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2025/2026 KAN-CSOAV1004U Circular Economy – Business models for the 21st Century
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| Circular Economy – Business models for the 21st Century |
Course information |
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| Language | English |
| Course ECTS | 7.5 ECTS |
| Type | Elective |
| Level | Full Degree Master |
| Duration | One Quarter |
| Start time of the course | First Quarter |
| Timetable | Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk |
| Max. participants | 150 |
| Study board |
Study Board of Organisation, Strategy, Leadership &
People
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| Course coordinator | |
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| Last updated on 27-02-2025 | |
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| Learning objectives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The objective is to provide the students with a
thorough understanding of circular economy principles based on
concepts, theories, business models, cases, and guest lectures by
practitioners providing hands-on experiences from their circular
economy businesses. Further, the learning objectives of the course
are to enable students to manage competently in a context of
multiple stakeholder collaboration, design strategies, innovation
possibilities, and relation to market dynamics when implementing
circular economy principles. The student should be able to reflect
academically on topics, processes and work in a cross-disciplinary
context. To be awarded with the highest grade (12), the student
should with no or only minor insignificant shortcomings fulfil the
following objectives:
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| Course content, structure and pedagogical approach | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The objective of the course is to give the student a deeper understanding of the why, the what, and the how of circular economy.
Our economy is linear and based on a logic of take-make-waste, which causes the Earth Overshoot Day earlier and earlier each year. These production and consumption patterns lead to increasing depletion of natural capital, massive biodiversity loss, and climate change through use of fossil fuel energy and unhealthy exploitation of raw material resources. These are all challenges that are just recently acknowledged as market failures of the neo-classical growth economy, which lack inclusion of impact and cost of fossil fuel energy input and use of natural capital in production and consumption.
As opposed to the neo-classical growth economy, the circular economy is an economic system that is: regenerative and restorative by design, powered by renewable energy, minimizes leakages to incineration and landfills, and keeps the resources at highest possible value at all times. Thereby, the circular economy holds the possibility to relieve the pressure on natural capital reserves and progressively decouple economic growth and development from consumption of finite resources, and thus avoid biodiversity loss and climate change.
The course starts with an introduction to the global challenges that are caused by our current linear economy (the why), before going through theoretical foundations, principles and models of a circular economy (the what). The theoretical foundation is then applied to product, business and system level and emphasizes how these three interact and depend on each other (the how). Importantly, circular economy business includes different business models, the role of the consumer, competitive possibilities and businesses interaction and codependence with cities. As the circular economy demands cross-sectoral collaboration and has a higher complexity than linear business models and supply chains, the how on a systems level covers strategic management collaboration and systemic change, hereunder systems transformation, ecosystem innovation, and global value chains. Lastly, the course gives an introduction to how circularity can be measured on all three levels and closes off with a brief introduction and assessment of the criticisms against the circular economy.
Key topics for circular economy – business models for the 21stcentury:
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| Research-based teaching | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CBS’ programmes and teaching are research-based. The following
types of research-based knowledge and research-like activities are
included in this course:
Research-based knowledge
Research-like activities
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| Description of the teaching methods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The teaching is primarily lecture based. Students are expected to be well prepared for the lectures by reading the curriculum papers, while the literature will then be processed in class by the lecturer, in company with the students. The class emphasizes class discussion, both in pairs and in groups. As it is a quarter semester course, the lectures will be comprehensive and the pace of the course high. This provides an opportunity for significant progress, but also requires the students to have a high dedication and level of work. Some lectures will include visits from the industry to give practical and real-life insights to how companies work with circularity and connected challenges. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Feedback during the teaching period | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The main feedback event from the lecturer to the students will take place in the evaluation session dedicated for feedback on the exam cases, research question, and chosen theories by the groups. In addition, feedback will be provided continuously during class in general, meaning that all questions will be taken seriously, answered properly, and taken as an opportunity to learn and dig deeper into the topic. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General course literature: (books)
Tentative curriculum for the course:
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