Defining and identifying strongly sustainable product-service systems (SSPSS).

Product-Service Systems (PSS) are widely recognised as promising models for increasing circularity and sustainability in business, but the extent to which they contribute to sustainability is still debated. While growing and insightful, the literature on PSS sustainability fails to cover all the relevant aspects and to take stock of the ways PSS can be conceptualised as contributing to strong sustainability. We contend that if PSS are to be designed to be strongly sustainable, clear guidance is needed based on both clear normative premises and sound empirical knowledge. Based on systematic and non-systematic literature reviews on the drivers of PSS (un)sustainability and a long-course field work on the development of PSS in Brussels (Belgium), the paper identifies important sustainability challenges that PSS frequently face and that PSS initiatives should address. These challenges are articulated with insights from the sustainable business models literature and anchored in a strong sustainability pre-analytical stance. An original analytical framework based on 5 dimensions (access, substitution, systemic dematerialisation, territorial anchoring and sufficiency) and 15 criteria of Strongly Sustainable Product-Service System (SSPSS) is proposed. • Product-Service Systems (PSS) still need guidance to be developed in a transformative way towards sustainability. • PSS sustainability is appraised in relation to ecological economics, strong sustainability and sustainable business models. • Identification of what makes PSS strongly sustainable is performed through literature reviews and in-depth field work. • Criteria and relevant questions along five dimensions characterise "Strongly Sustainable Product-Service Systems" (SSPSS). • A definition for SSPSS is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]