Client

Absotec is a company specialised in eliminating reverberation and noise in indoor architectural spaces. They design and manufacture acoustic conditioning solutions aimed at improving health and comfort for users.

The company is committed to innovation to minimise environmental impact throughout the entire life cycle, with a focus on sustainable design and an artisan manufacturing process. In its efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, Absotec prioritises local suppliers and considers eco-design a key priority.

Challenge

The challenge of this project is to extend the lifespan of the solutions offered by Absotec through servitisation. This approach will reduce the number of manufactured products while optimising resource use and waste generation.

This requires designing a new business line based on this circular economy strategy, offering products as a service rather than selling them, using rental models, pay-per-use schemes or performance-based subscriptions.

The use of acoustic conditioning solutions poses significant economic and environmental challenges: in some cases, they are only used for a few days—leading to high costs and unnecessary waste of materials and resources. In others, low-quality, short-lived solutions are chosen to save costs.

What was done?

inèdit guided and supported the Absotec team in the conception, definition, and validation of this new business line, from a technical, economic, and environmental perspective. In this case, a servitisation strategy was implemented using short-term rentals (pay-per-use) and long-term rentals (subscription-based models).

To achieve this, an in-depth study was conducted to identify the most suitable product and client types for a servitisation-based business, as well as their specific needs. The environmental impact of the selected products was also assessed to identify eco-design improvement opportunities.

The next step was to design the new business model and user experience and to redesign products to reduce their environmental impact and adapt them to the requirements of the new service.

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Results

A new business model and pricing structure were developed for an acoustic conditioning service for fixed spaces and another for fairs and events, both based on servitisation. The environmental benefits of servitisation were calculated and validated with various stakeholders in the value chain to gauge interest in the service.

Additionally, a product redesign process was defined, including eco-design strategies to transition from a linear to a circular life cycle, presenting technical design, environmental, and circularity challenges.

Conclusions

Thanks to this project, Absotec now has a roadmap to launch this more circular business line. The company has already implemented these new business models, which have generated particular interest among clients in the fair and event sectors.

This type of action can result in a 73% to 82% reduction in CO₂ emissions.

The “Acoustics as a Service” project is part of the RE-CENTRE project, co-financed by the European Union (Ref. 101074542 – RE-CENTRE – SMP-COSME-2021-CLUSTER) and involves four European clusters: CSM – dID, AMBIT – Living Spaces Cluster, CLUJ IT Cluster, and Green Synergy Cluster.

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