The Circular Economy: A new sustainability paradigm?

While the terms Circular Economy and sustainability are increasingly gaining traction with academia, industry, and policymakers, the similarities and differences between both concepts remain ambiguous. The relationship between the concepts is not made explicit in literature, which is blurring their conceptual contours and constrains the...

Designing Circular Cities: Exploring the development of circular economy in cities

Urban policymakers face more complex issues than ever before in developing a socially-, economically- and environmentally sustainable cities. Some cities have already started transitioning towards a circular economy in this endeavor. This research explores the ways in which four pioneering cities have started navigating this transition, and uses...

Design for Change and Circularity: Accommodating Circular Material & Product Flows in Construction

Circular building concepts, as proposed within e.g. Circular Economy and Cradle-to-Cradle frameworks, imply radical changes for the construction sector. Cradle-to-Cradle® in particular has put forward the idea of buildings as material banks, radically altering the way material flows need to be managed. The notion of material banks (temporary...

Bouwen aan de Circulaire Economie: "Een betere wereld begint bij het stellen van een betere vraag"

Since the beginning of industrial evolution, industrialization has created a dominating unilateral production- and consumption model. This one-way model of production, also described as a linear model, encompasses a ‘take, make, waste’ pattern in which natural resources are extracted from the Earth, manufactured into goods, used and eventually...

Welcome to The Green Village

A sustainable world can only be achieved by an open collaboration between science, business and the public. That is why we create the Green Village: an innovative, lively, interactive and challenging environment where entrepreneurs, innovators, companies, artists, teachers and visitors can meet, work and play to develop, apply and experience...