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The core of our sustainability opportunity depends on the decisions we make, and each decision is guided by core values. It is critical that we as a society shift towards a more sustainable way of living if we value our survival, and in order to do so, tools have been developed to help facilitate this transition. This paper explores whether values are considered in current Circular Economy (CE) tools, and goes on to corroborate theoretical findings with companies. Values can help address both rational and emotional fears, and a tool must also for it to be practical and useful. To do so, the paper looks at value and values, explores benefits of value management, and analyzes CE tools. Research is corroborated using discussions with companies. The resulting conclusion is that these tools do not includes values, and that it may prove beneficial to include values management when designing CE and sustainability tools. This is work was carried out as part of the EU project on Circular Economy called CIRC€UIT, for one of 15 PhD positions examining the practical sides of this sustainability strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When designing and developing manufacturing systems, many aspects need to be considered. Typically, the manufacturing design objectives are specified to achieve certain operational requirements around quality, capacity, cost etc. They are also specified with the intention to ensure efficient processes related to manufacturing, such as maintenance, logistics, not to mention the main process of manufacturing the actual part. This study proposes that a wider company perspective should be considered during manufacturing system design, to achieve a greater business value. The manufacturing system should be designed to create value to other core business processes, such as product development, marketing, sales and services. This paper also presents examples on value perspectives to consider and how this approach can be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A trend among industrial companies is to change business strategies from hardware-oriented to more service-oriented solutions, e.g. functional product business models. In this paper, a mobility function scenario is developed and the objective is to derive a simulation-driven methodology for development of sustainable mobility functions. It can be concluded that mobility function solutions may create incitements for sustainability. When developing mobility functions, a lot of new requirements, brought about by increased product complexity, need to be managed by the simulation methodology. However, the proposed simulation strategy can be used to drive mobility function development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]