The Anatomy of Circular Economy Monitoring through the Lens of Border Crossing and Levels of Control

In this paper, we propose a framework for circular economy monitoring by looking at the issue of border crossing and levels of control.

Data Sharing Arrangements for Monitoring in the EU Circular Economy: The Case of CBAM and Steel Import for the EU Automotive Sector

The European Commission initiated a series of Directives and Regulations that aim to turn the linear economy into a climate-neutral and circular economy. Business-to-government information- sharing arrangements play an essential role in monitoring compliance with these regulatory measures. To this end data from the supply chain of products needs...

(Re)organizing circular design projects: Four tool applications and reflections

How Can Digital Technologies Support the Circular Transition of Social Housing Organizations? Empirical Evidence from Two Cases

The world is facing an alarming housing crisis. The challenge for the construction industry is to find sustainable ways to meet this growing housing demand. The concept of Circular Economy could be an alternative approach as it aims to regenerate, narrow, slow, and close resources loops. Digital technologies are seen as enablers to implementing...

Enhancing consumers’ willingness to repair electronic products: How design can nudge sustainable behaviour

Product repair can decrease the ecological burden of consumer electronics<br/>by lengthening their lifetimes, but it is still too rarely practised by consumers. Design for behaviour change can motivate consumers to undertake repair activities. An increased level of repair self-efficacy can nudge consumers towards repair. In two experiments, we...

Digital Infrastructures for Monitoring Circular Economy Investments by Financial Institutions and Government: A Research Agenda

Circular Economy (CE) and sustainability are getting high on the political agenda of governments on the global level. Businesses and supply chains are at the heart of that transition, and need to make big steps in the coming years for making the transition from a linear model of make-use-dispose towards a circular model. For this transition,...

Functional diversity in circular building projects: A novel perspective to study actors, roles and circular results

Construction sectors have a long way to go to realize a circular economy. Many organizational barriers and institutional characteristics inhibit the sector’s transition to circular practices. Nevertheless, within this early phase of the transition, several building projects were realized. This research aims to learn from these frontrunners, in...

Digital Infrastructures for Governance of Circular Economy: A Research Agenda

Circular economy and sustainability are high on the political agendas of governments. Governments, but also other actors like banks, insurance companies, and auditing firms play a key role in setting (regulatory) requirements, instruments and incentives, as well as monitoring mechanisms to stimulate and monitor CE activities. Governance of CE...

Hotspot Mapping for product disassembly: A circular product assessment method

Designing products for the Circular Economy requires closing and slowing of loops by means of repair, reman-ufacturing, refurbishment, parts reuse and/or recycling. Ease of product disassembly facilitates these processes to be more cost-effective, resulting in a better circular strategy fit. In this paper we present the Hotspot Map-ping method....

Comparing Consumers' Product Care in Product-Service Systems and Ownership

Product-service systems are circular business models that can potentially extend product lifetimes and reduce resource consumption. However, consumer product care is crucial in these business models. We explore consumer product care of newly bought, second-hand, and accessed bicycles and washing machines through an online survey (n = 212). Our...

Co-creating circular product-service systems for long-lasting washing machines

This paper presents the result of a co-creation and context mapping study amongst seventeen washing machines users. The users had widely varying experiences with products offered through alternative ownership models, including three who were active users of a washing machine with pay-per-use or monthly subscription model. Through the co-creation...

Push-out tests on demountable shear connectors of steel-concrete composite structures

The deconstruction of steel-concrete composite structures in buildings and the later separation of the materials is a labour- and cost intensive work. The shear studs are welded on the steel beam and imbedded in the concrete deck and a large amount of cutting work becomes necessary. As a result, recycling is difficult and the potential for...

Annotated Portfolios as a Method to Analyse Interviews

This paper explores the use of annotated portfolios as a method to support the qualitative analysis of interview data about design projects. Annotated portfolios have so far been used to support artefacts with text in order to discuss them in the context of ‘research through design’ In this paper, we interpret the five-step method of McCracken...

The CE Meter: An instrument to assess the circular economy capacity of buildings

A direct connection can be made between adaptive building and sustainability (Wilkinson 2011). Market developments show increased demands by for flexibility and sustainability by users and owners as well as a growing understanding of the importance of a circular economy (Eichholtz 2009). Circular Economy (CE) is a rather recent way of looking at...

New business model of flexible housing

The Open Building (OB) and the concept of flexible housing has alwaysassociated with user’s ability to respond to changing demand. It is necessary that housing can adap to changing market conditions and different users’ requirements. Flexibility makes a crucial concept that one cannot ignore. However, extra investments for future flexibility are...

A product design framework for a circular economy

The paper provides a circular economy framework from a product design perspective with tools to aid product designers in applying circular product design in practice. Design research for circular economy has so far mainly been limited to referring to existing fields of research such as design for disassembly, remanufacturing and recycling. The...

Beyond (eco)design: Current approaches to sustainable packaging design

Packaging has always received a lot of attention within the field of design for sustainability. The classical approach has been to mainly focus on reducing the impact of the packaging. This approach stems from the ill-informed position that packaging is superfluous, or at best there only for marketing reasons. This is a rather guild-based...

Amsterdam as a Sustainable European Metropolis: Integration of Water, Energy and Material Flows

Amsterdam has the ambition to develop as a competitive and sustainable European metropolis. The flows of energy, water and resources within the urban environment have a large potential to contribute to this ambition. The overall mass balances of phosphate, food, water, energy and material imports in the Amsterdam region have already been mapped....