♻️ Circular Loop
Design products that come back. Lease, take back, refurbish and trade recycled material with rival companies.
The goal
Run a profitable office-furniture company in Dubai while raising your material circularity score: recycled material in, products designed to come back out. Your team runs an office-furniture maker. Each desk uses 30 kg of material. Recovered material from returned desks can be reused or sold to the other companies.
How a round works
The four rounds
- 1
🪑 Year 1 · The office boom
Buyers mostly look at price; a few ask about end of life. Recycled material is scarce.
What it teaches: Leasing and take-back cost you now but build a mine of returned desks.
- 2
📈 Year 2 · Commodity spike
Virgin material jumps 50%. Returned material becomes valuable.
What it teaches: Circular companies win twice: cheaper inputs and material to sell.
- 3
⚖️ Year 3 · Producer responsibility
EPR: makers pay AED 1 per kg of furniture that is not taken back.
What it teaches: EPR puts the landfill cost on the maker.
- 4
🌍 Year 4 · Circularity goes mainstream
Half of buyers choose on circularity; EPR rises to AED 1.5.
What it teaches: A high score needs both recycled input and products designed to return.
Your decisions
| Business model | Every year | Sell (about 5% return), sell with take-back (AED 50 credit, about 35% return) or lease (55% of price now plus 25% a year from the fleet, about 75% return). Lease pays back in later years. |
|---|---|---|
| Recycled material | Every year | 0–80% recycled input. Your own recovered stock is used first, then the shared market. If the market runs short you get less than you asked for. When everyone wants recycled material, its price rises. |
| Design features | Every year | Up to 3: modular (more refurbishing), single-material (easier recycling), heavy-duty (longer life), digital passport (more returns). Modular + single-material gives the best recoverability. |
| Price and claim | Every year | Set a list price, and choose a specific claim, a vague claim or none. Vague claims are greenwashing; specific claims must be true. |
Worked example. A leased desk at AED 1,400 earns AED 770 now and AED 350 a year after. When it returns, a modular desk can be refurbished and resold for AED 840.
How you are scored
Year score = 60 × profit margin + 40 × material circularity score.
Event cards
- Recycler fire. Outside supply of recycled material halves.
- Green claims law. Vague claims are fined (−15 trust).
- Government tender. 400 extra desks; circularity counts 50%.
- Mining strike. Virgin material +AED 2 per kg.
Students: join in 30 seconds
- Scan the QR code on the big screen, or open games.inlabsgroup.com/circular-loop and type the code.
- Type your first name. No app, no account.
- Join a team or create one. You get a role with a job on every round.
- Each round: read the briefing and data, fill in your decisions, predict your score, submit.
Key words
- Circular economy
- Keeping products and materials in use: share, repair, refurbish, remanufacture, recycle.
- Product as a service
- Customers pay for use; the maker keeps ownership and takes the product back.
- Material circularity indicator
- A 0–100% score combining recycled input and how much returns at end of life.
- EPR
- Extended producer responsibility: makers pay for the end of life of what they sell.
- Greenwashing
- Making a product sound greener than it is, often with vague words.
For facilitators 4 rounds · about 50 minutes
Facilitator access
- On the projector laptop open games.inlabsgroup.com/circular-loop/?host.
- Sign in with your facilitator PIN or demo code.
- In Setup choose Team, Individual or Hybrid, the number of teams (up to 20), rounds and minutes.
- Press Q for the big join QR code; students appear in People.
- Press Start. Reveal each round, discuss the answer key on the projector, then draw an event card.
Joining with the QR code
- As a team
- One plan per company; the CEO chooses the model.
- Alone
- Everyone runs a company: more traders in the recycled market.
- Hybrid
- Everyone plans on their phone; the team score is the average.
Setup tips
- Use at least 4 companies so the recycled market has buyers and sellers.
- Explain the circularity score with the formula on screen.
- Use the claims law in Year 3 or 4.
Watch for
- Teams that never lease and then face EPR.
- The recycled price spiking when everyone asks for 60%+.
- Vague claims.
Console controls
Start, Reveal, pause or set the timer, step back, draw or write event cards, message every screen, freeze the projector, spotlight a team, hide names, add bots, move players, award or fine, change score weights, start a new game or end it early, show all teams, and download the CSV of every decision and result. Keys: P projector, Q join QR.
Debrief questions
- Which model brought the most material back, and what did it cost at first?
- What happened to the recycled price when everyone wanted it?
- Which claims were specific and which were greenwashing?
Probing questions
- Why is a returning product a material mine?
- Who earned money from the recycled market?
- What makes a green claim credible?