1. The document proposes developing a new tool called a Waste Benchmarking tool to assist designers in supporting the Circular Economy. 2. It describes creating a list of indicators for the tool based on a literature review and workshops with experts. The final list includes 15 indicators to measure a product's performance in supporting the Circular Economy. 3. The tool is intended to help designers make strategic improvements without limiting creativity, as it provides general comments rather than detailed analysis and does not require extensive data in the early design stages.

1. 1
Waste Benchmarking tool: developing a tool to support a designer’s role for
the Circular Economy
F. Costa
Department of Applied Science, Cranfield University, Cranfield MK430FS, UK
A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
Circular Economy
Waste resources
Benchmarking
Ecodesign tools
Designer role
Times are changing and the linear mode of consumption ‘take-make-dispose’ needs to
change and align more closely with natural systems, using waste and materials as resources.
This sustainable concept is the Circular Economy and challenges different players in rethinking
the economic way of ‘business as usual’. Due to the significant environmental, social and econo-
mic impact of design a Designer is one of the key players. Designers have a vital role due to their
ability to re-design products with significantly less waste impact and efficient use of resources.
However, the available Ecodesign tools for designers aren’t being focused on this specific con-
cept, and these tools aren’t being widely implemented by the design community, as referred in the
literature review and further demonstrated by a survey conducted in this paper.
This article proposes a new tool, to assist designers with benchmarking product’s
performance against a list of indicators that support the Circular Economy and identify strategic
design improvements. The list of indicators was created based on critical analysis of literature and
tested and refined among a group of 17 different experts within individual workshops. The results
confirmed a final list of 15 indicators and also validate the argument that there is no universal tool
and that the solution is most useful when used in combination with other tools.
To evaluate the final list of indicators, two Ecodesign experts confirmed the importance
of all indicators and its value on arising the awareness of Circular Economy indicators into compa-
nies and motivate them to change their traditional way of doing business.
1. Introduction
The society as known now has become weal-
thier compared with the past, meaning people are buying
more products and ultimately generating more waste, for
example EU citizens produced approximately 5.4 ton-
nes in 2008 (EEA, 2012). Waste generation is an envi-
ronmental problem that causes the release of methane
emissions that contribute to climate change, as well as
significant losses of raw materials, which Europe Union
(EU) is highly dependent on imported raw materials. The
amount of raw material that entered the global economic
system in 2010 was approximately 65 billion tons and is
expected to grow to 82 billion tons in 2020 (EEA, 2012;
Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013). Another important
factor is that the population is growing and is it is estima-
ted that 3 billion people will join the ranks of middle-class
consumers by 2030.
Nature has the capability to transform its produ-
ced waste into a food/raw material, never needing to dis-
pose of it like humans do by using landfills (McDonough
and Braungart, 2002). In the last 20 years different au-
thors have been discussing solutions to the waste pro-
blem by changing the way of looking to waste and ma-
terials, to look as a valuable resource, a lot like nature
does (Copper, 1994; Hawken et al., 1999; McDonough
and Braungart, 2002: Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013;
The Great Recovery, 2013). The latest movement of this
topic is the concept of ‘Circular Economy’, which denotes
an industrial economy that is restorative by intention and
design (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013). The word de-
sign isn’t just associated to designing circular systems but
also implies designing products considering the Circular
Economy factors. Designers have a huge responsibility in
the early stages of product development, due to the fact
that approximately 80% of a product’s environmental im-
pacts are determined at this phase, the design communi-
ty has its own role on helping creating products with less
waste impact (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003; Bhamra
and Lofthouse, 2007; Lofthouse, 2007; EEA, 2009; EC,
2013). To support designers, manufactures and engine-
ers on making products with reduced environmental im-
pact there are several Ecodesign tools available however
their implementation within the design community is low.
Besides this, no tools focusing on supporting the desig-
ner role on the Circular Economy has been found.
Therefore, this research proposes the develop-
ment of a new tool, a waste benchmarking tool focusing
on the designers role for the Circular Economy. This pa-
per shows how a list of indicators was created, tested,
refined and evaluated among a group of experts. A final
tool is presented, composed of a list of indicators, where
each indicator and its units of measurement are explai-
ned. The process required completing, a flowchart on
how to perform the waste benchmarking tool is also des-
cribed.

2. 2
shorter lifespans and easily out-date either because they
are no longer fashionable or they have been superseded
by more advanced technology or they have broken and
are uneconomic to repair, is still the way most of today’s
products are being designed. As the world is full of prod-
ucts that follow a linear model, re-designing the system
towards a circular model is extremely important for a sus-
tainable future.
If there is a shift on looking to waste as a resource,
a shift is also needed in the product design approach.
During the NPD process, the concept design phase is
considered one of the most vital phases due to the fact
that about 80% of a product’s environmental impacts are
determined at this phase, as well the costs, appearance,
materials selection, innovations, performance and per-
ception of quality (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003; Bham-
ra and Lofthouse, 2007; Lofthouse, 2007; EEA, 2009;
EC, 2013). Therefore, the designer plays a vital role in
re-designing products with less waste generation and
product’s environmental impact, efficient use of resource
to ultimately, contribute for a sustainable development.
In 2013, The Great Recovery (2013) presented
the design role on the Circular Economy:
- Design products which can be economically repaired
or fixed,
- Give accessible information on how to fix products,
- Design products able to be upgraded like personal
computers where hardware can be easily add via USB
ports,
- Design products that can be remanufactured, meaning
the product needs to be easily disassembled for restoring
used components for new products or adaptable to do
another function,
- Design for an emotionally desirable product, reducing
consumption and waste.
Alongside these responsibilities, it is also the
designer role to embed into good design practices (The
Great Recovery, 2013).
2.2. Ecodesign tools
In 2008, the European Union (EU) developed
a waste directive, Directive 2008/98/EC, based on this
new way of seeing waste as resource. It established a
new waste hierarchy encouraging first waste preven-
tion, then re-use, followed by recycling, recovery and
finally disposal (EEA, 2008). The way this Directive pro-
motes waste prevention is by encouraging designers
to implement environmental assessment of the whole
life cycle of products and materials (e.g. use of raw
material, manufacturing, distribution, product use and
end-of-life) into the design process. This methodology
is called Ecodesign (Wimmer et al., 2004; EEA, 2008).
Ecodesign tools have been developed to help
and support mainly designers, industrial designers, en-
This research has a significant impact not only
amongst the design community but also to new product
development (NPD) companies, academics and univer-
sities specifically Design, Strategic Business, Marketing
and Environmental Engineering courses.
2 Literature Review
In order to develop the waste benchmarking tool,
there is some prior work in separate areas of Circular
Economy and Ecodesign tools that needs to be critically
analysed. This section studies the literature in both areas
and defines the research aim and objectives.
2.1 Circular Economy: the designer role
Traditional economic development follows a lin-
ear manufacturing model of materials-products-waste,
resulting in: excessive consumption of resources and
discharge of waste; the exhaustion of resources; and the
environment deterioration (Chen, 2009). In this traditional
model, no considerations are given to the materials and
to the environment, going in contradiction of the 2006 EU
Sustainable Development Strategy of ‘avoiding the gen-
eration of waste and enhancing efficient use of natural
resources by applying the concept of life-cycle thinking
and promoting reuse and recycling’ (EEA, 2012).
Bringing life cycle thinking on how to design and
manufacture products can create further economic op-
portunities and prevent waste disposal once it is used
as a resource. This thinking is called Circular Economy,
which in essence is a closed feedback circulatory process
of materials- products- recycled/ reuse/ disassembly/ re-
pair/ upgrade/ refurbishment materials (Chen, 2009; El-
len Macarthur Foundation, 2013).
Many authors have been presenting ways cre-
ating a circular feedback process: in 1994, Tim Cooper
(1994), argued that to minimize waste, the key element
was to increase product durability; in 1999, Paul Hawken
et al., (1999) proposed five key ways to keep materials on
a continuous feedback loop: repair the products (e.g. de-
sign to facilitate the repair), reuse products (e.g. pass to a
new user or life with different purpose), remanufacturing
products (e.g. design to easily disassemble, saving ener-
gy and raw materials), recycle (e.g. choosing recyclable
materials to reconstitute to another or similar product)
and last, recovery (e.g. ground, melted or dissolved to
its basic materials to be include for other purpose); and
in 2007, Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007) emphases the
importance designing product for durability which gener-
ally consumes less materials and energy and therefore
generates less waste, as also designing with end-of-life
strategies such as: remanufacturing, component reuse
and recycling.
Unfortunately, Tim Copper’s (1994) explanation
on how common it is for products to be designed to have

3. 3
gineering designers, environmental managers, product
managers and manufactures on making decisions (Vallet
et al., 2013). In Ecodesign practise, there are 3 key fac-
tors that should be followed: integration of the environ-
mental aspects into the early stage of design process;
life cycle approach; and take into account the product’s
functions/ requirements (Bovea and Pérez-Belis, 2011).
The Table 1 presents a list of the Ecodesign tools
and it categorizes each tool based on (Knight and Jen-
kins, 2008; Vallet et al., 2013):
- Checklists: ‘providing in depth, but narrow application
at selected stages of the product development process
or life cycle’,
- Guidelines: broad support, with little detail across the
whole product development or life cycle,
- Analytical: a detailed, systematic analysis of whole
product development or life cycle.
The methods of assessment of each Ecodesign
tool influence their capability to be implemented in the ear-
ly stages of the product development. Tools using quan-
titative approach, such Life Cycle Assessment (LCA),
require a significant amount of data about the product
before designing it, meaning that these tools are most-
ly used in the later stages of the design process, when
changes are harder to implement. The exception found
was the Eco-Indicator 99, which is an impact assessment
method in LCA, being considered to be a light LCA tool
(Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003; Collado-Ruiz and Ost-
ad-Ahmad-Ghorabi, 2010; Bovea & Pérez-Belis, 2011).
As for Ecodesign tools using qualitative or semi-quantita-
tive approaches, they have potential to be faster and fair-
ly simple to use therefore can be implemented during the
early design stages. However this method is less reliable
than the quantitative (Bovea & Pérez-Belis, 2011).
In the work conducted by Bovea & Pérez-Be-
lis (2011) it was concluded that most Ecodesign tools
presented a medium-high level of difficulty and time re-
quired on implementing (e.g. MET Matrix, LCA) them in
the design process, except for the tools with the check-
list category (AT&T, Kodak). Many authors defend these
complexities of implementation, as being the reason why
is not widely adopted by most companies (Knight and
Jenkins, 2008; Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi,
2010).
The LCA tool is the most well known Ecodesign
tool (Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi, 2010).
For Vallet et al., (2013) ‘(…) LCA remains an expert tool’
that have been introduced by large companies, however
for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is rarely imple-
mented due to the lack of human resources, time and ex-
pertise (Knight and Jenkins, 2008). The main reasons for
its difficulties on its implementation in the design commu-
nity are (Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi, 2010):
- Training,
- Time consuming,
- Much information that, normally, isn’t easily available,
- Level of uncertainty.
Another interesting point defended by Colla-
do-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi (2010) is that de-
tailed LCA decreases the designer’s creativity and con-
sequently generates incremental products (e.g. changing
materials or reducing weight). He defends that having
general comments on the product’s environmental im-
pacts in the early design stage is better for designer’s
creativity than having the traditional detailed information.
Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007) argue that it is not recom-
mended to designers to even use LCA tool because of
the time involved.
Therefore to help designers to make strategic
decisions in the early stages of the product development
and not limiting their creativity and potentials innovation,
the Ecodesign tool needs to:
- Be easily implemented in the early design stage, mean-
ing it doesn’t require training,
- Present soft information, instead of detailed information
(e.g. LCA). Even Bovea & Pérez-Belis (2011) argued that
a qualitative approach is less reliable than the quantita-
tive, however when balancing with creativity aspect, it is
preferable to emphasise creativity once it conducts to in-
novation; an extremely valued aspect by companies,
- Requires some amount of data, meaning using a quali-
tative or semi-quantitative approach and also being less
time consuming,
- Analyse the whole lifecycle,
- Take into account the product functions/ requirements.
However there is no perfect tool that congre-
gates these entire requirements without comprising one
or more of them. Perhaps, the solution comes with com-
bining tools and balancing them. One of the tools that
are able to gather most of the requirement above, except
the product functions/ requirements, is the Environmental
Benchmarking tool. In addition, it is widely used amongst
NPD companies, being used to compare products perfor-
mance, as well information on the strengths and weak-
nesses of the competition (Ulrich and Eppinger, 2003).
Therefore, this familiarity with performing a benchmark-
ing tool on products can only be beneficial when using
it as model for the proposed new tool on supporting a
designer’s role on the Circular Economy.
2.2.1 Environmental Benchmarking tool
There have been several definitions for bench-
marking depending on the organization goals and their
performance measures, however according to the Inter-
national Benchmarking Clearinghouse ‘benchmarking is
a systematic and continuous measurement process; a
process of continuously measuring and comparing an or-
ganization’s business process against business process

4. 4
of at a global level like in the Philips case. This method
could allow designers to refine product specifications in
the early stage of product development, not limiting the
designer creativity and still analysing the products lifecy-
cle.
The most common environmental indicators ap-
plied for products environmental benchmarking founded
in the literature were: energy (e.g. energy consumption)
and waste (e.g. materials consumption, packaging, po-
tentially toxic substances, recyclability/durability, etc)
(Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003; Wever et al., 2007; Amin
and Banerjee, 2010). Besides, in general, products are
designed from a list of requirements and functions, which
also need to be taken into account on the design process
in order to create a commercially viable product (Vallet et
al., 2013). Without compromising the environmental as-
pects or the products demand, designers must seek for
a balance between both sides (Lagerstedt and Lindfors,
2003). In Lagerstedt and Lindfors (2003) work, he pro-
posed a qualitative tool, the Functional Profile, which cat-
egorizes in general the functions of the product in the ear-
ly stage of product development process (Table 2). This
tool is to input the products requirement from the cus-
tomer perspective, so designers can understand which
categories can have an environmental improvement.
leaders anywhere in the world to gain information which
will help the organization take action to improve its perfor-
mance’ (Hong et al., 2012; APQC, 2013).
The author Watson (1993), in his book ‘Strategic
Benchmarking: how to rate your company’s performance
against the world’s best’ defends that benchmarking is
more than a comparison of product’s characteristics and
knowing which ones perform best. It is a strategic tool
lying on two parts: measuring performance and identi-
fying what causes a product to perform better than the
others so it can be implemented. This is aligned with the
benchmarking cycle presented in Hong et al., (2012)
work: starting the cycle with measurement followed by
comparison, improvement, continuity and learning to gain
sustainable competitive advantage.
From the literature review on benchmarking
practices, Hong et al., (2012) concluded that environ-
mental benchmarking studies are a new trend, especially
in regulatory, gross emissions, efficiency and life cycle
approaches, due to the increase of the demand from
companies. However, when searching for environmental
benchmarking applied to products, little information was
founded in the literature review. For example, in Watson
(1993) ‘ The Strategic Benchmarking’ and Andersen and
Pettersen (1996) ‘The Benchmarking Handbook’ books,
benchmarking on products was not referred.
Despite of this recent demand, Phillips Con-
sumer Electronics (CE) Company has been creating
environmental benchmarking reports for their products
since the mid-1990s. They define it as ‘(…) an import-
ant tool for generation and prioritisation of environmental
product improvement options.’ (Boks and Diehl, 2005).
Their benchmarking tool has been changing over time
becoming closer to what Watson (1993) defines as being
a benchmarking study (Wever et al., 2007). In the first
part, corresponding also to the early stage of product
development, products are select to be compared and
evaluated on their environmental performance; then new
design improvements are identified, tested and validated
with an LCA tool. For the second part, Ideation phase
occurs with environmental benchmarking results; then in
the Prioritization phase, other aspects are considered in
the product design (environment, consumer, societal and
company feasibilities); at last, the chosen (re)design im-
provements are implemented, within the implementation
phase (Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003).
This combination of environmental benchmark-
ing tool and LCA tool permits to Phillips Consumer Elec-
tronics perform the Ecodesign practice referred by Bovea
& Pérez-Belis (2011). However is important to highlight,
that this is a company with many available human re-
sources, such as LCA practitioners. In case of SME’s this
methodology still presents considerable challenges.
In Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahmad-Ghorabi
(2012) study, proposed the use of environmental bench-
marking at each stage of the product life cycle instead

5. 5
Table 1
Characterization of the Ecodesign tools (adapted from literature review)
Name of the Ecode-
sign tool
Category
Method of
Assessment
Early stage of the
product development
process
References
AT&T Checklist Qualitative Yes
Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
Fast Five Philips Checklist Qualitative Yes
Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007);
Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
Kodak Checklist Qualitative Yes
Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
(MET) Matrix Analytical Qualitative Yes
Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007); Knight and Jenkins
(2008); Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
Ten Golden Rules Guideline Qualitative Yes Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
Environmentally Re-
sponsible
Product/Process As-
sessment Matrix (ERP)
Analytical Semi-quantitative No Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
Streamlined Life cycle
Assessment (SLCA)
Analytical Semi-quantitative Yes Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
Ecodesign (PILOT)
Guideline Semi-quantitative Yes
Wimmer et al., (2004); Bovea and Pérez-Belis
(2011); Vallet et al., (2013)
Eco-Indicator 99 Analytical Quantitative No
Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007); Bovea and
Pérez-Belis (2011); Knight and Jenkins (2008);
Vallet et al., (2013)
Environmental Bench-
marking
Analytical Qualitative Yes Wimmer et al., (2004)
Life cycle assessment
(LCA)
Analytical Quantitative No
Wimmer et al., (2004); Bovea and Pérez-Belis
(2011); Knight and Jenkins (2008); Collado-Ruiz
(2010); Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007)
Information Inspiration Guideline Qualitative Yes Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007); Vallet et al., (2013)
ISO/TR 14062 Guide-
lines on integrating
environmental aspects
into product design
and development
Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)
BS 8887-1 Guidelines
on design for manu-
facturing, assembly,
disassembly and
end-of-life processing
(MADE)
Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)
GG427 Guidelines on
sustainable design of
electrical and electron-
ic products to control
costs and comply with
legislation
Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)
Smiths Group Eco-De-
sign Guides
Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)

6. 6
Table 1 (continued)
Name of the Ecode-
sign tool
Category
Method of
Assessment
Early stage of the product
development process
Reference
Smiths Group Eco-De-
sign Guide
Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)
Environmental Prod-
uct Life
Cycle Matrix (EPLC)
Analytical Semi-quantitative No Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
Eco-design Checklist
Method (ECM) Checklist Qualitative Yes Bovea and Pérez-Belis (2011)
Design Abacus Analytical Qualitative Yes Bhamra and Lofthouse (2007)
GG427 Guidelines on
sustainable design of
electrical and electron-
ic products to control
costs and comply with
legislation
Guideline Qualitative Yes Knight and Jenkins (2008)
Table 2
Functional Profile (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003)
Product Functional Description:
Functional
Category
Value (0-10) Comment
Physical lifetime
Usetime
Reliability
Human/ ma-
chine interaction
Safety
Economics
Technical fea-
sibility
Environmental
Demand
Once again, Phillips Consumer Electronics (CE)
Company is a good example of balancing the environ-
mental issues and the products requirements, using in
the Prioritization phase four categories: environment fea-
sibility (e.g. if the product changes indeed reduces the
environmental impact), consumer feasibility (e.g. if con-
sumer is likely to accept the changes), societal (e.g. what
the society beneficial from the change) and company fea-
sibilities (e.g. technically feasible and financial feasibility)
(Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003; Boks and Diehl, 2005).
As a result, this integration meets one of the key factors
of the Ecodesign process: take into account the product
requirements; referred by Bovea & Pérez-Belis (2011).
2. 4 Waste Benchmarking tool
When searching ‘waste benchmarking tool for
products’ no results were found in the literature. Perhaps,
there has been no need on performing a tool dedicated
to waste, as Ecodesign follows not just one key environ-
mental aspect of the product lifecycle. However, Circular
Economy thinking is a topic discussed in literature since
2002 and even, some countries are promoting it. For ex-
ample, China has identified as national policy in 2006 and
in UK several organizations are promoting the Circular
Economy among business, industry and education, such
as Ellen Macarthur Foundation, The Great Recovery and
WRAP (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013; The Great
Recovery, 2013; WRAP, 2013).
Despite environmental benchmarking tools
evaluating waste indicators along the whole lifecycle, it
doesn’t fully contribute to support the designer role on
the Circular Economy because it wasn’t designed for
that purpose. Alongside with this and the fact there aren’t
tools supporting the designer role in the Circular Econo-
my, this research seeks on fulfilling this gap. The aim of
the research is to develop a new tool, the benchmarking
framework as a foundation for measuring and comparing
products under indicators that support a designer’s role
for the Circular Economy; this tool is called the Waste
Benchmarking tool.
Following the Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ah-
mad-Ghorabi (2012) suggested approach of benchmark-
ing at each stage of the life cycle, the research scope was
focused on the end-of-life cycle of products, because this
is where opportunities for Circular Economy thinking are.
Other scope limitation is to just consider consumer good
type of product (e.g. electronic appliance), because they

7. 7
was targeting Designers and relates to Product Design.
From the 21 responses, 10 were Industrial Designers, 7
Product Designer, 2 Environmental Engineers and 2 De-
sign Engineers with an average of 8 years of experience.
The results are presented in in Table 3.
In the first part of the survey, it was asked the
reasons for not using Ecodesign tools when developing
or redesigning a product. From 15 responses, there were
two types of answers, 80% replied: ‘not in my project
scope’ and 20% respond: ‘no need to (…) no customer
has asked for it’. As for the participants who responded
that they have used Ecodesign tools and selected which
ones, 50% considered them ‘(…) more complete, practi-
cal and look into whole life cycle of the product’, and the
other 50% said they used because it was a ‘in context of
training o recommendation by their employer’.
In the second part of the survey, from the 21 re-
sponses, the most used factors in the design process
have been physical product lifetime, modularity and
reparability and the least used is remanufacturing. The
reasons supporting these choices were asked as a open
question and essentially five types of answers were giv-
en: normal thinking (30%) ‘They are normal design/ en-
gineering thinking process’; sustainable thinking (25%)
‘Achieving more sustainable products’, ‘easier to rede-
sign’; client demand (20%) ‘Specifications directly from
my client’; customer satisfaction (13%) ‘Reduce cost to
end user”; and, product value (12%) “ Increase product
quality and lifetime’.
4. Methodology
Incorporating the double diamond design meth-
odology (Design Council, 2005), Fig. 2 presents the over-
all structure of creating the waste benchmarking tool.
The development of the tool requires two parts: the tool
design part and tool evaluation part. Each part has one
divergent-convergent diamond, however in the first part
the diamond is bigger than in the second part, stressing
a funnel idea of clarity and focus during the research pro-
cess.
In the next sections it will be explained in further
detail, each part of the methodology in Section 4.1 and
Section 4.2, the data collection and analysis methods in
Section 4.3 and the methodology limitations in Section
4.4.
4.1 Tool Design
This part is composed by discover and define
phase.
4.1.1. Discover phase
This research starts with the discover phase
by searching on key themes: the waste and materials
problems, thesolutions presented by Circular Economy
thinking and the Designer role on it, the available tools
are in mass market.
Since time is a limiting factor for this research
(4 months), this benchmarking tool will not be focusing
on combining tools that are dedicated to product require-
ments (e.g. Functional Profile tool) or to economic/busi-
ness benefit of the new opportunities out coming from the
tool (e.g. cost models).
The Fig. 1 presents the waste benchmarking
features: a combination of the listed requirements for an
Ecodesign tool referred to in Section 2.2 with the defini-
tion of benchmarking stated by Watson (1993).
Waste
Benchmarking
tool
Ecodesing tool
Strategic tool
Qualitative approach
Analytical category
Indicators supporting
the Circular Economy
End-of-life
product cycle
(Re)design
consumer good type of
products
Early stages of
product development
Characteristics
MeasureApplication
Fig.1 Waste Benchmarking features.
In order to achieve the aim, the objectives of this
research are to:
1. Conduct a critical review of literature on: Circular Econ-
omy, Ecodesign tools, legislation on waste and Ecode-
sign and benchmarking tools,
2. Develop a list of indicators based on the findings from
objective 1,
3. Define the methodology and methods to test and refine
the list of indicators,
4. Improve the list of indicators with the results from ob-
jective 3,
5. Evaluate the final list among experts that will be using
the tool.
3. Research Motivation
To validate and further explore the findings of the
literature review, which suggest a lack of use of Ecode-
sign tools by the design community, a survey was pre-
pared. It’s purpose was to investigate if designers are
using these tools and why and also, if they are taking
into consideration in the design process, the listed fac-
tors, presented in the literature review, according to the
designer role on supporting the circular economy.
A concise survey of 8 questions (Table A.1), con-
sisting of open ended and closed was distributed through
on-line Social Media platforms (e.g. Facebook groups)
and to contacts by email. It was explicit that the survey

8. 8
to address the problem (e.g. Ecodesign tools) and infor-
mation on existing benchmarking tools (e.g. environmental
benchmarking on products).
Table 3
Survey results
Survey parts
Questions Answers %
No. of respons-
es
1. Ecodesign tools
Have you used Ecodesign tools when devel-
oping or redesigning a product?
Yes 28,57 6
No 71,43 15
Please select which Ecodesign tools have you
used. (List of Ecodesign tools from Table 1)
Design Abacus 50 3
Eco-Indicator 99 50 3
2. Factors supporting
the Designer role in the
Circular Economy
From the list, select the factor(s) you have
considered in the design process. (List of
factors from Table 4)
Physical Product Lifetime 77,78 14
Modularity 72,33 13
Reparability 55,56 10
Use of recycled materials 44,44 8
Reused materials 38,89 7
Time of disassembly 33,33 6
Upgradability 27,78 5
Adaptability 27,78 5
Remanufacture 22,22 4
None 5,56 1
17 Individual
workshops
Literature
search
Final list of
indicators
List of
indicators
Conferences/Exihibition
Data analysis
Group Activity
discover
define
develop
deliver
Workshops
TOOL EVALUATION
List of indicators
refined
Survey
Aim and objectives
A literature search method was used on: direc-
tives, reports, books and articles and the findings have
been already presented in Section 2. Other methods were
also used, such as, assisting talks in conferences (e.g.
The Great Recovery and Ellen Macarthur Foundation), go-
ing to exhibitions (e.g. New Designers 2013), participating
in a group activity (e.g. household waste audit) and partici-
pating in 2 workshops (e.g. Redesign sessions with Waste
Community). Even with less impact on the research pro-
cess, these methods have given inspiration, motivation
and opportunity to be in contact with the waste problem.
4.1.2 Define phase
In this phase, it was chosen to create an on-line
small survey because comparing with interviews this
method takes less time consuming plus transcription time
Fig. 2. Research methodology.

9. 9
and generates more data for being easy to be done by re-
sponders (Robson, 1993) (Section 3). Its purpose was to
confirm some of the findings in the literature review: the
problem of the use of eco-design tool among the design
community as well understand which factors from the Cir-
cular Economy thinking are being already considered in
the design process. With findings of the literature review
the aims and objectives were established (Section 2).
In this phase it was also important to identifying
the key indicators for the waste benchmarking tool. To
select them 3 criteria’s were established: had to focus on
“end-of-life” product cycle; had to support the designer
role on the circular economy; and, had to minimize waste
generation. Based on articles about Ecodesign tools, on
Ecodesign directive and reports about the Circular Econ-
omy, a list of 16 indicators was created (Table 4).
4.2 Tool evaluation
This part is composed by develop and deliver
phase.
4.2.1 Develop phase
This is the data collection phase where the list
of indicators was tested. It was chosen to use individual
workshops (e.g. single person or with two-people ses-
sions) as the method to test and refine the list of indica-
tors. Ideally a workshop activity would be a better solution
because a group discussion could potentially generate
multiple ideas and perspectives (Robson, 1993). Howev-
er, within the time constraint and availability of the inter-
viewees, the individual workshop was the best option.
4.2.2 Deliver phase
The data collected was analyzed by quantitative
and qualitative analysis (Section 5). The analysis and in-
terpretation of the results permitted to refine the list of
indicators and to create the final list of indicators (Section
5.1).
4.2.3 Final tool evaluation
The final tool then was evaluated among experts
(Section 6).
4.3 Individual workshop
To test the list of indicators, 17 individual work-
shops were conduced taking between 30-60 minutes,
each. The interviewees selected had different back-
grounds, contributing with interesting perspectives and
suggestions on the discussion of the list of indicators.
The group was formed by: 2 Manufacturing Production
experts, 7 Designers, 2 Environmental Scientist, 4 people
from Waste Community and 2 LCA experts. The work-
shop took place in small and quiet office rooms, mainly
from the interviewee’s office. They were recorded and
structured into three parts: first a power point presenta-
tion about the research so interviewees could relate to
the aim and objectives of the research; secondly it was
asked to position the indicators according to their percep-
tion on a Four Box tool (Fig. 3) with an axis of “Not Im-
portant” and “Very Important” against “Easy to measure”
and “Hard to measure”; and finally a semi-structured in-
terview session asking for suggestions for new indicators
and their thoughts about the tool.
4.3.1 Power Point Presentation
Two different presentations were prepared ac-
cording to the level of understanding of the interviewee
on the specific subject and the type and number of ques-
tions in the interview session. For example, in the individ-
ual workshop with the LCA experts it was added to their
presentation, some aspects found in Section 2 related to
their knowledge field, in order to ask additional questions.
4.3.2 Four-Box tool
This tool was given to each interviewee along-
side the list of indicators (Table 4). Participants were
asked to keep in mind 4 things on completing the tool:
- Understanding that benchmarking tool would be per-
formed alongside the disassembly of products,
- It is applied to consumer goods type of product (e.g.
electric Toothbrush), meeting the scope of research,
- Supports the Circular Economy,
- Position based on their perception and not the design
perception even if this tool addressed to designers, oth-
erwise the results wouldn’t be reliable.
Each indicator had a number and the interviewee
had to position it on the tool based on: ‘How easy is to
measure?’ and ‘How important is the indicator for sup-
porting the Circular Economy?’
EASY TO MEASURE
HARD TO MEASURE
NOTIMPORTANT
VERYIMPORTANT
FO
UR-BO
X
TO
O
L
Fig. 3. Four-Box tool.
4.3.3. Semi-structured interview session
In these interviews two major questions were
asked: ‘Any new indicators for the tool?’ to possibly add
more important indicators missed from the literature re-
view and ‘What are your thoughts about the tool?’ to have
multiple perspectives on the value of the tool, as well sug-

10. 10
4.4 Methodology limitations
This methodology is limited to the time frame
given for the research project, however for further re-
search should be performed a practical side of the final
tool consisting in performing a design activity, such as a
disassembly session of at least 2 similar products. In this
session the waste benchmarking tool should be complet-
ed. The outcomes of the activity should be used to refine
the tool. This research has tested and refined the list of
indicators within the benchmarking tool among a group of
experts, however due to the lack of time of the research,
the way to carry out the waste benchmark wasn’t tested.
It is suggested for future improvements to test the bench-
marking tool within a design activity.
5. Results
The results from the Four-Box tool are presented
in the Fig. 4. In a general analysis from the 16 indica-
tors 63% were considered in the area of easy to mea-
sure and very important (red area), 30% of the indica-
tors were considered very important but hard to measure
(green area). These two areas are the most important
areas of the Four-Box tool, where the interviewees po-
sitioned 93% of the indicators. As for the remained 7%,
some indicators were considered less important and hard
to measure (4%) and just 3% of the total indicators were
considered less important and easy to measure.
gestions to improve it or combine it with other tools. Then
other questions were deliberately asked to some of the
interviewees due to their different expertise. For exam-
ple, discussing findings in literature review or asking for
opinion on the different perspectives given by others in-
terviewees.
4.3.4 Data analysis
In order to analyze the data it was decided to car-
ry both a quantitative and qualitative analysis once the
results from the Four-Box tool can be easily transformed
into numbers, and the results from the semi-structured in-
terview were presented in the form of words. The record-
ed sessions were analyzed based on partial transcrip-
tion instead of a total transcription, because it requires
less time and only the important data is filtered (Robson,
1993).
The results presented from the Four-Box tool
permitted to, quantitatively, justify the preferences the
indicators and the semi-structured interviews sessions
permitted qualitatively justify the improvements of the list
of indicators.
Fig. 4. Results from the Four-Box tool

11. 11
Table 4
List of indicators.
N. Indicators Unit Description References
1 Physical Products Lifetime Years The years it would last Wimmer et al., 2004; Boks and Diehl, 2005
2 Supply Parts
Name; %;
weight
Supply parts of the product
(e.g. cables, accessories)
Wimmer et al., 2004; Boks and Diehl, 2005
3 Rate of reusability %
Parts meant for reuse expressed in
percentage for the total weight of
the product (e.g. Valuable elec-
tronics); Components from other
products that are been used
Wimmer et al., 2004; EEA, 2009
4 Rate of Recyclability %
Materials destined for recycling
expressed in percentage of the total
weight of the product; Percentage
of recycled materials in the product
Boks and Stevels, 2002; Wimmer et al., 2004;
EEA, 2009
5
Hazardous Waste Gener-
ated
%
Percentage of waste that will go to
Hazardous waste landfill
EEA, 2009
6
Remanufacture
% Parts able to be remanufactured Lofthouse, 2007
7
Waste generated
%
Percentage of waste that will go to
landfill
Lewis et al., 2001; EEA, 2009
8
Minimum time for availability
of spare parts
Years
Period of time that the manufac-
tured is obliged to deliver spare
parts.
EEA, 2009
9 Modularity (0-5)
Designing products as series of
easily accessible blocks or modules
EEA, 2009
10 Reparability (0-5) Capability of being repair EEA, 2009; The Great Recovery, 2013
11
Upgradability
(0-5)
Capability to upgrade the product
capacity (e.g. Computer memory)
EEA, 2009; The Great Recovery, 2013
12 Adaptability (0-5)
When product is able to be adapt to
have other function
The Great Recovery, 2013
13
Accessible information and
product service manuals
Yes/No
Products that have free and avail-
able information about on how to
repair, upgrade, fix it
The Great Recovery, 2013
14
Time of disassembly
Min
Time required for dismantling the
product
Boks and Stevels, 2002; Wimmer et al., 2004
15 Complexity of tools neces-
sary for disassembly
(0-5)
If is necessary special tool to take
apart the product
EEA, 2009
16
Fasteners and Joints
Names and
numbers
Type of fasteners and joints (e.g.
snaps fits, clip and push fits, perma-
nent fixings, glues, metal clamps,
snap fits, etc)
Lewis et al., 2001; Wimmer et al., 2004; Bhamra
and Lofthouse, 2007

12. 12
It is not questionable that all the interviewees
considered all the indicators between the scale of im-
portant to very important, however their position changes
when was to evaluate if it was easy or hard to measure.
Although some indicators were positioned in the not
important areas (yellow and blue) they hadn’t enough
weight (6-18%) to be excluded from the list of indicators.
The most significant aspect of the results from this tool is
that all indicators have been proved as being important to
very important in supporting the circular economy.
From the semi-structured interviews session the
results are presented in Table 5. From the 17 interview-
ees only 7 have suggested new indicators, being number
1 and 6 mentioned twice from different interviewees. As
for the others who didn’t suggest new indicators, pre-
sented other perspectives that are addressed in question
number 2.
Table 5
Question 1 results.
Question 1: ‘Any new indicators for the tool?’
No. Suggested indicators
No. of
responses
1 Number of time material can be recycled 2
2 Updatable: product can keep up with fashion/
trend
1
3 Product Maintenance 1
4 Scarcity of material 1
5 Number of components 1
6 Is the product accompanied by a service? 2
7 % of composite materials 1
When analyzing the suggested indicators all of
them meet the scope of the project, however only 3 of 7
indicators were added to the final list of indicators (1, 4
and 6). The number 1 indicator suggested was added as
a sub-indicator of Rate of Recyclability indicator because
it was related to it and also it was suggested twice in the
workshop. The indicators suggested n. 2, 5 and 7 weren’t
added since they were already included, respectively, in
the Upgradability, Components and Waste Generation
indicators. The indicators 3 and 6 were combined into a
new indicator, Service, once they were compatible.
The second question was purposely an open
question so the interviewee could freely expressed their
opinion about the tool. From the 17 answers, four key
topics were referred and their arguments presented in
Table 6.
Table 6
Question 2 results.
Question 2: ‘What are your thoughts about the list of indicators?’
Topics Answers
Value of the tool ‘It is interesting and important work and a lot of
people have done things in the same are but not
so many specifically to do with the circular econo-
my, that is a really new idea.’
‘I think what you are presenting allows companies
and designers in particularly to start engaging in
the conversation about what is important and why
one products is potentially better than another’
‘It is a very simple tool’
Environmental
impact assess-
ment
One interviewee suggested the combine Eco
Indicator 99 with the tool and this approach was
asked to LCA experts interviewees ‘Yes I agree
and also a lot of people are familiar with this Eco
indicator 99 tool, because it has been around for
a long time’
Cost
The word ‘cost’ was referred by 3 interviewees
(18%) but with different opinions related in add-
ing to the tool:
- ‘You don’t have anything about cost but I don’t
think is an issue because you have other tools
for it. There is no need to invent any new cost
tool or cost methods, just find the one better in
the literature’;
- ‘Just because you can close the loop because
is technical possible doesn’t mean that anybody
will buy it!’
User Perspec-
tive
18% (3 interviewees) suggested the user per-
spective inside the tool, however they present
difficulty in how that approach could be imple-
mented, ‘(...) it is very difficult to measure and
depends on the consumer.’.
During the individual workshops some of the
indicators were rephrased once 90% (15 interviewees)
questioned the definition of the indicator number 1 and
all interviewees questioned the definition of the indicator
number 2.
5.1 Final Tool
After all the results were analyzed and inter-
preted, some of the indicators were rephrased, changed
in order and grouped into families (sub-indicators). To
facilitate the designer on completing the benchmarking
tool, questions were introduced for each indicator and
sub-indicators. The final list of indicators is presented in
Table 7.

13. 13
5.1.1 How to perform the waste benchmarking tool?
With the findings from the work of several
authors (Watson, 1993; Boks and Stevels, 2002; 2003;
Wimmer et al., 2004; Boks and Diehl, 2005) on how to
benchmark, it is proposed the way to carry out the waste
benchmarking tool (Fig. 5). This tool has two work-
sheets, the benchmarking matrix (Table B.1) and result
matrix (Table B.2).
Step 1: Select the products
Chose the products with similar functionality to be benchmark
Step 2: Benchmarking Matrix
Start by measuring the total weight (kg), total volume (mm3) and then disassemble each product.
Complet the Measure column, then Score column and finally Weight column (Fig. B.1)
Respond to the
questions for each
indicator/sub-indicator,
respecting the unit
measurement
Measure(M)
Compare the results
from measurement
column among the
same indicators/sub-
-indicator and score
from*:
0- not relevant
1- very bad
2- bad
3- average
4- good
5- very good
Score(S) Weight (W)
Distribute the
importance (%)
of each indicator
/sub-indicator
according to their
less impact
on waste
generation*
Step 3: Rank products
Using the equation Σ Pn= S1x W1+ S2 x W2+ Sn x Wn, the product with the highest results is ranked
as number 1, and so on. Being in number 1, means product is perfoming better on waste minimization
and supporting the Circular Economy than the other products.
Step 4: Results Matrix
Position for each product their score results in the results matrix (Fig. B.2)
Step 5: Identify opportunities
When analyzing each product performance among the indicators is possible to see potencial new
opportunities to improve the product. Aslo, to understand how one product is performing better than other
Continuity
*different perspectives/expertises
can help on making decitions
6. Tool evaluation
The final list of indicators was evaluated by
two members, with Ecodesign expertise, of the advice
panel of a Waste- Design company. During the evalua-
tion meeting the findings from Section 2, Section 4 and
Section 5 were presented for context purpose and the
final list of indicators was evaluated by answering four
key questions presented in Table 8.
Fig. 5. Waste benchmarking flowchart.

14. 14
UNIT DESCRIPTIONINDICATORSSUPPORTINGTHECIRCULARECONOMY
1 PHYSICAL PRODUCT LIFETIME
How long does the product physically last with-
out breaking?
Days/
Months/
Years
Measurement of the time a product is
performing its function until it brakes
2 COMPONENTS
How many components does the product have?
Number Measurement of the component parts
of the product (e.g. cables, accessories)
and components after performing the
product disassembly
2.1 What are their weight and percentage of the
total weight?
kg; %
3 PRODUCT DISSASSEMBLY
How long does it take to disassemble the
product?
Minutes/
Hours/
Days
Time required for dismantling the prod-
uct
3.1 Are special tools required for disassembling
the product?
Yes/No
Ease if disassembly and if specialist
equipment is required
3.2 What are the type of fasteners and joints
does the product have? Type;
number
Ease of disassembly: when products
have fixing snaps fits, clip and push fits
rather than permanent fixings such as
glues and metal clamps.
4 SCARCITY OF MATERIALS
Does the product use rare materials and if so
how many?
%;
Name
Amount of rare materials expressed in
percentage of the total weight of the
product (e.g. cobalt)
5 RATE OF REUSABILITY
How much of the product can be reused? %
Parts meant for reuse expressed in
percentage of the total weight of the
product (e.g. Valuable electronics)
6 RATE OF RECYCABILITY
How much of the product can be recycled? %
Materials intended for recycling ex-
pressed in percentage of the total weight
of the product
6.1 For how long can each material be recy-
cled?
Months/
Years
Period of time that the material intended
for recycling can be recycled.
7 HAZARDOUS WASTE GENERATED
How much hazardous waste is in the product?
%
Components contributing to hazardous
waste and landfill expressed in percent-
age of the total weight of the product
(e.g. mercury)
8 WASTE GENERATED
How much waste is generated from the prod-
uct?
%
Materials destined for landfill expressed
in percentage of the total weight of the
product (e.g. composite materials)
9 REMANUFACTURE
Has the product been designed for remanufac-
ture?
Yes/No
If the company has implemented any
service of remanufacturing the product
10 MINIMUM TIME FOR AVAILABILITY SPARE
PARTS
How long is the availability of products spare
parts?
Months/
Years
Period of time that the manufactured is
obliged to deliver spare parts.
11 MODULARITY
Is the product designed for modularity?
Yes/No
Yes, when designing products as series
of easily accessible blocks or modules.
12 REPARABILITY
Is the product designed to be repaired?
Yes/No
Yes, when product is designed to be
easily repaired
12.1 Is the company providing any information
about repair, upgrade or fixing the product?
Yes, when company gives free informa-
tion about their product on how to repair,
to upgrade and how to fix it.
13 UPGRADABILITY
Is the product capable of being upgraded?
Yes/No
Yes, when components are replaced for
new and better version to perform better
(e.g. computer memory) or to meet
fashion/trend
14 ADAPTABILITY
Is the product capable of being adapted to new
function?
Yes/No
Yes, when company uses their product
to have other function
15 SERVICE
Is the product accompanied by a service? Yes/No
Yes, when company has services linked
to product, such as, leasing, mainte-
nance and sharing.
Table 7
Final list of indicators

15. 15
(presented in Section 2), as they argued that it wasn’t
a customer requirement so no need to be in the project
scope. This argument is also defended by one of the in-
terviewees (LCA expert) during the individual workshop
when asked ‘Why don’t designers use Ecodesign tools?’;
he also suggested that perhaps just with strong law, de-
signers would start using them. However if the aim of this
survey was to understand the reasons for the lack of use
of Ecodesign tools, other methods should be used ins-
tead, for example the 5 whys method which helps to get
to the root of the problem.
As for the Ecodesign tools selected the reasons
given weren’t conclusive, as one refers to the tool being
‘practical and complete’ and other used due to ‘recom-
mendation by their employer’. What is relevant for the
research is the type of Ecodesign tool chosen; Eco-indi-
cator 99 being defended by one of the LCA expert inter-
viewed as ‘(…) a lot of people are familiar with it because
it has been around for a long time’ and Design Abacus
which allows the analysis of the performance of a product
against specific criteria’s and is therefore similar to a ben-
chmarking tool (Bhamra and Lofthouse, 2007). For this
reason the results matrix from the waste benchmarking
tool has a similar visual look.
In the second part of the survey, it was interesting
to realize that all the factors presented have been consi-
dered in the design process within the design community.
Even with different rates, and for different reasons this
suggests that these factors, also listed in the final tool,
are valuable in the design process therefore this familia-
rity can potentially help the designer to successfully com-
plete the waste benchmarking tool.
Even having a small representative sample of
the design community this survey has stressed that if
there is no need to used it then there is no will, there-
fore these tools aren’t considered mandatory during the
design process. However recently developed countries
are having a shift in economic thinking implementing the
Circular Economy thinking in their legislation (e.g. China).
This fact and the survey results emphases the importan-
ce and uniqueness of research motivation: the need for a
tool, which helps designer in the early stages of the pro-
duct development, redesign products by benchmarking
products waste performance and supporting the Circular
Economy.
The development of the tool started within the
tool design session (Section 4), when a list of 16 indica-
tors was created. The method of creating it was based
on findings from the literature review presented in Sec-
tion 2. This method permitted on the second session of
the methodology, in the tool evaluation session, to save
time when presenting to each of the 17 interviewees the
developed list and from the Four-Box tool results all of
them considered them in a scale of important to very im-
portant. Otherwise, the individual workshops would have
taken much more time and augmented by Robson (1993)
Table 8
Tool evaluation.
No. Questions
1 What benefits /value you see on benchmarking products
based on the final list of indicators?
- ‘It raises questions that companies probably where never been
asked for or never had considered before, so for that is really good’;
- ‘We recognize all indicators being interesting and important’
- ‘This tool can plant the initial seed in companies mind and motivate
them on these subjects and motivating companies is a big challenge.’
- ‘I think there is something about this qualitative and softer tool as
you have here, because you present a way to quantify products and
for Engineering design focus companies this can work very well’
2 Who will benefit from performing this benchmark tool based
on the final list of indicators?
‘This tool could be used with small and large companies, in the early
start of the company with different stakeholders: manufacturing,
sales, design, customers, suppliers and recycling organizations.’
3 How you would use it; in which context?
‘Doing a workshop and using this tool as part of a toolbox. This tool
could be used first as a start point for the conversation about these
subjects. Then combining with other tools to help on making deci-
sions (e.g. LCA tool). Also in a more practical side, every company
have their own focus so maybe it would be practical to down-select
from 15 indicators to 8 or 9 that are key for them.’
4 What improvements can you suggest?
‘Could be study on how this tool could be incorporated in the exist-
ing process of creating a product within a company.’
As conclusion the interviewees considered that
‘It is very useful Benchmarking in the very conceptual
phase of product development to arise different stakehol-
ders awareness to the Circular Economy indicators’.
7. Discussion and Conclusion
The goal of this research was to support the
creation of products with less waste impact using Circu-
lar Economy thinking. Given that designers have a sig-
nificant responsibility in the early stages of product de-
velopment, due to the fact that approximately 80% of a
product’s environmental impacts are determined at this
phase (Lagerstedt and Lindfors, 2003; Bhamra and Lof-
thouse, 2007; Lofthouse, 2007; EEA, 2009; EC, 2013),
this research describes the development of a new Ecode-
sign and strategic tool, which supports the designer role
for the Circular Economy.
The problem of the lack of use of Ecodesign
tools during the design process by the design community
was one of the key findings from Section 2. The survey
presented in Section 3 validated this finding by collec-
ting 71% of responses from a pool of 21 answers. The
reasons presented in the survey weren’t similar to the
reasons justified by Bovea & Pérez-Belis (2011) work,

16. 16
process. As pointed out by some interviewees this tool
is ‘(…) is a really new idea’ and ‘ (…) allows companies
and designers in particular to start engaging in the con-
versation about what is important and why one product
is potentially better than another’. Not only the design
community and companies can benefit from this tool, but
potentially academics and universities can used it on tea-
ching courses, specifically in courses such as, Design,
Strategic Business, Marketing and Environmental Engi-
neering. Also the designer is one of the many players in
the Circular Economy, perhaps this tool could be adapted
to other players, for example the Consumer/User player
by creating an benchmark rating tool along the lines of
‘WHICH?’ and educating the consumer (Which, 2013).
For future work the final tool should be tested in
a real scenario, where different expertises should follow
the steps in Fig. 5. Then, the identified new opportunities
should be tested with the combine tools suggested in the
results and tool evaluation sections, forming the ‘Toolbox’
suggested. Even knowing which tools combine better
with the benchmarking tool would need to be tested and
as well, how this ‘Toolbox’ could be successfully incorpo-
rated in the existing process of creating a product within
a company.
Acknowledgments
The work of this paper was supported by Cran-
field University and Peoples Lab’s Design organization.
‘(…) over a hour interview may be taking unreasonable
demands on busy interviewees (…)’, besides it would be
requiring too much of the interviewees when coming up
with indicators without guidelines. The big advantage of
using the individual workshops was that any opinion was
equally valid, so interviewees couldn’t be influenced by
dominant opinions.
When it comes to data analysis, there is no one
rule on the best way to analyse data (Robson, 1993).
Therefore it was chosen to use both quantitative and
qualitative approach because their complementary cha-
racteristics permit the collection and analysis of solid and
reliable results.
The results from the 17 individual workshops
enabled the list of indicators to be refined (Section 5) and
also validated the argument that there is no one perfect
tool with all the requirements presented in Section 2. Most
interviewees in the semi-structured session mentioned
combining the waste benchmarking tool with other tools,
such as, with an LCA tool (e.g. Eco-indicator 99), with a
user requirement tool (e.g. Functional Profile) and cost
tool. These suggestions are similar to Ecobenchmarking
tool developed by Phillips Consumer Electronics (Boks
and Stevels, 2002, 2003), being an evidence of applicabi-
lity of the suggestions once Philips has been doing since
the mid-1990s.
Having developed the final list of indicators, it
was evaluated by Ecodesign experts, from an advice pa-
nel of a Waste- Design company. They considered that
all indicators presented were important, as well all the
interviewees from the individual workshops. They argu-
ment that going more deep in each indicator would make
the tool more similar to a life-cycle assessment tool and
that would bringing more complexity when there is alrea-
dy available tools that can be combined with it. Also, they
have pointed out in question n.3, the value of combining
this tool with other tools, suggesting using a ‘toolbox’ to
help companies on making decisions. They proposed the
use of a LCA tool to validate the outcomes from this tool,
meeting one of the requirements suggested by Bovea &
Pérez-Belis (2011) and Ecobenchmarking from Phillips
Consumer Electronics (Boks and Stevels, 2002, 2003).
Although they consider important the designer role, they
also mentioned that other stakeholders like manufactu-
ring, sales, customers, suppliers and recycling organiza-
tions should also be engaged in completing this tool. This
fact was also suggested in the benchmarking flowchart
(Fig. 5). The most important value mentioned about the
tool, was the capability to arise awareness of Circular
Economy indicators into companies and motivate them
to change their traditional way of doing business.
Until this research there was not a tool that fo-
cused on indicators that support the designer role for the
Circular Economy thinking. As proved in the survey resul-
ts, the designers are familiar with most indicators howe-
ver not all have been equally considered in the design
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18. 18
Appendix A
Table A.1
Survey questions
1. What is your background?
2. How many years of experience do you have on that background?
3. Have you used Ecodesign tools when developing or redesigning a product? (Yes/No)
List of Ecodesign tools from Table 1
4. If not, please give 3 reasons. After, just answer question 7 and 8!
5. If yes, please select which Ecodesign tools have you used from Table 1?
6. Why you used that or those Ecodesign tools when developing or redesigning the product?
· Product Lifetime (Products physical lifetime)
· Modularity (Designing products as series of easily accessible blocks or modules)
· Reparability (Capability of being repair)
· Upgradability (Capability to upgrade the product capacity (e.g. Computer memory))
· Remanufactured (Possibility of being remanufactured)
· Use of recycled materials
· Reused materials
· Adaptability (When product is able to be adapt to have other function)
· Time of disassembly (Time required for dismantling the product)
· None
8. Explain why those factors

19. 19
Appendix B
Table B.1
Benchmarking Matrix

20. 20
Table B.2
Results Matrix