Exploring Disruptive Business Model Innovation for the Circular Economy

Recently the concept of the Circular Economy (CE) has attracted growing interest as a novel economic model aiming to foster sustainable economic growth, boost global competitiveness, and generate new jobs. A system-wide disruptive innovation shaping new ecosystems and changing the whole process of value creation is needed to tackle the current challenges and transformation to the CE. This paper asks how disruptive business model innovations work as a change mechanism for the CE. The paper develops a conceptual framework for shaping the industrial systems towards CE ecosystems and proposes how value circles and co-creation of value with a variety of partners are crucial aspects in enabling CE. The paper highlights that the concept of value circles would be beneficial in clarifying the difference to linear value chain models and the co-existence of several overlapping value circles.