Type:
Seminar
Audience:
PhD, Alumni, Corporate Partners, Researchers

Closing the Loop in Retail: Making Circular Solutions Work in Practice

CFR Early Insight breakfast series #42

Incoming EU regulations are requiring the retail industry to transition toward more circular business models, such as encouraging consumers to use products for longer, embracing reuse, and ensuring reusable packaging. This endeavor is complex, as circular solutions only work if consumers adopt them, viable business models can be created around them, and infrastructure is available to support them.

Drawing on insights from academic research on the circular economy, Christoph Baldauf, Aylin Çakanlar, and Maja Fors will discuss both the opportunities and challenges associated with circular retail solutions. They will also share insights from an ongoing research project in collaboration with Swedish retailers and logistics providers. Using examples from grocery, e-commerce, and other retail settings, they will highlight key barriers to circularity and explore practical solutions retailers can use when designing and implementing circular practices.

By invitation only, please contact karl.strelis@hhs.se 

 

Summary

1) Customer participation is essential. Although open to the idea of reusable packaging, many customers do not understand that their participation is necessary to achieve the return rates and reuse cycles required for economic and environmental viability.

2) Circular packaging requires a coordinated system. A central coordinating actor and stronger legislation could support industry-wide adoption and drive investment in the necessary infrastructure and packaging tracking.

3) Sustained initiatives and shared learning are essential. Scaling reusable packaging requires targeted action such as focusing on orders likely to involve product returns or in-store pickups.


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Speaker Bios

Maja Fors is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Retailing. Her research investigates how firm-initiated sustainability initiatives influence consumers.

Christoph Baldauf is an Assistant Professor of Marketing Analytics at the Center for Retailing. His research focuses on how logistics and operations impact customer behavior in online and omnichannel retail. 

Aylin Çakanlar is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Center for Retailing. Her research focuses on understanding how social context and different types of consumer identities influence engagement in sustainable behavior.

 

About CFR Early Insight

Center for Retailing (CFR) at the Stockholm School of Economics sets out to bring the best of science to the world of retailing. To achieve this, our research should offer novel insights into contemporary challenges in retail management.

Early Insights is a seminar series through which CFR faculty members share insights from ongoing research projects. The series provides a platform for employees at our partner companies to meet and discuss current challenges in retailing.

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