Circular economy integration for sustainable built environment education

Circular economy integration for sustainable built environment education

Research leads: Professor Usha Iyer-Raniga, Director, IC3P and VCA and Dr. Olivia Ho, Research Fellow, IC3P

Background

The built environment is the leading sector in consuming natural resources and raw materials as well as generating greenhouse gas emissions and waste. It is forecast that construction and demolition waste will be globally increased causing issues for landfill, the environment, and the climate. These issues make a compelling case to transform the built environment towards circularity.

The circular economy (CE) model has been referred to as a promising solution to gradually decouple economic growth from natural resources by closing loops.

The CE aims to keep resources in the loop for as long as possible through different cycles of supply chains including encouraging the extension of ownership to production processes as well where manufacturers can consider providing services instead of products to customers.

Existing studies and practice demonstrate that there is a limitation in circular economy understanding and the implementation of CE principles and strategies in the built environment mainly focuses on the R-strategies of “reuse, recycle and reduce”, waste management and reduction.

There is a need to advance CE understanding beyond these R-strategies and this is where education plays an important role.

Solution

The research commenced with the development of case study datasets to be used as examples for education across different countries focusing on how circular economy is practically interpreted and implemented in a specific context.

Then, the concepts of circular economy such as definition, strategies, principles, implementation, and circular business models were taught in different universities.

Surveys and interviews were conducted to understand how the curriculum can advance the understanding of the circular economy as well as increase the uptake of circular economy practices.

A guidebook was developed to provide an overview of circular economy definitions, principles, strategies and local-based case studies. This guidebook also offers recommendations on designing a course that effectively engages students. It provides guidance on how students can utilise the guidebook within their own cultural and climate contexts to develop a circular economy model that aligns with their specific circumstances.

The research project conducted two online webinars in 2022 and one in 2023. The project has supported participating universities to develop circular economy courses or circular economy some as stand alone, and some integrated into sustainability-related courses.

cover of guidebook

Collaboration

This research project is a cooperation between RMIT and four other universities:

  1. TERI-SAS (India)
  2. UoP (Sri Lanka)
  3. AIT (Thailand)
  4. AKSU (Kyrgyzstan) funded by United Nations University (UNU).

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

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