Gestión e implantación del modelo de economía circular aplicado al ámbito empresarial

Abstract

This project is part of the call for industrial doctorates promoted by the Generalitat de Catalunya (2018 DI008). The research actions have been carried out within the company FI Group together with the collaboration of the Department of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering of the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB). The objective of the project has been focused on the creation of a work methodology to be applied into the consulting sector that would allow evaluating the environmental status of business companies, especially analysing those fields related to the philosophy contained within the concept of circular economy. After this analysis, different specific improvement solutions are proposed to these companies. This document makes an initial presentation on the most relevant current environmental aspects, going through the current regulations, the green actions included within the Next Generation European recovery framework, as well as different reflections related to the role of consulting companies in time to facilitate the green transition for companies. After these points, the project has been focused on analysing the different methodologies for implementing the circularity model in companies as well as studying the most disruptive tools and business models with the aim of including the most relevant fields within the new methodology to provide a complete and updated structure. In this way, the fields included in the new methodology are value proposition, key activities identification, establishment and improvement of relationships with potential clients or identification of financing opportunities, for example. Once the methodology steps have been designed, the process begins with the identification of the general aspects of the company, passing through the application of circularity meters and ending with different complementary activities that can help companies improve their environmental processes. In order to test and validate its viability, this methodology has been tested in three different industrial companies that provide the internal operation data necessary to evaluate the adequate scope of the steps. The results show how the companies are in a similar situation at the beginning, they have tried to undertake general environmental improvement processes, but without paying specific attention to aspects related to waste management or the optimization of used materials in the manufacturing process of new products. All the companies lack a recovery and monitoring process for their products when they reach to the end of their life cycle, so it means that their processes cannot be considered into a high degree of circularity. However, it should be noted that all of them show high values in other fields related to innovation and internal business strategy, which may mean that right now they are trying to take the necessary steps to undertake major changes that will allow them to redirect their business model. The results validate the design of the new developed model, its adaptability and customization may be necessary depending on the needs of each company, but it could serve as a reference point to measure the state of circularity of an entity.