Sustainable Qualifying Criteria for Designing Circular Business Models

A successful transition to Circular Economy requires systemic changes in the way companies understand and do business, with sustainability as a strong foundation. Sustainable business model innovation has become fundamental for companies’ competitiveness. The design of innovative business models is challenging, especially considering that in some cases the new circular systems may not be more sustainable than the previous ones (e.g.: due to rebound effects). Many different approaches have been proposed for designing either circular or sustainable business models, however there is no consensus of an integrated vision of both concepts. A comprehensive review was performed to identify sustainability characteristics of business models. These were analyzed and translated into sustainable qualifying criteria to be applied when designing circular business models. The aim of the qualifying criteria is serving as a checklist that can inspire the development of circular business models based on best practices for social, environmental and economic systems.