CircX as the Key to a Successful Circular Economy
How the Combination of a Business and Human Perspective Turns Annoying Products into a Desirable Experience.
Many consumers are familiar with situations in which an innovation that is actually sustainable and well-intentioned fails in everyday life: a good example of this is the European “Tethered Caps Regulation” (Single-Use Plastics Directive 2019/904/EU). It stipulates that caps on beverage containers must remain permanently attached to the bottle in order to increase recycling rates. Formally, this solution may be correct; however, in reality, many consumers find these attached lids annoying. A good goal is thus missed due to poor user experience. How different the experience is with an intuitive, circular model. The machine tool manufacturer Hilti, for example, started very early on to no longer sell its industrial customers individual tools, but rather the service of drilling, milling and screwing. This has been a positive experience for craft and construction companies, as they always have the right quantity of tools in the right place. And it’s good for business: Hilti can optimize the use of raw materials through repair services, refurbishment, intelligent packaging solutions and precise knowledge of usage behavior. An approach that saves money and reduces emissions. This is where sustainability is not the only thing that is created. This circular economy also becomes a personal experience: a circular experience (CircX) that is demanded by the users themselves.
Why the Classic Approaches Are Not Enough
It is therefore time to look at the topics of sustainability and the circular economy from a different perspective. After all, competitiveness and resource efficiency have always been important to companies – and are becoming increasingly important, especially in relation to circular approaches. Regulatory measures such as the European “Right to Repair” (R2RD) or Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) are driving companies towards circular solutions. However, despite increasing demand from customers, suppliers and investors, there is no real enthusiasm or even hype. The truth is that, according to a study by the European Environment Agency, the willingness to pay more for sustainability is actually decreasing.
However, a circular economy can only be sustainably successful and broadly anchored if circular products and concepts are not only prescribed by regulation, but are also emotionally desirable and result in a viable business model overall. How can this be achieved? To make circular offerings a success, the topic must be considered from two perspectives: For manufacturers to become enthusiastic supporters of a circular economy, it must be financially viable, support sustainability goals and be logistically functional among the manufacturing community. And to turn users into enthusiastic supporters of a circular economy, sustainable products and services must be an integral part of their lives: holistic, intuitive and desirable. Both sides, manufacturers and users, must immediately and intuitively understand the advantages – we call this positive experience the Business Experience (BX) and the Human Experience (HX). Together, they create the Circular Experience (CircX), which is what makes new, circular business models successful in the first place.
Business Experience (BX): From Competition to Collaborative Ecosystem
The concept of Business Experience (BX) in the circular economy begins with an expanded economic perspective. While traditionally focused on optimizing internal processes, we understand it as a model for architecting value networks that holistically and systematically bring stakeholders together. These include companies, customers, and even competitors, all part of a coherent, interdependent value system designed to close material cycles and create resilience. Examples of such systemic cooperation models include “coopetition,” where competitors jointly create recycling and collection infrastructures (such as used clothing consortia) or collaboratively develop standardized battery modules that both use in their vehicles and later recycle together. Another model is the “venture client strategy,” in which established companies serve as the first customers for innovative circular economy startups.
BX is thus much more than optimizing individual internal processes or a single customer journey. Rather, it creates stable economic frameworks and incentive systems—through revenue sharing, product lifetime extensions, recurring revenues from additional services, and cost reduction through common technological interfaces and even standards.
The result is an economically viable foundation upon which a circular customer and user experience becomes possible in the first place.
Human Experience (HX): Inspiring People
For a circular economy to be attractive, however, it takes more than just economically robust systems. Above all, it requires inspiring and positive experiences for the people involved—a human experience. This human dimension of the circular experience encompasses cognitive, sensory, emotional, social, and behavioral aspects of business and product development, as well as product use and return.
HX therefore describes not simply sustainability experiences, but encounters that generate positive emotions and, through their combination of value, meaning, and interaction, permanently change conventional behavior patterns. This happens, for example, when users find using a refurbished or used product more emotionally valuable than buying a new one—or when they experience repairs not as a chore, but as a social and emotional enrichment. Sustainable behavior thus transforms from duty to desire.
The successful circular experience is therefore about rewarding the desired interactions of all stakeholders in an ecosystem with positive emotions. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. captures this mechanism perfectly: “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
The HX approach deliberately combines behavioral science, user experience, service design, product design, brand management, and, of course, innovation in ways that make circular interactions intuitive, emotionally effective, and worthwhile.
CircX – A Systemic Approach
emerges when business and human experience are unified.
CircX coherently integrates the perspectives of BX and HX. While BX creates a viable systemic business framework and transforms stakeholders into integrated partners, HX ensures that people actively seek these solutions through positive, emotionally engaging experiences.
In the Circular Experience, customer experience mechanisms matter not only for the product and in relation to users. The emotional connection during use (e.g., intuitive product return options) can also extend to interactions among participants within the value network—for example, through appropriate new metrics such as material return rates or partnership returns. These metrics guide the relationships and behaviors of stakeholders within the business ecosystem.
User experience (UX), in turn, optimizes the user-friendliness of the many interfaces (such as apps for booking repair services).
Overall, CircX no longer conceives of sustainability merely from the perspective of technical circular economy management or regulatory obligation, but as a consciously tangible business model across all touchpoints of the stakeholder journey—from information on material procurement, production, purchase, use, and repair, to return for a second life or recycling. As a result, users would no longer perceive sustainable offerings as requirements to be accepted, but would actively desire and demand them—and ultimately even enjoy them. The combination of business experience as an economic ecosystem and human experience as emotionally positive interaction creates a clear differentiating factor in the market.
Conclusion
What does a truly functional circular experience look like? Imagine a world where repairing a smartphone is faster and easier than buying a new one, and the process is also perceived as enriching. Where reusable packaging is not only functional and sustainable but also enjoyable to use. Where secondhand shopping feels even more desirable and high-quality than shopping in a luxury boutique. A world where AI-supported assistants automatically search for sustainable solutions that offer emotional value for the user. And where the companies and organizations involved have developed mechanisms, incentives, and business models that serve their respective interests in terms of cash flow, return on investment, and brand management.
It is therefore not nearly enough to simply issue one-sided regulations or optimize business models—what’s crucial is a systemic approach and the appropriate combination of business model concepts, partnerships, material selection, design decisions, end-of-life strategies, and life cycle assessments.
Above all, however, the focus must be on people and their experience of the circular economy. In this way, the circular economy would no longer be a marginal phenomenon or regulatory requirement—but an integrative movement, supported by users, stakeholders, and companies that benefit equally ecologically, grow strategically, and win emotionally. As an approach, CircX offers the opportunity to transform circularity from a mere obligation into a compelling vision and a permanently sustainable reality.
The Development of a Circular Experience Requires an Integrated, Holistic Approach:
Authors
Gerhard Seizer, Heiko Tullney, and Michael Leitl are Executive Directors at INDEED Innovation, a Hamburg-based design and innovation firm specializing in the development of circular business models and product/service innovations.
- Multidimensional: Combining systemic, digital, and physical dimensions.
- Multidisciplinary: Incorporating behavioral science, service design, product design, innovation, and both Human and Business Experience.
- Systemic and Contextual: Aligning solutions with real user behaviors and creating positive incentives.
- Behavioral: Designing experiences that align with consumer expectations and feel enriching.
- Stakeholders: Collaborating across all participants in the value network to establish a resilient circular system.
- Resources: Focusing on durability and quality to optimize product life cycles.
The German version of this article will be published in the June issue of Forum Nachhaltig Wirtschaften.
