The first category, Circular Design, corresponds to business activities that occur during the pre-use or the design, production and distribution phase of a product. These activities are positioned on the upward slope of the Value Hill and are focussed on prolonging the use phase (e.g. product longevity), accounting for end-of-life suitability (e.g. modularity), minimising resource-intensiveness and re-using existing products, components or materials.

This category contains for example the Circular Supplies business model (Lacy en Rutqvist, 2015) that "introduces fully renewable, recyclable or biodegradable materials that can be used in consecutive lifecycles". But also the classic long life business models that sell products with a long life at a high price (Bakker et al., 2014).

Example Circular Design: Fairphone

DESIGN The Fairphone (second edition) is an Android smartphone that's built with longevity in mind and is the first modular phone on the market. Designed for reparability, spare parts are offered in an online shop together with instructions on how to replace broken parts. This way, the design of the product has changed the relationship between consumers and their phones.

MATERIALS In addition, materials are used that support local economies and include conflict-free minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to stimulate alternative solutions.

MANUFACTURING Fairphone works closely with manufacturers that want to invest in employee wellbeing. They believe that factory workers deserve safe conditions, fair wages and worker representation.