The Circular Economy: benefits and challenges for a business

Veronika Trifonova

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

This bachelor thesis is aimed at exploring what the Circular Economy is and how does a circular business benefit from applying its principles and what challenges it faces in today's economic conditions.The literature review gave a broad understanding of the Circular Economy framework: its origin, schools of thought it includes, what are the Circular Economy principles and building blocks, as well as potential benefits and challenges for circular businesses.After reviewing literature on the topic, six in-depth interviews with people conducting circular businesses in different countries and various industries had been performed and the results were compared with the theoretical findings.Most of the literature review's findings were supported by the outcomes of the interviews and a few new things were found: a benefit of being more attractive to customers and a challenge of not being able to properly communicate why a company is producing a circular product and what is good about that, therefore failing to make customers interested in and supportive of its offerings.

Keywords

business, new business model, material efficiency, resource efficiency, circular economy

Jazyk práce: English

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 13. 3. 2017

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Vedúci: Ing. Richard Selby, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Economics and Management

Bachelor programme / odbor:
Economics Policy and Administration / Business Administration