THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY REBOUND IN PRODUCT DESIGN: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

Circular Product Design (CPD) has been hypothesized as a process to prevent or mitigate the Circular Economy Rebound (CER) effect – an unintended effect of the circular transition that can prevent a Circular Economy from achieving its intended environmental benefits. However, the scientific literature lacks empirical inquiries that investigate this hypothesis. Accordingly, we developed an exploratory case study focused on the circular design of a secondary product in the marble sector to figure out if CPD can actually prevent CER and how a firm can organize its design process to contrast the occurrence of such an effect. The findings show that CPD does not impede the CER occurrence and that, due to CER, some circular product designs may be environmentally unsustainable. A prominent reason may be a severe misalignment between the objectives of a Circular Economy and the circularity-oriented goals of the design process. This paper contributes to the CPD research stream by advancing preliminary suggestions to avoid unsustainable CPD and lays the foundation for pursuing reboundless circular product design processes.