A circular economy business model for adaptive reuse of cultural heritage sites

This paper proposes a new circular economy business model for the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage sites. The current high-level of global interest in circular economy crosscuts with well-established urbanization trends. Humans predominantly live in cities; therefore, creating and discussing circular economy models that apply to the city-scape is critical. One facet of this dialogue concerns the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage sites, which includes both natural landscapes and buildings. Business models provide understanding about the general dynamics of a process, provide a common vocabulary and most important can coalesce thinking around a set of ideas embedded in the process they describe. In order to enhance the transferability and utility of this research we selected Lewandowski’s Circular Business Model Canvas, which is based on Alexander Osterwalder and Pigneur’s groundbreaking Business Model Canvas (Lewandowski 2016) as a base for the current work. A given cultural heritage adaptive reuse project is analogous to the firm in a business model in a specific context but needed two new elements. First, in practice, these projects are often run as private and public social enterprises. Second, each project is analogous to an “action situation” grounded within a social-ecological system, as described by Ostrom. Therefore this new business model is guided by principles of social enterprise as well as Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework. This new business model can be used in the private and public sectors as a strategic planning tool for the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage sites.