Production in a circular economy

Purpose: Moving away from a linear economy (take, make, waste) motivates manufacturers to rethink how they design, produce, and ship products. In a circular economy, materials are not discarded after use but brought back into the economy in various ways, spurring industries to find ways to better and more efficiently use resources. A challenge for stakeholders involved in implementing circularity is envisioning and coordinating their individual activities in the context of the entire circular system.

To address this challenge, we introduce a reference model to outline the relevant activities, interactions, and other factors that impact a product life cycle within a circular economy.

Reference Model: The Production in a Circular Economy (CE) Model consists of five life cycle activities (Design Product, Acquire Materials, Produce Product, Use and Consume, and Treat at End of Life) that are consistent with manufacturing economic models. Using the IDEF0 functional modeling method, each activity and its relevant inputs, outputs, controls, and mechanisms are defined. The model is defined for a generic product and may need to be adapted for specific industry sectors. Example use: identifying the organization's reference situation with regards to circular economy and mapping the system to identify where processes can be changed, as indicated by ISO 59004:2024.

To explore the Production in a CE model, select it from the sidebar, or view its decomposition. Visit How to Navigate for details on the model structure. Specific activities that have been explored in depth are described below.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.18434/mds2-3703
Contact: [email protected]
Model last updated: Mon May 19 10:06:25 2025
Version: 2

The Circular Product Design (CPD) Activity Model is a model of the activities and systems involved in designing for circularity. CPD is an approach that enables designers to facilitate the creation of products for a circular economy (CE). A key need for CPD is to leverage data from downstream life cycle stages to inform design decisions both initially and iteratively. The CPD Activity Model outlines design activities and the data to be collected from each other stage of the product lifecycle as it relates to design activities. Users of the CPD model can include CE researchers, product designers, and standards development bodies, among others.

The model serves as a resource to:

• Identify differences in data needs and considerations for CPD practices, compared to traditional product design practices
• Identify areas within CPD that require further development of tools, measurement methods, or standards
• Determine the data collection necessary to guide design decisions and assess their downstream impacts
• Plan for information tracking throughout a product life cycle

To explore the design phase only, click the its link or navigate to the activity by expanding the model tree in the sidebar.

The Closed Loop Recovery (CLR) Activity Model is an activity in the Production in a CE model that focuses on the end-of-life treatment of products and the flows relevant to developing secondary material streams. The CLR Activity Model outlines the activities and relationships involved in material recovery, including R-strategies such as reuse, repair, remanufacturing, and recycling. Users of the CLR model can include CE researchers, end-of-life recovery and waste management professionals, designers who want to understand downstream processing, and standards development bodies, among others.

To explore the end-of-life treatment phase only, click its link or navigate to the activity by expanding the model tree in the sidebar.