Responsible Design Thinking for Sustainable Development: Critical Literature Review, New Conceptual Framework, and Research Agenda

In the 1960s, influential thinkers defined design as a rational problem-solving approach to deal with the challenges of sustainable human development. In 2009, a design consultant and a business academic selected some of these ideas and successfully branded them with the term “design thinking.” As a result, design thinking has developed into...

From circular strategies to actions: 65 European circular building cases and their decarbonisation potential

The application of the circular economy (CE) in the building industry is critical for achieving the carbon reduction goals defined in the Paris Agreement and is increasingly promoted through European policies. In recent years, CE strategies have been applied and tested in numerous building projects in practice. However, insights into their...

Circular Digital Built Environment: An Emerging Framework

Digital technologies are considered to be an essential enabler of the circular economy in various industries. However, to date, very few studies have investigated which digital technologies could enable the circular economy in the built environment. This study specifically focuses on the built environment as one of the largest, most energy- and...

Circular business model experimentation: Demystifying assumptions: Demystifying assumptions

Circular business model experiments may help firms transition towards a circular economy. Little is known about how the participants of experimentation – entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, innovation managers – develop and test their assumptions during the experimentation process to achieve more circular outcomes. Using a design-science approach,...

Circular Cities: Mapping Six Cities in Transition

Urbanisation and climate change are urging cities to chart novel paths towards sustainable futures. Many cities are turning to the alluring 'circular economy' (CE) concept to guide this redirection. The CE concept re-imagines how flows of resources moving through economies might be 'closed'. Here, we explore this new 'circular city' agenda by...