Think of a common product we own or use today whose business model could be modified to be “circular.”

Response to Students’ Posts

Peruse the World Economic Forum website paying particular attention to the circular products case examples page – http://reports.weforum.org/toward-the-circular-economy-accelerating-the-scale-up-across-global-supply-chains/how-it-works-up-close-case-examples-of-circular-products/ 

Think of a common product we own or use today whose business model could be modified to be “circular.”

• What product did you come up with?
• What would the new business model look like?
• How would this change the underlying way that business is done today?
• What might some savings and benefits be to the new model?
• What kind of paradigm shift needs to happen for something like this to work?

Note – Each student should have a different product.  Lightbulbs/lighting may not be used.

Initial/Original Post

Please post what you view as the appropriate responses to the above prompts. Your initial post should be 250-270 words. Please provide response with a clear, well-formulated thesis; sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and spelling count. Support ALL posts with appropriate rationale and citations from readings; document sources using APA format.

Responding to Others

What do you think of their business ideas?  Would they work?  Responses to at least two classmates’ postings should be approximately 200 words and should be thoughtful, substantial, polite and more extensive than a simple “well done” phrase or “I agree.” Consider points of agreement, disagreement, assumptions, and value judgments. You will be able to respond to others after you submit your initial post.

PEER 1: The product I chose for this discussion is tires. The new business model after using tire for its purpose is recovery and recycling. Tires are scraped over one billion times every year, and a half of them are burned as fuel. It is challenging to recycle tires because they contain a host of additives. Currently, old tires are used as playground fill and molded products (Visaisouk, J).  This new business model would possibly change the underlying way that business is done today. To illustrate this, Timberland, a shoemaker company, came up a business opportunity to invent their own brand of tire and then partnered with tire manufacture company Omni United. Timberland actually started creating shoes using discarded tires in 2008 but was not sure the quality of the show met company and the consumers’ expectation because the tires contained a host of additives (Timberland). Thus, Timberland and Omni United decided to have partnership to create tires that could offer second lives. The tires’ second lives are in Timberland’s quality shoes that can still be used to transport people. This business model is beneficial to both business and environment. Their higher quality tires by itself could make a good profit but the product holds additional value for consumers who care their planet and the future generations as they tend to choose eco-friendly product.  Timberland’s creative circular economy idea contributes by reducing the amount of burning fuel and leads to a more sustainable environment. If other companies want to work with this business model, they should be creative to come up innovative ideas and work with other companies to cooperate to achieve the goals. Most importantly, companies that use vision and empathy to save our planet will benefit from gaining consumers with similar ideas.

PEER 2: The product I think that can be modified to be circular is iPhones. There are several ways Apple can make their iPhones more circular. Apple could start leasing their iPhones to people instead of having customers buy it outright. Apple could also design their iPhones to be easily recyclable into new devices.

Every year Apple releases a new phone that is pretty similar to the last, its usually just faster, has a nicer camera, and the battery lasts longer. A lot of people buy a new phone every year to have the newest one even if their phone works perfectly fine. This is not very circular; smartphones can last for years there is no reason to buy a new iPhone when your phone is currently only a year old and works without any issues. A solution to this is Apple could start leasing their phones. This would allow people to save money every year by leasing instead of buying a new phone and also reduce electronic waste.

Apple could also design iPhones to be circular, most waste can be reduced in the design stage. Since most new iPhones are similar to past ones apple could design their iPhones to be up cyclable into their newer versions. This would require them to use old parts from old iPhones and use them to make the newer ones. Apple already has a trade in program where they give you credit towards your new phone when you trade in your old one. They recycle the old phones, however, they only reuse the battery and some of the metal for new iPhones (Apple, 2019). Apple has the ability to change how they design their phones to make it easier to recycle them and turn them into new phones or other Apple products.

These changes would make apple money and also allow them to save more. They will make money of being able to continually lease iPhones to people and also save money by being able to recycle more parts of their old phones into new phones.

Answer preview………………………………………..

apa 253 words