Adapting sustainable policies at the end-of-life stage in the product life cycle in SME's in the UAE – enablers and barriers

Abstract

United Arab Emirates (UAE), a member of the Gulf cooperation council (GCC), has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. This has led to intense pressure on SMEs, that cover a major portion of the manufacturing sector, to produce products that not just meet international standards in terms of quality but also are sustainable. Thus, UAE’s concern over reducing waste generated throughout the life cycle of the manufactured products, especially on what ends up in the land scarce country’s landfills, has led it towards circular economic thinking. This research investigates into finding the influencing factors that enable SMEs in UAE to adopt End of Life design thinking policies into its product manufacturing process. Through conducting a case study into an SME from the manufacturing sector in UAE, this paper presents an in-depth research into the various triggering factors that act as enablers and barriers towards EOL management design thinking adoption. The finding suggests that in this market the trade partners act as the biggest influencing factor and within this, clients though having the strongest affecting power behave both as an enabler and a barrier. Also, other factors like influence of international agencies and infrastructure contribute towards enabling this innovation adoption. While suppliers and competitors act as barriers. Government and improving internal knowledge of employees are future potential enablers especially in the UAE-SME context. The primary contribution of this study is to deepen our understanding of innovation adoption process and offer insight into the process of such an innovation adoption in this particular context. This research serves as an initial study towards further work, which will in turn, create a basis for both industrialist and academic personal to foster the quick adoption of EOL design thinking policies into organizations, thus making their product truly circular and sustainable.