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The circular economy (CE) is essential for decoupling economic growth from resource consumption and environmental impacts. However, effective implementation requires a systemic change across supply chains, involving both technological and nontechnological innovations. Frameworks are beginning to emerge to foster CE thinking in organizations. However, literature review carried out as part of this research has revealed gaps in their ability to fulfil CE requirements. Furthermore, few frameworks provide support on how CE requirements may be implemented. To address these issues, this article presents a new framework, BECE (backcasting and eco-design for the circular economy), to ensure that businesses can implement CE requirements more readily. BECE empowers organizations to tackle the CE holistically by embedding the concept into corporate decision making and by bringing operational and systems thinking together, thus increasing the likelihood of successful implementation. The potential of the BECE framework was tested through a pilot workshop focusing on the development of a CE business model through redesign of products and supply chains. Using vacuum cleaners as an illustrative case study, several product design and supply-chain alternatives were identified, including the development of scenarios and action plans for their implementation at the business level. Although the case study focuses on a particular product, the BECE framework is generic and applicable across different products and business sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental characterization of the charging infrastructure required to operate electric vehicles (EVs) is usually overlooked in the literature. Only rudimentary life cycle inventories of EV charging facilities are available. This lack of information is especially noticeable in environmental studies of the environmental performance of electric two-wheelers (E2Ws), none of which have included an analysis of charging facilities, even though they constitute the most successful electric-drive market in the world. This article focuses on characterizing the life cycle of the global warming potential (GWP) and primary energy demand (PED) of two conventional charging facility designs that are widely implemented for charging E2Ws in public spaces. The relative environmental relevance of charging facilities per kilowatt-hour (kWh) supplied to E2Ws is determined by considering a range of use scenarios (variability in the service ratio) and the effect of upgrading the electricity mix to include more renewable energy sources. Savings of over 3 metric tons (tonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions and 56 equivalent gigajoules can be achieved by implementing an optimized charging facility design. The internalization of the relative environmental burden from the charging facility per kWh supplied to E2Ws can increase the GWP of E2Ws' use phase from 1% to 20% and the PED from 1% to 13%. Although the article focuses on one particular case scenario, the research is intended to provide complementary criteria for further research on the life cycle management of electric mobility systems. Thus, a series of factors that can influence the environmental performance of EV charging networks at the macro scale are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]