Increasing volume of waste in Europe, reduced availability of critical primary resources and new emerging trends towards “green” products push European manufacturers towards the implementation of ‘circular economy’. Product upgrading, i.e. the process of providing new functionalities to products through collection, disassembly/substitution and remanufacturing, could represent an effective solution to support the transition to circular economy. However, economic and environmental sustainability, legislation boundaries, industrial benefits and social impact of design for upgradability and upgrading remanufacturing are still debated in many sectors, and companies still perceive high risks in this transition.

The aim of the paper is to clarify the key success factors for companies that have the willingness to include upgrading remanufacturing in their businesses. An emphasis is placed on how the application of new service-oriented business models for product upgrade and design for remanufacturing can support this implementation and bring high value-added to circular economy businesses.

The methodology used to reach the aim of the paper was to map existing business approaches through a literature review focused on the existing upgrading strategies. Next, a study of real existing case studies of product upgrading was developed. Within this step, the identification of common success factors and a favourable scenario for the implementation of upgrading remanufacturing was conducted.