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Centre of Expertise Mission Zero

Research Group Circular Business

The Circular Business research group develops and provides business modeling tools that capture multiple value creation. The group thereby focuses on eco system circularity; (cross-sectoral) collaboration within and beyond value chains is needed to close the loop.

Annual report 2020 (pdf)
About the research group

Welcome to the Circular Business Research Group

Team

drs. Bas van den Berg

Wander Colenbrander

Albert Kraaij

Rachel Kuijlenburg

Frans Lodders

Laura Stevens

Thomas Wissingh

Jochem Vreeke

Elise van der Laan

Mark Li Fo Sjoe

Vikaash Koeldiep

drs. Bas van den Berg

Within The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Bas helps to connect the sustainability-focused research of Mission Zero with various degree programmes. He assists with the redesign of the business games (BFM), he has led the design of The Challenge (IT&D) and he coordinates the Mission Impact (TIS) minor. Bas is always willing to discuss sustainable educational innovation or opportunities to collaborate with Mission Zero within a curriculum. His international background runs across disciplines. He was initially trained as a chemical technologist, he has worked as a technical business expert, and has a master's degree in innovation studies. Bas has enrolled as an external doctoral candidate (learning sciences/sustainability sciences) at Wageningen University, where he wants to focus on the design of learning ecologies in which sustainable transformations take place. This research is a collaboration between the Mission Zero Centre of Expertise and the degree programmes of Industrial Design Engineering and Process & Food Technology. 
b.vandenberg@hhs.nl

Wander Colenbrander

Wander conducts research as part of his doctorate into the connections between education, packaging, packaging design, sustainability and circularity. Degree programme: Industrial Design Engineering (IPO).

w.h.colenbrander@hhs.nl

Albert Kraaij

Albert is a passionate lecturer and researcher. He contributes to enabling students to make more sustainable decisions in economic education and with businesses in general. He contributes to entrepreneurial education by stimulating enterprising students to not only figure out their commercial and financial future but also to get them to reflect on the question ‘What does the success of my business actually mean for our planet?’. ‘What does my business contribute to the 17 goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations?’ Therefore, success is not just about making money. Albert is also affiliated with the LDE Centre for Frugal Innovation in The Hague. Frugal means ‘doing more with less’. As a researcher, he studies the transition from existing business models towards a more sustainable model

a.kraaij@hhs.nl

Rachel Kuijlenburg

Rachel is a lecturer and researcher in the area of Integrated Facility Management and Procurement Management and has been a lecturer at THUAS in 2014. Rachel studies the relationship between sustainability and general business processes such as cleaning and waste streams. From 2020, she will be studying how to achieve waste reduction together with facilities companies at the Custodial Institutions Agency and FM Haaglanden, and students from The Hague University of Applied Sciences. After all, what you do not purchase cannot turn into waste.

r.kuijlenburg@hhs.nl

Frans Lodders

Frans is a lecturer in the Marketing degree programme and is motivated by the following question: How do companies move from linear to circular? Frans coordinates the Circular Business minor where students conduct research with companies into specific action perspectives for circular business operations.

f.lodders@hhs.nl

Laura Stevens

Laura is Senior Lecturer at Industrial Design Engineering within the TIS faculty and PhD researcher at Delft University of Technology. Role in Urban Metabolism is Biomimicry Education expert and researcher. She researches the influence of analogies between nature and design on design students concerning ethics, emulation and reconnection to Nature while striving to address Sustainable Development Goals.

l.l.stevens@hhs.nl

Thomas Wissingh

Thomas Wissingh works since the beginning of September 2020 as a junior researcher on the project “Circular Operational Management” under the professorship “Circular Business”. The research question of this project is “Which action protocol can facility professionals use to stimulate user behavior, make waste and raw material flows more sustainable and this contribute to circular operational management?”. Our aim is to focus on the whole cycle, from procurement to waste collection and customer behavior and they are designing new waste bins for FM-Haaglanden and the HHS.
t.f.wissingh@hhs.nl

Jochem Vreeke

Jochem Vreeke is lecturer with the International Business program where he amongst others teaches and coordinates the subject Corporate Social Responsibility. He is passionate showing future business professionals a different view on business, in which circular business models create multiple values. Jochem is for Expertise Centre Mission Zero busy with making the curriculum of the MBA study program more sustainable.

Elise van der Laan

Elise van der Laan is involved in the project Next Fashion Retail as a project coordinator and researcher. She draws on her research background as a cultural sociologist and her practical experience working in fashion retail. Next Fashion Retail researches how fashion retailers can sell their offering of sustainable clothes better. It unpacks questions such as: how does a consumer make a sustainable fashion purchase? Which tools can retailers use to influence consumers to make sustainable choices? Retailers and students develop innovative tools for the retail environment in co creation, and test these tools in real life lab settings during the research.

Mark Li Fo Sjoe

Mark Li for almost 15 years now, works as passionate Marketing Lecturer at THUAS/BFM/IB. And his International Marketing Experience in Brand/Innovation Management in the Caribbean/Benelux, delivers a unique and current perspective on how commerce and circularity are assimilating for our (more) sustainable world, where connecting existing knowledge and new insights from our Generation Z, provide him with his main research inspiration.

Vikaash Koeldiep

Vikaash Koeldiep is a teacher and team leader at the Accountancy, Finance & Control and International Financial Management programs. Vikaash researches the impact of the energy transition in the municipality of Leidschendam-Voorburg on social inclusion. Together with the municipality, colleagues from the Mission Zero Knowledge Center and students, he is researching how every resident, regardless of his / her income, can be successfully included in this transition.

About the professor

LinkedIn LinkedIn profile

dr. Kim Poldner

Kim has been a professor in the Faculty of Business, Finance & Marketing at The Hague University of Applied Sciences since 1 January 2019. She is also affiliated with Wageningen University & Research where she founded the Circular Fashion Lab. Through bringing together scientists and designers, the Circular Fashion Lab contributes to the creation of new ‘categories’ of materials previously unknown in the fashion industry, disruptive technologies that re-define textile supply-chains and inspired processes of organizing that turn competitors into comparables. Kim obtained her PhD from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and has lived and worked abroad for nine years. She has extensive research experience and expertise in entrepreneurship, aesthetics and sustainability and has written award winning case studies on sustainable fashion pioneers such as Veja and Osklen.
Before she embarked on an academic career, Kim was founder of the first eco fashion store in The Netherlands in 2005 and initiator of online platform Eco Fashion World. Her green wardrobe, including her up cycled wedding dress, was exhibited during the exhibition Wear I Am in 2017. See: www.wur.eu/circularfashion  

+31 (0)6 - 39 08 20 85
k.a.poldner@hhs.nl
The transition towards a circular economy is not so much a transition of materials and technologies, it is a transition of values.
Projects
Projects

Projects

Trashure: Design as catalyst for transitioning from linear to circular

Trashure: Design as catalyst for transitioning from linear to circular

Project goals are increasing awareness about textile consumption and specifically re-appreciating textile waste and enabling commercialization of an accessible product line that uses textile waste as primary resource.
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Next Fashion Retail

Next Fashion Retail

Although consumers indicate that they value sustainable aspects of clothing, the range of sustainable clothing offered by SME multi-brand fashion retailers doesn't sell well. Next Fashion Retail (NFR) has formulated the research question: How can SME multi-brand fashion retailers design their customer journey to increase the sales of (more) sustainable clothing? 
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SMITZH: Smart Manufacturing Industrial Applications Zuid-Holland

SMITZH: Smart Manufacturing Industrial Applications Zuid-Holland

The province of Zuid-Holland is rich in manufacturing industry. Manufacturing companies that develop and sell all kinds of products with the help of technology. These companies would like to produce faster, cheaper, more durable and higher quality products, but are often unaware of contemporary, digital possibilities such as robotisation and 3D printing. SMITZH brings together supply and demand and aims to make the manufacturing industry more innovative, competitive and future-proof. The Digital Operations & Finance Centre of Expertise at The Hague University of Applied Sciences is one of the knowledge and research partners in the SMITZH consortium.

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Circular Fashion

Circular Fashion

Within the research group Circular Business we study a variety of sectors, but the expertise of professor Kim Poldner is centered on the fashion industry. On this page you find an overview of her activities and key publications on this topic.
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Circular operations management – Facility management and ecology in balance

Circular operations management – Facility management and ecology in balance

Creating an action based protocol voor the facility professional to stimulate sustainable behavior, to make the waste and raw material flows more sustainable and thereby contribute to the circular business operations.
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Podcast Wasted Tales

Podcast Wasted Tales

In the Wasted Tales podcast series we will be bringing you into the lives and minds of waste and other materials within the circular economy, such as a solar panel, a face mask and a plastic bottle. This podcast is inspired by the projects of the Centre of Expertise Mission Zero where we conduct integrated research to come up with regenerative solutions for a more sustainable future.
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Reshaping Business Education

Reshaping Business Education

In the Reshaping Business Education project, we focus on a different orientation of the education and development of business students. We develop education that enables students to create businesses that are socially and environmentally sustainable and thus contribute to a fair economy.
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NEWRAIL

NEWRAIL

The Dutch municipality of Horst on the Maas and ProRail are keen to stimulate the generation of renewable energy. As partners in NEWRAIL (Noise Energy Wall Rail America in Limburg), they are testing innovations that will deliver high energy yields. This research involves mounting solar panels on both new and existing sound barrier walls. Mounting solar panels on sound barriers is a new and ground-breaking idea. That’s why more research is needed to find the best method of installation. The innovative project NEWRAIL (Noise Energy Wall Rail America in Limburg) is an initiative of ProRail in collaboration with the municipality of Horst aan de Maas, TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), energy cooperative Reindonk Energie, and The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
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About the research group
Publications
Publications

Publications

Paper

Designing a face mask with a high level of filtration

The problem of single-use personal protective equipment (PPE) made from non-renewable resources polluting the environment encouraged the creation of a circular face mask. The main factors that influence the design of a face mask that protects the user from COVID-19 were investigated. According to the findings, these are filtration, fit-performance, and comfortability. Therefore, the two following goals were set for this project, to design a face mask (1) produced in the Netherlands using 50% local circular materials and 50% recyclable materials and (2) that perfectly fits men's and women's faces.

Book

Circular Economy - Challenges and Opportunities for Ethical and Sustainable Business

How can we design circular business models? How can we organize the transition from a linear to a circular economy? And how can we imagine circular futures that help us transform current realities? This book aims to provide answers to these questions while addressing the challenges and opportunities of the circular economy.

Conference document

Mission Impact: Higher Education as Catalysts for Sustainability Transformation.

The International Academic Forum provides new perspectives to the thought-leaders and decision-makers of today and tomorrow by offering constructive environments for dialogue and interchange at the intersections of nation, culture, and discipline. Headquartered in Nagoya, Japan, and registered as a Non-Profit Organization, IAFOR is an independent think tank committed to the deeper understanding of contemporary geo-political transformation, particularly in the Asia Pacific Region.

Article

Reconsidering the Circular Economy Rebound effect: Propositions from a case study of the Dutch Circular Textile Valley

This article investigates the phenomenon of rebound effects in relation to a transition to a Circular Economy (CE) through qualitative inquiry. The aim is to gain insights in manifestations of rebound effects by studying the Dutch textile industry as it transitions to a circular system, and to develop appropriate mitigation strategies that can be applied to ensure an effective transition.

Article

Forging Forms of Authority through the Sociomateriality of Food in Partial Organizations

This study theorizes on the sociomateriality of food in authority-building processes of partial organizations by exploring alternative food networks (AFNs). Through the construction of arenas for food provisioning, AFNs represent grassroots collectives that deliberately differentiate their practices from mainstream forms of food provisioning.
Projects
News
News

Podcast

In the Wasted Tales podcast series we will be bringing you into the lives and minds of waste and other materials within the circular economy, such as a solar panel, a face mask and a plastic bottle. This podcast is inspired by the projects of the Centre of Expertise Mission Zero where we conduct integrated research to come up with regenerative solutions for a more sustainable future. By making inanimate objects key protagonists in this podcast, we aim to provide an alternative perspective to the circular economy discourse. What do these materials and objects experience? How do they view us humans in processes of recycling, repair and repurpose? And what can we learn from them?
The spoken language is English.
Read more >

Podcast

Wasted Tales

Inaugural Address Professor Kim Poldner

Last Thursday, 18th of June, Kim Poldner, Professor Circular Business, shared her inaugural Address by premiering her vision through Youtube. This was a more sustainable event then we could have ever imagined, because no one had to travel and there was no foodwaste due to arranging catering. The online premiere took about 20 minutes after which there was time to ask questions or post comments in the live chat. She will select the ones that trigger her most as starting point for developing a range of podcasts together with her team.  Watch the Inaugural adress on YouTube.

Kim also created a simplification of this vision, a playfull fable, here you will find this playfull fable The Bear and the Phoenix.

If you're interested in reading the full story including contributions from the researchers involved in the Professorship, please download the publication: Entrepreneuring a regenerative society (pdf).

Publications