Transforming Linear to Reuse Circular Supply Chains

Managing plastic waste has become a global challenge. Policy makers and companies are taking initiatives to address this global challenge through legislation, public awareness and industrial investments. These initiatives are currently guided by EMF’s Circular Economy concept leading to the emergence of circular supply chains for plastic packaging. This is one of the first studies to focus on the emerging area of Reuse Circular Supply Chains (CSCs) and present an understanding of relationships between SC design and reuse circularity within the context of single-use plastic packaging. Literature demonstrates that in supply chain design, multiple perspectives can be taken. However, if we categorise all supply chain factors from various approaches, the core elements of supply chains can be classified into product, process, and location attributes. Furthermore, Circular Economy literature emphasises that designing CSCs requires collaboration between various supply chain partners. To that end, the aim is to develop a Reuse CSC typology and support this paradigm shift from single-use linear SCs to reuse circularity by informing changes in product design, process design, and location, incorporating multiple stakeholder perspectives. More specifically, this research enquires how product design, process design and location selection help to transform linear SCs to Reuse CSCs from a stakeholder theory perspective. This challenge can be addressed with various methodologies. A mono-method multiple qualitative case study design is adopted in this research as it is believed that a single research method will allow for an in-depth understanding of the emerging area of Reuse CSCs. The empirical research involved 43 stakeholders representing 7 multinational corporations and 12 commercial products. In addition, SC maps of current and desired states were developed, informed by an input-transformation-output model. This enabled the capture of the transformation from single-use to reuse across different stakeholders. Research findings suggest that marketing functions, alignment with forward supply material flow, consumer behaviour, and sociocultural norms plays a vital role in designing Reuse CSCs. Subsequently, this research presents a typology for Reuse CSCs based on product types, reuse process network types, and location leading to four design strategies (Premiumisation, Standardisation, De-premiumisation, Individualisation). This research investigates the emerging area of Reuse CSC to present the first SC typology in the reuse context. First, this research informs the theoretical understanding of the Circular Economy transformation by introducing the novel concept of Reuse CSC design. Second, companies can design Reuse CSC types by changing product, process, and location attributes.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Niedenzu, Denis

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kumar, Mukesh

• Circular supply chains
• Reuse Circular Supply Chains
• Reusable plastic packaging
• Reuse
• Fast-Moving Consumer Goods
• Case study

Licence

• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0002-8595-7025

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/341008