Svensson-Hoglund, SahraSirgy, M JosephRussell, Jennifer DLittle, Vicki JGanglmair-Wooliscroft, AlexandraWebb, DaveWooliscroft, BenEkici, AhmetYu, Grace B2026-04-302026-04-302026-04-10Circular Economy and Sustainability, ISSN: 2730-597X (Print); 2730-5988 (Online), Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 6(2), 184-. doi: 10.1007/s43615-026-00894-32730-597X2730-5988http://hdl.handle.net/10292/21003Adoption of Circular Economy (CE) behaviors, such as repair and sharing, remains slow, often due to high costs, inconvenience, limited rewards, or social undesirability. Accelerating the sustainability transition requires that consumers, or product users, experience these behaviors as predominantly positive. To address the lack of a comprehensive framework for understanding such experiences, this paper introduces the Product User’s Experience of CE Behaviors (PUxCEB) Model, developed for durable consumer goods (e.g., clothing and electronics). It is validated through an interdisciplinary Delphi study with two expert groups in CE and Sufficiency, and Consumer Studies and Macromarketing. The Model identifies eight experiential areas: effort, financial, functional, task immersion, aesthetics, social interaction, social status, and moral alignment. Within these areas, the Model captures potential frictions (e.g., costs) and rewards (e.g., gains). It further classifies contextual variables within the experience into four types: mediators (i.e., directly causing effects, such as social status rewards), moderators (i.e., amplifying or reducing effects), determinants (i.e., generating variables), and qualifiers (i.e., determining the salience of variables, based on socio-cultural meanings). The scientific contribution consists of how the Model separates and organizes variables, highlighting the importance of moderators, resource allocation (i.e., time, effort, and money), and the creation of synergies across the experiential areas. In practice, it provides policymakers, businesses, and community organizations with a holistic mapping tool for assessing current, and designing new, initiatives (e.g., policies and business offerings) in which rewards exceeds the frictions, thus ensuring positive experiences of CE behaviors. Directions for future research are proposed to refine the model.Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services3506 MarketingSocial Determinants of HealthBehavioral and Social ScienceGeneric health relevance12 Responsible Consumption and ProductionSustainable consumptionMindful consumptionResponsible consumptionCircular economyConsumer experienceProduct userConsumer durablesJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1007/s43615-026-00894-3