Circular Economy Implemented in a Cosmetic Company: a Case Study

This research was part of a Scientific Initiation project developed during the Industrial Engineering course as complement of the undergraduate contents. The purpose of this work is to encourage the adoption of the concept of Circular Economy by the companies regardless of your size in order to reduce environmental impact and help to avoid the malefic effects produced by the tailings discarded by the majority of the companies. This research was based on an extensive literature review and on the formulation of a case study, which was implemented and fully assisted by the Cosmetic Bio Phito Therapeutical Company. Using the assistance offered by the Enterprise Resource Planning tool (ERP), it was possible to infer a mere substrate whose only purpose was to support the raw material that would effectively be used to an applicability that, besides being profitable, brought circularity to the operational flow. The results obtained with the implementation of the Circular Economy brought to the company that was studied the opportunity to avoid inadequate waste management, in addition to a financial savings of around U$ 2,000 per month due the reduction of expenses with a material that, instead of being improperly discarded, was reprogrammed for practical use, through recycling. The research was developed using the Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach and hands on activities during all the work.