Framing product circularity performance for optimized green profit

The purpose of this paper is to develop and discuss a framework aiming at monitoring and optimizing the circularity performance of products for ensuring and facilitating green profit design trade-offs whilst meeting or anticipating end-of-life regulations during the design and development process of industrial products. The proposed framework is used to extend the Green Profit Model – an optimization model to maximize the total profit from the sales of new and remanufactured products, while achieving environmental impact savings – by adding a third dimension to this model, which is the circularity performance. As such, in addition to remanufacturing, it covers a wider spectrum of circular economy practices, leading to additional economic opportunities and environmental trade-offs between maintenance, reuse, remanufacturing and recycling at a product, parts and material levels. A first formulation of this extended optimization model is given and discussed through an illustrative example. By connecting the circularity performance of products with possible economic profit and environmental impact savings, it thus contributes in advancing the understanding and linkages in the area of circular design, life cycle analysis, industrial decision-support tool, and environmental regulations. Concretely, practical implications for both design engineering and green policy making are highlighted.