Multi-disciplinary design approach of Eco-Innovations MULTI-users and MULTI-cycles of upgrade – MULTi-Eco-Innov

The MULTi Project presents a methodological originality with a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach. We try to build innovative results benefiting from bibliographical and methodological references of engineering sciences and of the sciences of organizations and markets (sociological or business approaches).
Only such a holistic way seems able to answer the multiple questions of a change in consumption modes driven by sharing and upgrading.

3 topics are analyzed:

1. Method of designing eco-innovations based on upgradability and eco-sharing: management of module scenarios for disruptive environmental gains without degrading the attractiveness of the product.
Conceptual and theoretical framework: ecodesign engineering, modular architecture, system upgradability and resilience, life cycle thinking, environmental assessment, eco-use, Kano theory
Methodology and tools: simulator programmed in VBA, focus group, usage analysis, environmental assessment (LCA analysis)

2. The determinants of a viable and sustainable business model of an upgradable and shared offer (MULTi)
Conceptual and theoretical framework: organisational control (BM-viability) and economics of agreements (Business models & stakeholders) -
Methods and tools: interpretive, case studies, interviews, documentary work, group interviews, use stories, and evaluative for the financial part (price and analogy/existing study or ABC for costs, assets to finance).

3. Social Exchanges and Social Regulation in MULTi Organizations
Conceptual and theoretical framework: Theory of regulation/ Theory of social exchange
Methodology and tools: in-depth case studies of MULTi-type organisations, interviews, documentary work, participatory observation, observation of organisational and cooperation arrangements and social exchanges (knowledge exchange, support) between users of the good and regulations. Longitudinal (before/after) questionnaire survey of user populations.

The results highlight the complexity inherent in shared product consumption systems, as well as the economic models that result from them. While traditional models rely on collective behaviors, organizations and common regulations, systems based on the sharing of everyday objects refer to both a more marked individual or even intimate logic, to new operational or control roles, but also to the consideration of collective games, within a community or between political actors of a governance to be reinvented. The acceptance of sharing varies from one individual to another and within collectives. The rules of use are relative and evolving. The nature of the sets of products offered for sharing is key both for the incentive to not purchase and for the reduction of ecological impacts. A real eco-design of these shared or even upgraded products is also necessary, as well as of the equipment and supply chains to be deployed in a territory. Finally, the associated financing comes from a multitude of individual, organizational and institutional actors. The design tool developed primarily integrates these major constraints linked to sharing, via the identification of the contexts and rationalities at play in terms of regulation, the formalization of the key processes and resources to be possessed and the calculation of the ecological and financial impacts of the projected models.

Dealing with the future prospects is premature at mid-term of the program.
However, the work undertaken to date leads to a review of the present social and economic models that goes beyond the questions of sharing and upgradability and enters into a more global societal questioning.

Kuszla, C.; Bellini, B.; Kooli-Chaabane, H. At the heart of the Implementation of a disruptive Sustainable Business Model (SBM): The PSS-CIRCULAR Case, a structurationist analysis of the SBM ecosystem. The 7th International Conference on New Business Model, LUMSA University, Jun 2022, Rome, Italy.

Kooli-Chaabane, H.; Pialot, O.; Kuszla, C. Vers des Business Models Soutenables : ressources clés et nouveaux rôles pour l’orchestration des processus. XXXIIème conférence de l’AIMS, BETA (Faculté des Sciences Économiques et de Gestion) et Humanis (EM Strasbourg Business School) de l’Université de Strasbourg, Jun 2023, Strasbourg, France.

Pialot, O.; Millet, D. Augmented eco-design thanks to the methodological drivers of the 'Usefulness Thinking' approach. 31st CIRP Conference on Life Cycle Engineering, June 19/21, Turin, Italy, 2024.

Kooli-Chaabane, H.; Kuszla, C.; Bellini, B. Characterizing changes for implementing a sustainable business model: insights from business model innovation and structuration theory. EURAM, 2024, June 25/28, Bath, UK.

The current trend of intensive innovation brings products with accelerated obsolescence to the market, in the logic of selling more and more, increasing the rate of exploitation of materials or energies and the emission of pollutants. It is necessary to imagine new and more sustainable modes of consumption and production in order to break this negative spiral of waste.

The aim of this research program is to provide:
• An environmental innovation with a strong impact reduction, of the order of Factor 4, with a maximization of the use of the material over time while satisfying the expected uses,
• A social and economic viability of the mode of consumption associated with the eco-innovative system (including eco-innovation, associated services, mode of sale, producer organization, etc.) and over time (phases of emergence, adoption and sustainability),
• A design approach coordinating environmental, social and economic challenges, with elements / bricks that are understandable and operable for industrial designers and decision-makers.

The MULTi project proposes to design upgradable (MULTi integrations of functional improvements) and eco-shareable systems (MULTi users supported towards an eco-use), and thus to make the best use of the material extracted and shaped over time by maximizing the number of operating cycles of any product. For systems with a low or rare intensity of use, and there are many, they would be shared among several users, with attention paid to eco-use to avoid usage drifts generating overconsumption and degradations harmful to the lifetime of the system. For products with wear and obsolescence problems, their operating time would be extended by making these systems adaptable / upgradeable / flexible via the integration of new modules incorporating or not functional improvements or upgrades.
These MULTi systems, with their associated services for sharing and upgradability, therefore define a new mode of consumption that requires a new kind of business model: defined as a business strategy tool, it must be designed in connection with the control and the management of consumption operational process to ensure the emergence-adoption and sustainability path of these MULTi systems. The MULTi program claims that this work of redefining the drivers of the economic viability must be extended to obtaining social sustainability, that is to say, it is necessary to rethink the networks of stakeholders (business side, consumer side), their relationships, their intermediation devices and their motivations which go beyond conventional commercial exchange.

To seriously address these multiple issues, the consortium of this project stands out by the multidisciplinary nature of its members, combining the knowledge / skills / methodologies and points of view of technologists and managers on the business, marketing or financial aspects and on the social science aspects with the study of the relationships between stakeholders. The final deliverable will take the form of a methodological guide for the design of MULTi systems (product, service, business model, social sustainability), multidisciplinary therefore and which is intended to be operated by a design team. Intermediate objects will be developed and used as a medium between disciplines in the project and will ultimately serve as an intermediate phase of the design in the guide, which will be available for free access on the web.