Circularity Isn’t a Sustainability Story. It’s a Business Model Reset.
Why the next growth opportunity in consumer technology may already be sitting in customers’ homes.
As I prepare for the European Innovation Summit, one of five flagship events within Bucharest Tech Week, bringing together more than 350 CEOs, C-suite executives, entrepreneurs, technology leaders, and innovation practitioners from leading organizations across Europe, my message to consumer technology companies is deliberately simple:
Don’t start your circularity strategy by asking whether a product can be recycled. Start by asking where value is being lost.
That may sound like a sustainability question. It isn’t. It’s a commercial one.
For years, circularity has been discussed through the lens of responsibility, compliance, and environmental impact. But some companies we work with are gaining new advantages because they are not asking us how to minimize waste. They are asking us how to retain value. Increasingly, these turn out to be the same question.
The Old Model is Broken
For the past three decades, many of our consumer technology clients have operated on a remarkably consistent formula: build a product, sell it, upgrade it, and replace it. Each innovation cycle delivered incremental improvements—better screens, faster processors, more sensors, greater connectivity, and lower material and production costs—and together, those increments produced extraordinary growth.
It also concentrated value into a single moment: the initial sale.
Once a product left the factory, most companies had limited visibility into, or influence over, what happened next. When it failed, components reached their end of life, became obsolete, or the product was replaced, much of its remaining economic value effectively disappeared from the system and became complex waste.
That model worked in a world of abundant materials, predictable supply chains, and relatively low replacement friction. But as we know, those conditions are changing…
The world generated a record 62 billion kilograms of electronic waste in 2022, according to figures highlighted by the World Economic Forum. Yet only 22% was formally collected and recycled through environmentally sound processes.
That statistic is often framed as a waste challenge. But at CDP, we work with our clients to elevate it into a value challenge. Every discarded device still contains materials, components, manufacturing effort, logistics investment, and embedded energy that we allow to exit the system. Why?
That statistic is often framed as a waste challenge. But at CDP, we work with our clients to elevate it to a value challenge. Every discarded device still contains materials, components, manufacturing effort, logistics investment and embedded energy that we allow to exit the system. Why?
A New Model for Value Retention
Circularity is often treated as a new concept, but in many ways it is a return to older economic logic.
There was a time when televisions, washing machines, and other appliances were routinely repaired, refurbished, and reused (Radio Rentals, for those who remember). Products were maintained because it made economic sense to do so. Value was recovered, not discarded.
As products became cheaper, more reliable, and easier to replace, ownership replaced recovery. Repair networks contracted, refurbishment ecosystems weakened, and disposal became the default end state.
For a period, that made sense—and now the underlying economics are shifting again.
Material security is becoming a strategic concern. Supply chain resilience and energy costs continue to influence manufacturing decisions. At the same time, regulation is beginning to move beyond recycling toward more responsible product lifecycles.
European ecodesign requirements for smartphones, feature phones, cordless phones, and tablets came into force in June 2025. The EU’s Right to Repair framework is also being implemented across member states. These are often positioned as compliance requirements, but they are better understood as market signals.
All of this is supported by the work of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which advocates for more responsible practices in the development of products and packaging, while also raising awareness across business sectors of the significant economic loss that occurs when circular systems design is not implemented.
They point toward a future where value retention is not optional; it is a competitive advantage for those that harness the economic potential of doing it well and scaling the model effectively.
Connected Doesn’t Mean Circular
One of the defining advantages of modern consumer technology is visibility. Connected devices, software platforms, sensors, and AI now allow companies to understand how products are performing in real time.
In theory, this creates an unprecedented opportunity: knowing where a product is, how it is being used, when it needs maintenance, and when it is approaching failure.
But the digital layer only supports circularity when it enables action—maintenance, repair, upgrade, authentication, return, refurbishment, resale, parts recovery, and material capture. In fact, a world of always-on, AI-enabled physical products acting autonomously at human direction could end up creating more unsustainable practices due to increasing energy consumption demands.
The objective of the consumer tech and healthcare projects we’re working on today is not product connectivity for its own sake. It is extending the useful, productive, and economic life of products for as long as possible, which requires a different design mindset from the outset.
Circular Design is Not a One-Size-Fits-All Solution
A common misconception is that circularity requires a single operating model applied universally across all products. In reality, the opposite is true.
Different product categories carry different economics. A premium smartphone behaves very differently from a low-cost accessory. A gaming controller has different failure modes from a wearable. A connected appliance sits somewhere else entirely.
Product-as-a-service may be powerful in some categories and unnecessary in others. Not every product should be “servitized,” and forcing that model can create friction rather than value.
Even simple products can be designed more intelligently. A kettle does not need to become a subscription service to benefit from circular thinking. It can be designed for easier repair, longer component life, and more efficient material recovery at end of use.
The first question we often ask is not “what is the circular model?” but “what is the right model for maximizing value retention?”
Which products contain enough residual value to justify refurbishment? Which fail due to predictable, replaceable components? Which become obsolete because of batteries, software, or modular constraints? Which should be harvested for parts? Which should move directly into material recovery?
These are not sustainability decisions. They are portfolio decisions, sitting at the intersection of engineering, design, and commercial strategy.
The Return Loops is Where Value is Won or Lost
Even the most elegantly designed circular product fails if it does not come back into the system effectively.
The return loop is where value is either preserved or destroyed.
Once products are returned, they must be identified, assessed, and routed quickly to their highest-value next use. Some will be refurbished and resold. Some will become warranty replacements or service stock. Some will be broken down for components. Others will move into material recovery streams.
Timing is critical. Slow return loops erode value as products sit idle, components age, visibility is lost, and economics deteriorate. Efficient return loops do the opposite: they preserve optionality, and optionality is where value lives.
The real challenge is not simply recovering products. It is making the right decisions about them quickly enough that value does not decay in the meantime.
Philips has shown that circularity scales when product design, operational capability, and commercial incentives align, turning returned products into new revenue streams and generating 24% of revenue from circular products and services in 2024.
Philips is not alone. Companies including Apple, Cisco, Dell Technologies, HP, Schneider Electric, and Michelin have all invested in circular business models built around repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, product take-back, and lifecycle extension. While the models differ by category, the principle remains the same: keeping products, components, and materials working at their highest value for longer, rather than relying solely on the next new sale.
The next generation of market leaders may not be the companies that sell the most products. They may be the companies that recover the most value from the products they’ve already sold.
The Next Competitive Advantage
For a long time, sustainability was treated as a cost center. Circularity is now beginning to look like something else entirely: a growth strategy.
The companies that lead the next phase of consumer technology will not simply be those with the strongest sustainability narratives. They will be the ones that identify where value is disappearing and redesign their products, services, and operations to keep that value in motion.
Sometimes that means repair. Sometimes upgrade. Sometimes refurbishment, resale, parts harvesting, or material recovery. The mechanism is less important than the outcome: keeping value circulating for longer. Because circularity is not really about recycling; it is about recovering value that would otherwise be lost.
At Cambridge Design Partnership, we see this challenge at the intersection of product design, software, systems engineering, service design, and business model innovation. The companies that succeed will not treat these disciplines separately.
They will integrate them.
And in doing so, they may discover that one of the biggest growth opportunities in consumer technology is not the next product they sell, but the value they have already created—and have yet to recover.