Assessing the environmental impacts of product-service systems – the case of washing machines in Germany

Providing utility instead of selling a product is seen as a promising way to shift the current economy towards sustainability. However, the potential highly depends on the business model design (BMD) and quantification is missing. This study proposes an assessment framework that connects the concepts of business model analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA) to systematically identify and evaluate viable and environmentally benign BMDs. An extensive case study for domestic washing machines in Germany validates its effectiveness. The impact reduction potential of the ecologically most promising BMDs is quantified with an LCA scenario analysis. Washing-as-a-service reduces the environmental impacts of the ownership model in all scenarios and impact categories of ReCiPe 2016, also providing valuable insights for resource-intensive energy-using products in general. The framework and its application contribute both, from a methodological as well as from an application perspective to analysing product-service systems and their potential in the circular economy.