Design thinking is an innovation approach for organisations aiming to solve complex and open-ended problems, including those arising in the transition from a linear to a circular economic system. Although the importance has been recognised in business and academia, to date, insight is lacking on how design thinking can be applied within circular innovation specifically. We investigate the following research question: How can design thinking tools catalyse sustainable circular innovation? Based on the literature, we first create a framework that characterises design thinking principles, criteria and phases that could support circular innovation. The design thinking phases are ideate and design, implement and test, and evaluate and improve. The criteria include desirability, feasibility, viability and sustainability, and circularity. Finally, we identify the following principles that make design thinking suitable to tackle complex circular innovation challenges: human-centred, future-oriented, holistic, co-creative, and experimental. Consequently, against this framework, we map 11 tools that are suitable to catalyse circular innovation theory into practice through design thinking. Finally, we reflect on the future of research and practice around this subject.

In the past decades, industrial design practice and research have focused extensively on how to optimize production and consumption, as a way to prevent negative environmental impacts, such as resource depletion, pollution, and excessive waste. Recently, the “circular economy” concept is increasingly used to achieve environmental benefits and economic growth simultaneously. Industrial design can contribute to a circular economy by fostering systems changes to achieve durability, optimal reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and recycling of products and materials. Indeed, researchers have examined both the theoretical and practical aspects of how design knowledge can support the transition to a circular economy. However, this body of knowledge has not been systematically analyzed yet. To address this critical gap, this paper poses the following question: How has industrial design research so far contributed to advancing the circular economy knowledge? Accordingly, we survey relevant design literature focusing on the circular economy, through a review of contributions published in 42 scientific journals. Based on our results, we discuss how industrial design practices can potentially contribute to a circular economy across four thematic areas: (1) design for circular production processes, (2) design for circular consumption, (3) design to support policy towards the circular economy, and (4) design education for the circular economy.

The intensification of industrial activity within an unsustainable development paradigm caused an alarming environmental crisis intertwined with societal problems on a global scale. Sustainable design theory contains an extensive body of knowledge on how these environmental and societal issues can be addressed by rethinking industrial products, processes and, more broadly, how organizations operate in the context of a more sustainable socio-economic system. Nevertheless, evidence shows that implementing these ideas is a problematic yet under addressed aspect, resulting in a gap between abstract speculations and concrete action. In this study, we focus on this critical gap by looking at how existing theory of sustainable design is implemented in business practice. To this end, we conduct a literature review followed by interviews with twenty international experts, to uncover their knowledge related to relevant project experiences. The outcome is a framework that integrates existing sustainable design theory with important business concepts, clustering it into four literature streams:ecodesign, product service system design, sustainable business model design and collaborative ecosystem design. These streams correspond to four levels of design for sustainable innovation. The framework also encompasses a set of themes related to the implementation of sustainable design theory in business practice across the aforementioned four levels. Based on this, we outline our contributions to theory and practice, and pinpoint recommendations for academic researchers, industrial designers and business managers who want to leverage their professional position to play an active role in the transition toward sustainable development.