Circular economy has emerged as an industrial approach that aims to overcome the traditional “take-make-dispose” economic model, which is based on the intensive extraction of raw materials and the design of products with a limited lifespan. The circular economy approach consists in a closed system in which products, materials and resources are continuously reused, remanufactured and recycled. The implementation of circular economy principles in companies requires a gradual redesign of products, which consists of a concurrent design of products and related manufacturing processes that enhance competitiveness measures, rationalize product/process/resource design decisions and improve operational efficiency in product development. Given this premise, the transition of companies towards a circular economy paradigm challenges companies to rethink their linear approach of doing business, leading to the research dilemma of answering: Is it economically convenient for a company, in terms of economic margin, to develop circular products starting from a linear positioning? To answer this research question, an agent-based model and simulator (ABM) has been developed characterized by four kinds of heterogeneous firms: the supplier, the manufacturer, the user and the recycler.
The adoption of an agent-based model, which is coherent with the approaches of complexity science, allows for investigating the phenomenon considering its complex nature, and the consequent dynamic non-linear relations among the various actors involved: manufacturers, suppliers, customers and consumers, recyclers. Results show that the manufacturer only partially follows consumer sentiment, as it retains a large proportion of linear products. Even when consumer sentiment is low, it is in the manufacturer’s interest to move even slightly towards circular products.