Towards Circular Bicycle Development: Introducing a tool for progression towards a circular bicycle development process

Accell Group is the European market leader in e-bikes and the European number two player in bicycle parts and accessories. Well- known bicycle brands in their portfolio include Babboe, Batavus, Ghost, Haibike, Koga, Lapierre, Raleigh, Sparta and Winora. Since Accell has decided to give sustainability a higher priority, there is a need to integrate sustainability in the product design process (also referred to as PDP). In the analysis phase of the project, the context, sustainable progression and product development process were analyzed. Insights from sustainable progression were that currently no strategy for sustainable progression exists, and biggest opportunities for lowering impact on the environment were in the use of recovered materials, and better end-of-use processing. Next, the product development process and its users were analyzed. Although designers are motivated to make design choices of influence to the sustainability of the bicycle and / or production process, the culture in Accell currently not actively encourages such choices in design as costs and speed of execution have a higher priority. To validate such choices in design, it should be quantified enabling it’s integration in bicycle requirement documents. These insights resulted in the choice of the circular economy as main approach in the project. It provides a clear vision (zero impact on the environment) and includes strategies that combine financial and sustainable demands. Furthermore, circular methodologies are being developed that enable to assess progression. In the circular exploration phase, the perspective of the circular economy is used to analyse the current bicycle lifecycle (from production to end-of-use) to spot opportunities for improvement. Various circular economy assessment methodologies are tested through application on Accell Group. Insights gathered from this phase were translated into requirements for the development of the circular tool. The methodologies, strategies and guidelines were discussed, validated and tested during the exploring phase on several project teams, and feasability also discussed with new business development and supply chain. Insights gained from these interactions were implemented in the development of the circular tool. In the development phase a circular tool was designed, using insights from the circular exploration. The tool functions a circular conversation facilitator, and simultaneously as a indicator for circular progression of a bicycle development project. Therefore, it can communicate the circular value of a project between project teams, I&T department and managements, enabling to set goals and work towards them. The score achieved in a project is linked to assessments created on a system, design and component level, using indicators such as (dis)assembly time, percentage of recovered materials, use of toxic materials and established recovery players in a project. Furthermore, it includes guidelines on these same levels to help thinking in circular loops, create circular business models, choose green materials and circular plastics, design for disassembly and finally select sustainable suppliers. Circular indicators were created to include in the documents used in the product development process, with the goal of gathering information about materials and components from suppliers. Finally, moments of using the tool were established for integration in the product development process. In the validation phase, the final Accell circular tool is tested on the a public transport tender. Finally, communication of the tool during the project is summarized, and recommendations for further activation within Accell are givenStrategic Product Desig