Course content and structure

Of late, Google, Apple, H&M, Unilever, IKEA, Coca-Cola, Carlsberg, Renault and Philips – just to name the more conspicuous - have all pledged a firm commitment to the circular economy. But what is the circular economy? How is it different from the linear economy? And how much of the global economy has gone circular?

In the linear economy, businesses extract materials, use them to manufacture products and then sell those to consumers, who most often discard these, when they no longer are of service. Such a linear economy extracts resources at increasing rates – currently humanity uses resources that would require 1,5 Planet Earths to keep up each year – without consideration of the environment in which it operates. Of late, a new geological term has emerged to describe the environmental consequences of the linear economy: The Anthropocene. This term implies that in our time, humanity is the decisive factor in shaping the natural environment. A critical component of the Anthropocene is our current patterns of production and consumption, i.e. the Take-Make-Waste approach of the linear economy. Most agree that this cannot continue indefinitely and that business as usual is not an option in the Anthropocene.

The concept of the circular economy promises a way out. Here products do not become waste. The circular economy promises to keep products and goods at their highest utility and value at all times and is restorative and regenerative by design. Services and goods are distributed and shared in new and innovative ways without compromising the functioning of the biosphere. The common point of departure for the many ideas clustered under the rubric of “circular economy” is to optimize the flow of resources and retain those in loops without leaks. The rationale is to lower resource use and waste and build smarter governance of natural capital. A key tenet of the circular economy builds on the notion that there is no waste in nature. The ideal would be an economy fueled by solar energy, where nothing is wasted and secondary materials keep circulating in loops, so we do not need to extract primary materials. A key objective of the course is to explore if this is possible.

Attracting increased attention from governments, businesses and civil society, the circular economy is an emerging field of study, where we will cover a range of critical questions from conceptual issues of first and second order to hands-on practical perspectives: What is the relationship between the circular economy and growth? Who (business leaders, industrial designers, NGOs, social entrepreneurs, etc.) venture into the spaces of circular economy? What might their business models look like? How is environmental impact of production and consumption measured and assessed? How circular is the global economy? Can circularity be governed? And does circular economy create value and prosperity for the current generation that is not at the expense of the opportunities for future generations?