appendix BTable B.1Benchmarking Matrix

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Table B.2Results Matrix