While global resource use is increasing and the climate crisis is intensifying, another five Planetary Boundaries are also transgressed. Meanwhile, the circular economy (CE) has ascended to the forefront of policy-, business- and research agendas, aiming to be a systems-based approach supporting multiple Sustainable Development Goals. The CE discourse portrays current socio-economic systems as dominated by linear 'take-make-use-dispose' patterns of resource use. It claims that a combination of 're-think/re-use/repair/recycle'-type measures can ultimately narrow, slow and close material cycles, thereby reducing primary resource extraction, minimizing waste, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and regenerating nature.
The CE’s prominence arises from the concept's intuitive appeal as well as its vagueness, which fosters diverse interpretations and brings together various actors and their interests under a broad umbrella. While some advocate the CE as an obvious win-win-win sustainability strategy, others call for careful analysis of the potentials and limits for a CE as a pathway to ecological sustainability.
- Instructors: Edward Clarence Smith, Jan Streeck, Dominik Wiedenhofer