The European Union (EU) supports the circular economy (C E) through its “Green Deal” initiatives and “Eco-Design” directives and calls for prolonged product use and reuse through remanufacturing, emphasizing its substantial economic, environmental, and social benefits. Due to many risks associated with circular business strategies, business-to-customer (B2C ) manufacturers hesitate to adopt remanufacturing, a process that brings used products back to as-good-as-new performance yet prolongs the products’ lives. Consequently, many Swedish B2C industries still live in a linear economy and hide great remanufacturing potential that needs to be excavated and deployed to support the smoother transition to a circular economy.
Today remanufacturing is accepted by many OEMs in a business-to-business (B2B) market worldwide. The portion of EU remanufacturers in a B2C market remains low. In the EU and, in particular, Sweden, remanufacturing is limited to a few B2B industries like heavy vehicles, automotive, and IT and is often provided as an additional aftermarket service. Despite its benefits, remanufacturing is typically undervalued and under-recognized by Swedish B2C manufacturers and their customers. This hinders customers' access to a wide range of remanufactured products, diminishing their acceptance. Therefore, up to now, the Swedish B2C market was hiding great remanufacturing potential that needs to be excavated and deployed to support the smoother transition to a circular economy.
The goal of the project
The project “Remanufacturization” has an overall objective to accelerate the remanufacturization (shift to remanufacturing) of the Swedish B2C manufacturing sector. Therefore, the specific goals of the project are to:
- Facilitate the adoption of remanufacturing strategy by the Swedish B2C manufacturing industry.
- Mitigate B2C market risks associated with the shift to remanufacturing.
- Increase customers’ acceptance of remanufactured products within the B2C market.
- Support the development of the B2C remanufacturing ecosystem in Sweden.
The project consortium consists of two researchers at Linköping University and six initial B2C industrial partners with an interest to adopt and/or improve remanufacturing as a circular strategy for their consumer products.
