Your office furniture company has decided that it wants to make its furniture according to “circular economy” principles. This means that when customers are done using the furniture, they can return it to your company instead of throwing it away. Your company then disassembles the furniture products and refurbishes and reuses their parts. No parts are ever thrown away. The office furniture business is very competitive. While many customers have expressed interest in purchasing sustainably made products, they are also price sensitive.

As your company is producing its first product, an office chair, that will be built following circular economy standards, you come across a challenge. You find that it is just really difficult to produce a seating pad that is made out of reusable materials. You have two options: Use a material that can be reused after the chair is returned or use a material that is cheaper but has to be thrown to the landfill after the chair wears out. If you use the second option, the cost of the chair to your customers will be about 2% less. 

Use the weight-of-reasons framework to address this dilemma. Who are all the stakeholders to your decision? What principles will you rely on? Does it make sense to choose the more expensive but more sustainable option?