New strategies for the refrigerator in the transition towards a circular economy

In the last decade, the values of the traditional economy have been strongly challenged, considering the concept of development of the last century as the leading cause of many environmental issues we are facing today. Recently, new strategies have been introduced to provide a renewed concept of development, to achieve a transition towards a circular economy such as the development of new revenue models, the importance of intangible value, the merging of products and services as opposed to the strategies of the linear economy. This study carried out a case study on the refrigerator in order to assess which strategies can bring this traditional home appliance towards a circular economy. It has been evaluated every step of its life cycle hypothesising some strategies, following the R-list edited by PBL (Potting et al., 2017) and eventually discussing the need for more strategies on the usage phase and a greater focus on the user as an active part of this necessary change.