Circular Economy - An Interdisciplinary Approach edX - online learning platform

Overview

Do you want to contribute to a more sustainable society? Tackle the challenges in the transition towards a circular economy? In this course you will analyze what it takes to create a circular economy including sustainable supply chains. 

Key facts

The transition towards a circular economy is one of the biggest challenges in order to create a more sustainable society. This transition requires circular thinking and an interdisciplinary approach, combining socio-technical, managerial, and environmental considerations.

Right now we design products from cradle to grave: from production to consumption to waste, which is a linear model. But we should design products from cradle to cradle: in a closed loop whereby they don’t become waste, but valuable resources again. And when we start thinking in circles, we might as well try to reinvent not just supply chains, but entire systems. Because that’s what we have been doing with sustainability: we have been departing from the status quo, while cradle to cradle and circular pushes us to think outside the box.

In this Circular Economy - An Interdisciplinary Approach course at Wageningen University and Research - WageningenX, we therefore take a systems approach to the circular economy, considering different stakeholder perspectives, their incentive structures, and their impact on circular alternatives.

This Circular Economy - An Interdisciplinary Approach is part of Economics and Policies for a Circular Bio-Economy MicroMasters Program.