Michael Saidani

• PhD
• Postdoctoral Research Associate at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Abstract. The medical sector is lagging behind in adopting circular economy practices due to its heavily regulated operating environment. A lack of a framework for measuring circularity performance of large-scale medical equipment is one of the main challenges. To address this, a Circularity Model of Products & Spare Parts (CMPP) was developed by i...

Design for repairability is an important design practice to increase the useful life of consumer products and decrease environmental impact. Current design for repairability guidelines include general practices that can be applied to a range of products across industries. However, these guidelines lack device-specific insights. This work consists o...

Design for repairability is an important design practice to increase the useful life of consumer products and decrease environmental impact. Current design for repairability guidelines include general practices that can be applied to a range of products across industries. However, these guidelines lack device-specific insights. This research propos...

Space is facing significant sustainability issues such as space debris generation, light pollution, green-house gas emissions, and ozone layer depletion due to congestion of orbits, increase in rocket launches, and future mega constellations. Without including sustainability in the mission development framework, present and future space activities...

The study provides an inclusive research landscape of the thematic trends and evolution in the field of metrics in the circular economy (CE), and also outlines future perspectives in circularity metrics (C-metrics) by exploring the relevant literature over the period 2011-2023. This study aims to bring further clarity to the wide pool of available...

The medical sector is lagging behind in adopting circular economy practices due to its heavily regulated operating environment. A lack of a framework for measuring circularity performance of large-scale medical equipment is one of the main challenges. To address this, a Circularity Model of Products & Spare Parts (CMPP) was developed by integrating...

Transitioning from a linear economy to a circular economy (CE) in healthcare is essential for reducing human-induced environmental impacts and promoting sustainability. However, this shift is challenged by a lack of standardization in circular procedures. This article identifies key elements and challenges to implementing CE in complex industrial e...

Although the construction industry has the potential to implement circular economy (CE) principles, the sector suffers from a veritable lack of initiatives to develop circular and regenerative design principles. However, existing buildings intended to be demolished could be considered as material banks for future constructions, with the aim to expl...

Circular product design is widely acknowledged as a foundational step for enterprises to implement and establish viable circular business models. To support this objective, it is vital for industrial enterprises to have an easy-to-apply practical design toolkit that can facilitate the assessment and enhancement of product circularity performance. T...

While products get more challenging to repair, the right-to-repair movement aims to empower consumers in their ability to “use, modify, and repair” a device “whenever, wherever, and however” they want. Here, the best design practices and remaining challenges of three industrial sectors – namely, consumer electronics, biomedical devices, and clothin...

Sharing information between stakeholders is a critical success factor for ecodesign projects. This sharing is based on indicators that can be interrelated, i.e., impacting each other. This article focuses on the perception of environmental performance indicators’ relationships during the design phase of projects. It uses a DEMATEL approach combined...

To help industries in their sustainable and circular transition from internal combustion engine production to electric motor production, the deployment of (i) a sound environmental impact assessment methodology, such as life cycle analysis, coupled with (ii) Design for Re-X tools, such as circularity indicators, is instrumental. To demonstrate the...

The usage and impact of deep learning for cleaner production and sustainability purposes remain little explored. This work shows how deep learning can be harnessed to increase sustainability in production and product usage. Specifically, we utilize deep learning-based computer vision to determine the wear states of products. The resulting insights...

Recent studies have advocated that digital technologies (DTs) positively affect the transition of a linear economy model to a circular economy (CE) model and facilitate enterprises in implementing circular strategies. Despite this general statement, the literature still overlooks how enterprises should apply various DTs of Industry 4.0 across the e...

У навчальному посібнику викладено теоретичні положення та методичні основи циркулярної економіки як альтернативи лінійній моделі. Зокрема, висвітлено зміст сучасної концепції нової моделі в контексті ієрархії ключових стратегій, наведено загальну характеристику наукових шкіл, викладено основні методи вимірювання прогресу циркулярної економіки, окре...

The current enthusiasm for the circular economy (CE) offers a unique opportunity to advance the impact of research on sustainability transitions. Diverse interpretations of CE by scholars, however, produce partly opposing assessments of its potential benefits, which can hinder progress. Here, we synthesize policy-relevant lessons and research direc...

The operationalization of circular economy (CE) strategies requires consumer involvement in the acquisition, use, and disposal of products and services. However, encouraging sustainable consumption patterns and CE-oriented consumer behavior to enable the CE in practice is complex and in its infancy stage. This study aims to clarify, frame, and meas...

Critical literature review coupled with conceptual analysis provides a holistic framework for measuring a product's circularity performance based on its integrated contribution to the operationalization of various configurations of circular economy (CE) strategies. The following main results were obtained. First, we outline the "Сlosing-Slowing and...

The concept of circular economy consists of a wide range of strategies that aim to reduce the environmental impact of production systems and consumption patterns through increased circularity of resources. Circularity is mostly associated with material efficiency strategies that either close, slow or narrow loops, and a multitude of circularity met...

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a standardized methodology to quantify the environmental footprint of products, processes, and systems. While LCA is an internationally accepted tool to highlight environmental hotspots, it lacks in providing concrete guidance to practitioners (e.g., product designers, material engineers, industrial managers) to reduc...

Deploying the right circularity indicators (c-indicators) is key to assessing and improving the performance of products, companies, and regions from a circular economy (CE) perspective. Building on the initial taxonomy of c-indicators, this project extends the identification of sets of c-indicators to more than 100. Working with a think tank of CE...

Considering the growing number of metrics and indicators to assess the circular economy transition, it is paramount to shed light on how they complement and differ from traditional approaches, such as life cycle assessment or sustainability performance indicators. This study provides new empirical insights on the correlation between life cycle asse...

Circular economy (CE) and sustainable development are not systematically synonyms and some trade-offs might occur between circularity and sustainability. This study addresses the nexus—i.e., the potential concurrence, complementarity, or conflict—between circularity and sustainability indicators to develop and monitor more circular and sustainable...

The purpose of this Special Issue is to publish research articles dedicated to finding the role of circular product design for sustainable development. Special (but not exclusive) focus is put on the following topics:  Integration of circular economy (CE) principles within product design and development (PDD) processes;  Positioning of CE-relat...

Online product reviews are a valuable resource for product developers to improve the design of their products. Yet, the potential value of customer feedback to improve the sustainability performance of products is still to be exploited. The present paper investigates and analyzes Amazon product reviews to bring new light on the following question:...

The increasing number of product reviews posted online is a gold mine for designers to know better about the products they develop, by capturing the voice of customers, and to improve these products accordingly. In the meantime, product design and development have an essential role in creating a more sustainable future. With the recent advance of a...

Public awareness and relevant consumer behaviors are crucial in accelerating the transition to a circular economy (CE) model. This paper focused on exploring university activities for changing awareness and behaviors according to the principles of its new circular model to foster sustainable development. In this paper, a comprehensive literature re...

While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to many disruptions in industrial value chains, the adoption of circular economy (CE) principles appears to be a commendable solution for more robust, resilient, and sustainable industrial supply chains. In this study, the standpoints and visions of two consecutive classes of engineering students – following the...

Achieving environmental sustainability and transition from a linear economy to a circular economy (CE) highly relies on effective waste management (WM) and how waste is treated as a potential future resource. This research aims to provide an inclusive map of the scientific background of WM in the CE context over the last two decades from 2001 to 20...

Monitoring the circularity potential of products and materials is key to ensure environmental savings and economic profitability of circular economy loops, such as reuse, remanufacturing, or recycling. The choices and decisions made during the product design phase have a major influence and impact on the circularity performance of products. While n...

The increasing number of product reviews posted online is a gold mine for designers to know better about the products they develop, by capturing the voice of customers, and to improve these products accordingly. In the meantime, product design and development have an essential role in creating a more sustainable future. With the recent advance of a...

Online product reviews are a valuable resource for product developers to improve the design of their products. Yet, the potential value of customer feedback to improve the sustainability performance of products is still to be exploited. The present paper investigates and analyzes Amazon product reviews to bring new light on the following question:...

The formalization of environmental issues has gained prominence since the definition of sustainable development by the Brundtland's report. Environmental performance has then been introduced to qualify the “green” contribution of an organization to its surrounding environment. However, its multi-dimensional aspects can be problematic when designing...

Considering a growing number of metrics and indicators to assess circular economy, it is of paramount importance to shed light on how they differ from traditional approaches, such as life cycle assessment (LCA) or sustainability performance indicators. This study provides new empirical insights on the correlation between LCA, circularity, and susta...

The current enthusiasm for circular economy (CE) offers a unique opportunity to advance the impact of research on sustainability transitions. Diverse interpretations of CE by scholars, however, produce partly opposing assessments of its potential benefits, which can hinder progress. Here, we synthesize policy-relevant lessons and research direction...

Providing sufficient testing capacities and accurate results in a time-efficient way are essential to prevent the spread and lower the curve of a health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with recent research investigating how simulation-based models and tools could contribute to mitigating the impact of COVID-19, a discrete event simul...

Purpose Gasoline-powered lawn mowers and garden equipment are emitting 30 million tons of pollutants yearly in the USA, accounting for a quarter of all non-road gasoline emissions. While the US market is dominated by gasoline-powered lawn mowers, this study offers an assessment of the environmental implication and cost of electrifying the lawn mowe...

Due to recent technological advancements, automation and autonomous solutions are gaining increasing popularity. Yet, a lack of in-depth investigations is noticed on the potential environmental benefits and economic repercussions of implementing autonomous systems. The present study aims to fill part of this gap by quantifying the environmental and...

With the rapid development of new technology and the growing global competition in industry, it is essential for companies to protect their sensitive product designs and technologies. To ensure that their systems are not exploited by potential patent infringers, original equipment manufacturers often apply physical attributes and/or reduce commonal...

Summary statement: The present COVID-19 brief report addresses: (1) the problem of optimal design and resource allocation to mobile testing stations to ensure rapid results to the persons getting tested; (2) the proposed solution through a newly developed discrete event simulation model, experienced in on-campus saliva-based testing stations at th...

Efficient electronic waste (e-waste) management is one of the vital strategies to save materials, including critical minerals and precious metals with limited global reserves. The e-waste collection issue has gained increasing attention in recent years, especially in developing countries, due to low collection rates. This study aims to search for p...

Implementing circular economy (CE) practices can lead to both environmental savings and competitive advantages for companies. While transitioning from a linear production system to a closed-loop system is not straightforward, adequate methodology and tools can support industrialists in this sustainable shift. This paper proposes a multi-tool approa...

The recent development in technology has made bio-based plastics an increasingly attractive alternative to petroleum-based plastics to tackle plastic pollution. However, currently, bio-based plastics have not been widely adopted in the design and manufacturing of new products. To advocate the use of bio-based plastics, this paper proposes two visua...

With the rapid development of new technology and the growing global competition in industry, it is essential for companies to protect their sensitive product designs and technologies. To ensure that their systems are not exploited by third-party competitors or remanufacturers, original equipment manufacturers often apply physical attributes and/or...

Sustainable design methods and tools abound, but their implementation in practice remains marginal. This article brings together results from previous literature reviews and analyses of sustainable design methods and tools, as well as input from design researchers and professional practitioners to identify the needs and gaps in the area. It results...

While autonomous machines are considered as a new opportunity to augment safety, reliability, productivity, and efficiency, the actual environmental and economic sustainability performances of many autonomous systems remain yet to be quantified. The present research aims to fill part of this gap by evaluating the life cycle impact and cost of auton...

Combining new insights from both bibliometric and text mining analyses, with prior relevant research conversations on circular economy (CE) and industrial ecology (IE), this paper aims to clarify the recent development trends and relations between these concepts, including their representations and applications. On this basis, discussions are made...

Autonomous systems - such as self-driven tractors, cars, autonomous lawnmowers, or vacuum cleaner - seem to become increasingly attractive and operationally efficient. Yet, the environmental, economic, and social impacts of implementing autonomous solutions, as a substitution to conventional human-operated ones, still need to be quantitatively inve...

Combining new insights from both bibliometric and text mining analyses, with prior relevant research conversations on circular economy (CE) and industrial ecology (IE), this paper aims to clarify the recent development trends and relations between these concepts, including their representations and applications. On this basis, discussions are made...

This paper investigates and questions the relevance of product-centric circularity indicators in a product design context. To do so, reviews of eco-design tools and critical analyses of circularity indicators at the micro level of circular economy implementation are combined with a new workshop experimenting four of these indicators with the aim to...

To date, a limited number of in-depth case studies addressing the end-of-life management of heavy vehicles has been reported in the scientific literature. An action research approach is conducted in collaboration with an emerging international remanufacturing center of heavy handling machines to bring a contribution to this gap in a circular econom...

Feature of the article "Closing the loop on platinum from catalytic converters: Contributions from material flow analysis and circularity indicators" (Journal of Industrial Ecology, 23(5), 1143-1158) in Science for Environment Policy, European Commission DG Environment News Alert Service.

Around 40% of the platinum used in EU catalytic converters is not recovered for recycling and is therefore ‘lost’ forever, indicates a new study. A more circular economy for platinum is essential to reduce imports of this critical raw material to the EU and minimise its damaging effects on the environment, the researchers argue. Better collection s...

In response to the growing development of a wide variety of circularity indicators (c-indicators), a taxonomy has been developed to gain clarity about their focuses, purposes and possible usages (e.g., benchmarking several circular economy business models, comparing two product designs on their potential circularity performance). The advisor linked...

The purpose of this paper is to develop and discuss a framework aiming at monitoring and optimizing the circularity performance of products for ensuring and facilitating green profit design trade-offs whilst meeting or anticipating end-of-life regulations during the design and development process of industrial products. The proposed framework is us...

Monitoring properly the circularity performance of technical products is a point of increasing importance. Yet, evaluating the circularity potential of products during (re)design and development phases is a challenging task. In this study, several C-indicators are experienced by doctoral students and industrialists through two workshops on a real-w...

In a context of transition towards a more circular economy (CE), this study undertakes an analysis of the appropriate transfers and applications of best managerial practices, regulations, and know-how from the automotive sector to the heavy vehicle one, as well as from the European Union (EU) to the United States of America (U.S.), and vice versa....

This supporting information provides details of the model design, simulation, and feedback from technical experts on the leakage of platinum during the use phase of catalytic converters.

In this study, material flow analysis (MFA) is applied to quantify and reduce the obstacles for advancing a circular economy (CE) of platinum (Pt) from catalytic converters (CC) in Europe. First, the value chain and related stakeholders are mapped out in an MFA‐like model to both facilitate the assessment of stocks and flows, and get a comprehensiv...

https://sciencetrends.com/measuring-the-circular-economys-performance/

Être capable de mesurer, améliorer et piloter la performance de circularité des produits industriels est d’importance capitale dans une période de transition vers des pratiques industrielles plus circulaires, en phase avec les objectifs du développement durable. Toutefois, sans définition stabilisée de l’économie circulaire, le nombre d’indicateurs...

Implementing circular economy (CE) principles is increasingly recommended as a convenient solution to meet the goals of sustainable development. New tools are required to support practitioners, decision-makers and policy-makers towards more CE practices, as well as to monitor the effects of CE adoption. Worldwide, academics, industrialists and poli...

Implementing circular economy (CE) principles is increasingly recommended as a convenient solution to meet the goals of sustainable development. New tools are required to support practitioners, decision-makers and policy-makers towards more CE practices, as well as to monitor the effects of CE adoption. Worldwide, academics, industrialists and poli...

Cette thèse fournit des clés pour mesurer, améliorer et piloter la performance de circularité de produits industriels à différentes échelles d’implémentation de l’économie circulaire (micro, meso, macro). Plusieurs indicateurs de circularité y sont expérimentés au travers d’un cas d’étude industriel et une analyse critique de ces indicateurs est ef...

Implementing circular economy practices is increasingly acknowledged as a convenient solution to meet the goals of sustainable development. Meanwhile, there is at present no recognized way of measuring how effectively a region or a company is in making the transition to a circular economy, nor holistic monitoring tools for supporting such a process...

Asteroid mining has been proposed as an approach to complement Earth-based supplies of rare earth metals and supplying resources in space, such as water. Existing research on asteroid mining has mainly looked into its economic viability, technological feasibility, cartography of asteroids, and legal aspects. More recently, potential environmental b...

Over 50 sets of circularity indicators – created and used by academia, consulting companies and governmental agencies worldwide – have been reviewed and classified into a need-based taxonomy driven by the usage of such indicators. A query tool associated to the proposed taxonomy databank – using MS Excel with macros – has been designed to help iden...

With 270 million light vehicles and 20 million heavy-duty and off-road (HDOR) vehicles in use in the European Union, automotive and HDOR industries are two major sectors in the European economy. Each year, 12 million light vehicles plus 1 million HDOR vehicles reach their end-of-life. In a context of circular economy, following questions are of gro...

Automobile ownership worldwide has exceeded 1 billion since 2010, and the U.S. plus the EU account for 50% of this total (Sakai et al. 2014). According to Wilson (2017), CEO of the U.S. Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA): “Different countries are on different parts of the path related to end-of-life management of vehicles. By looking at how oth...

The purpose of this document is to explain the eco-design approach performed on the industrial field at Liebherr Machines Bulle. All contributions and deliverables for the company are introduced and linked to each other. Indeed, from the industrial diagnosis to the eco-design workshop for environmental improvements through the LCA of the SCR Filter...

Industrial practitioners are increasingly willing to shift their products and businesses into more circular models. Circular economy paradigm requires optimization of system rather than components. Yet, existing methods and tools, intended to designers, engineers or managers, to assess and improve products' circularity potential are both lacking sy...

Integrated Product Development (IPD) is comprehensively discussed in literature. The human-centered approach offers a parallelized set of work activities in interdisciplinary teams. Due to the rapid globalization of IPD activities in the companies, project members are often obliged to work remotely in teams and through virtual means of communicatio...

The issue of recovering platinum from catalytic converter of heavy vehicles, arises for economic (high valuable component due to the non-negligible presence of platinum that costs around 30 €/g), environmental (low platinum concentration in mines (below 10 g/t) required large consumption of energy), social (ore mining conditions are increasingly dr...

Il est souvent difficile de réunir les différentes parties prenantes et experts impliqués dans la conception, le développement ou sur l’ensemble des phases du cycle de vie de l’un de vos systèmes (produits ou services) dans le but d’en améliorer la performance environnementale. En effet, les rassembler autour d’une table pendant plusieurs heures ou...

Vous avez entrepris ou allez entreprendre une démarche d’éco-innovation et vous souhaitez vous assurer, non seulement, de la supervision en interne des projets éco-innovants retenus, mais aussi, de la valorisation en externe. L’emploi d’indicateurs de performance environnementale clés (IPEC) est une solution simple, efficace et reconnue pour attein...

Assessing product circularity performance is not straightforward. Meanwhile, it gains increasingly importance for businesses and industrial practitioners who are willing to effectively take benefits from circular economy promises. Thus, providing methods and tools to evaluate then enhance product performance—in the light of circular economy—becomes...

Industrial companies increasingly want to eco-innovate in their project but have to deal with strict constraints in time and resources. Thus, a time-efficient eco-innovation workshop process for complex system industries is proposed. From the selection of a relevant multidisciplinary working group (before the workshop) to the follow-up of environme...