Blog 1/3 - RAI for SCArCITY project.

A month into my research Assistant internship which is part of the FORMAS-funded project SCArCITY: Scaling Circular Business Models in Cascaded Systems, which focuses on understanding how Circular business models (CBM's) operate and scale across different cascading loops in the textile and clothing (T&C)  industry. The purpose of the study that I am doing isto explore how textile materials/products can move through different stages while retaining value overtime and how this performance can be evaluated

The first four weeks have been mainly focused on building a foundational understanding of the topic with the core work of Sirkin and ten Houten (1994), redefining the purpose and methodology with guidance from my supervisor. The framework and four principles from Sirkin and ten Houten (1994), appropriate fit, augmentation, consecutive relinking and balancing resource metabolism have been important in helping me understand cascading and material flow better. The next step was to understand cascading in T&C industry in relation with circular economy CE.

Finding literature was a real challenge to begin with due to the papers being relatively fresh and most keywords gave back less than 20 papers of which only few were appropriate fit for the study. Thankfully my fellow research assistant intern was helpful and gave me some creative ways to look for literature. Another challenge is narrowing down, finding how much is enough and to understand the use of grey literature. The use of grey literature (wood industry) for the study is needed as mentioned by my supervisor to understand the cascading systems can be analysed in practice, tracking product flows across multiple uses.

The methodology for my study is critical literature review, where different strands of literature (CBM, Cascading, CE indicators and lifecycle assessment) are analysed through the lens of the four core principles of cascading. At this stage, the work is still in progress and the next step is to continue this analysis and begin structuring the key dimensions that will support the development of KPI's.

Overall the first month has been focused on the key concepts, theoretical grounding and establishing analytical direction. It has been a lot of reading once the challenge of finding literature was conquered. The next week will be more reading and I am following my supervisors guidance in this regard as he suggested to start writing only after reading and structuring the literature in detail. 

Sangavi Vetrivel