The document provides an introduction to circular thinking and economy by discussing key concepts such as planetary boundaries, limits to growth, regenerative design, industrial ecology, biomimicry, and urban mining. It examines topics like global energy and materials consumption, renewable energy trends, embodied energy and carbon of products, and strategies for transitioning to a circular economy. A range of frameworks and theories contributing to the circular economy paradigm are also reviewed, from cradle to cradle to performance and blue economies.

1. Energy, Materials, Information
Introduction to circular thinking
08/04/2022
Dr. Dario Cottafava
Ph.D. in «Innovation for the Circular Economy»
PostDoc in «socio-economic impact of megaprojects and sustainable infrastructure» at the Dept. of
Management of the University of Turin
Visiting researcher at the «Catedra d’Economia Circular i Sostenibilitat» of the Tecnocampus of Matarò
(Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

2. Welcome to the anthropocene
2
Not yet officially recognized as a
geological epoch by the International
Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS).
To overcome the focus on the human
species Haraway (2015) recently
proposed the term capitalocene to
highlight the role of capitalism as a
way of organizing Nature as a whole
and not only to the human species.

3. Limits to growth
3
The System Dynamics Group of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1972 published a
report on the predicament of mankind for the Club of
Rome envisioning the society will achieve the planetary
limit capacity before 2100 if no interventionist policy
would be adopted to reduce and control the
industrialization growth, the pollution production, the
raw material exploitation or the constant population
growth.
The Limits to growth was probably one of the most
visionary studies of the past century where, for the first
time, the planetary boundaries were taken into
account in a holistic analysis about the evolution
and development of the humankind

4. Limits to growth
4
Was it a correct or
wrong prediction?
Where are we now?

5. Limits to growth: 30 years after
5
Source: Branderhorst, Gaya. 2020. Update to Limits to Growth: Comparing the World3 Model With Empirical Data. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/37364868/BRANDERHORST-DOCUMENT-2020.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1

6. Introduction: spaceship Earth
6
Boulding (1966) and other academics moved
the academic and public discussion on the
planet boundaries, inviting to think the Earth as
a closed system, with only a constant energy
inflow from sun and they put the basis for the
environmental economics, undermining the
myth of the eternal economic growth for the
very first time.

7. Introduction: spaceship Earth
7
More recently, starting from the nine
planetary boundaries proposed by
Rockstrom et al. (2009), Raworth (2017)
introduced the Doughnut Economics
taking into account both the environmental
boundaries and the minimum welfare for
the society.
Humanity, thus, can thrive only in the so-
called “safe and just space for humanity”.

8. Past industrial revolution & interpretative
framework
How can we live in the «safe and just space»?
How can humanity thrive and satisfy all his needs without overpassing the
environmental ceiling of the Planet?
According to Rifkin (2015) the answer is the so-called «Zero Marginal
Cost Society». He interpreted the past industrial revolution through the
lens of a «communication-energy-transportation» matrix by pointing out
how nowadays in the ongoing third industrial revolution we are moving
towards «almost» free production of commodities (e.g. MOOC/Internet,
renewable energy, 3D printing).
As a cornucopian, he avoided to take into account environmental
constraints, assuming that technological improvement will overcome
existing boundaries.
8

9. Cornucopian? Main world views related
to human-environment interactions
9
Source: Pearce, DavidW. and R. Kerry Turner (1990b). Economics of natural resources and the environment. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press

10. Energy: basic concepts (stocks and flows)
10
Resources (both materials and energy
sources) must be split into (Wall, 1990):
 Stocks:
 Deposits, i.e. fossil fuels (e.g. oil,
coal)
 Funds, i.e. renewable stocks (e.g.
biomass, wood from forest)
 Flows, i.e. constant fluxes (e.g.
sunlight, wind, tides, …)

11. Energy: global energy consumption
11
The Total Energy Supply (TES) is constantly increasing from the 8000 Mtoe in
1990 to more than 14000 Mtoe in 2018 (IEA, 2020).

12. Energy: global energy consumption
12
The total CO2 emissions are
increasing, even if the efficiency
in production (kgCO2/€) is
decreasing (Jevons paradox).
The Jevons paradox occurs when technological progress or government policy
increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount
necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises due
to increasing demand.

13. Energy: resource to production ratio
13
Hubbert (1956) estimated
that the global peak of
oil and coal production
would occur around 2000
and 2150, respectively.
Obviously, it was a wrong
prediction (for oil). The past
decades proved that, as the
demand increase, mining
companies invest more on
exploratory analyses (Jowitt
et al., 2020).

14. Energy: renewable energy trends
14
The most of the renewable
energy still derives from
hydroelectric, although it has
intrinsic limits due to high
social and environmental risks
(e.g. Vajont, Three Gorges
Dam). Currently, the most
promising and exponentially
growing is the wind energy.
The wind energy could satisfy the global demand. The proper lands for wind turbines
may generate around 70 TW, more than the total energy demand (Armaroli, 2017).

15. Energy: embodied energy (EE) and
carbon (EC)
15
A 2MW wind turbine needs needs
(Ortegon et al., 2013):
 9529 GJ (2.65GWh) of EE. It needs to
run less than one year to produce this
amount.
 713 tCO2 of EC. To satisfy the global
energy demand we would need around
16 milions of such turbines, which will
produce 11.7 GtCO2 (less than the
total emission in a single year).
Thus, what are the main global limits?
Each turbine needs 221 tons of raw resources, included critical and rare earth materials

16. Materials: global consumption
16
Currently the Global Domestic
Extraction is dominated by the
Asia and Pacific region, mainly
due to India and China that
increased their extraction more
than the +300% in the last 20
years (UNEP
, 2020).
The global extraction of
resources overpass 90Gt in
2017 (equivalent to 15000
Cheops Great Pyramids of
material).

17. Materials: reserves, resources and true
extent of mineralization
17
Source: adapted from CRIRSCO (2012) and Jowitt et al. (2020)

18. Materials: resources to production ratios
18
Source: data from USGS (2020)
The resources and reserves to
production ratio shows how considering
the true extent of resources the known
resources will last hundreds/thousands
of years. The values represent only a
snapshot of known resources and the
global production in 2020.
As discussed for the energy sources, by
considering the dynamics of the R/P
ratio, i.e. R and P updated each year, is
almost constant in the last 50 years
(Jowitt et al., 2020).

19. Materials: criticality of materials
19
Source: adapted from Graedel et al. (2012)
Assumed that known
resources will not be depleted
in the short-term, Graedel et
al. (2012) developed the
criticality index for minerals as
a weighted average of three
main aspects:
1. Supply risk
2. Environmental Implication
3. Vulnerability to Supply
Restriction

20. Materials: EU supply of raw materials
20
Source: Blengini, Gian Andrea et al. (2020a). Study on the EU’s list of Critical Raw Materials (2020). Technical report.
Online; accessed 29 Dec 2020. European Commission. URL: https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/42883/attachments/1/translations/en/renditions/native

21. Materials: criticality of materials for
emerging technologies
21
Source: Bobba, S. et al. (2020). Critical Raw Materials for Strategic Technologies and Sectors in the EU. A Foresight Study. Technical report.
Online; accessed 22 Sept 2020. European Commission, Joint Research Centre. URL: https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/42881

22. Why are critical raw materials critical?
Source: 22

23. The linear economy
23

24. Circular Economy
24
The Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation defines
the circular economy as:
"A circular economy is a systemic
approach to economic development
designed to benefit business, society, and
the environment. In contrast to the linear
take-make-waste model, a circular
economy is regenerative by design and
aims to gradually decouple growth from
the consumption of finite resources."

25. The three principles of the circular
economy
REGENERATE NATURAL SYSTEMS
25
1
DESIGN OUT OF WASTE
(and pollution)
2
KEEP PRODUCTS & MATERIALS IN USE
(at their highest value for as long as possible)
3

26. Strategies for the circular economy: an
overview
26
By design: less materials are used in
production
Reuse: you reuse an "old" product by
putting it back on the market
Refuse: you choose not to buy
(consumer choice)
Repair, refurbish, remanufacture: a
product is recovered by changing
only the broken components
Repurpose: you reuse a product for
a different purpose than the original
one
Recycle: to recover the materials
inside a product

27. New concept or rebranding?
27
Source:
The Circular Economy is based on
numerous theories, methodologies and
tools developed since the 1960s
related to the reduction of
environmental impacts and resource
use.

28. The galaxy of circular economy concepts
28
Source: Cottafava, Dario, Grazia Sveva Ascione, and Allori Ilaria. "CIRCULAR ECONOMY: NEW PARADIGM OR JUST RELABELLING? A
QUANTITATIVE TEXT AND SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS ON WIKIPEDIA WEBPAGES." R&D Management Conference 2019. 2019.
 Cradle to Cradle (McDonough, 2010):
eco-effectiveness vs eco-efficiency, waste
= resource
 Regenerative Design (Lyle, 1996; Brown,
2020): self-sufficiency of an ecosystem
 Performance economy (Stahel, 2010):
closing and slowing the loops
 Blue Economy (Pauli, 2010): green
innovation
 Industrial Ecology (Marshall, 1879;
Ayres, 1994): industrial symbiosis and
metabolism
 Biomimicry (Benyus, 1997): "learning"
from Nature versus "extracting" from
Nature., “resilient, adaptable,
multifunctional, regenerative, and
generally zero-waste” system.

29. Cradle to Cradle
29
Source:
Term coined in the early 1970s and attributed to Walter R. Stahel
Popularized in the early 2000s by McDonough and Braungart with the
book "Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things"
Based on the concept of eco-effectiveness
Eco-effectiveness implies the optimization of positive impacts.
Eco-efficiency is a concept still linked to a linear economy and
aims to minimize negative impacts (do less bad).

30. Cradle to Cradle
30
Source:
Raw material
extraction
Raw material
transport and
processing
Manufacturing
and Packaging
Transport and
Distribution
Retail USE PHASE Disposal
Raw material
extraction
Manufacturing
and Packaging
Transport and
Distribution
Retail & use
phase
Disposal
Secondary raw
materials
Cradle to gate
Cradle to grave
Secondary raw materials consist of production waste or
materials from recycling processes that can be fed back
into the economic system as new raw materials.
MPS represent materials and products that can be used
as raw materials through simple reuse, recycling, or
reclamation.
Cradle to cradle

31. Regenerative design
Introduced by Rodale (1972) in reference to agriculture to define self-
sufficient agricultural practices that do not consume soil.
Revived in the 1990s by Tillman Lyle (1996) with the book "Regenerative
design for sustainable development" (focused on architecture).
31
Source: 1) Lyle, John Tillman (1996). Regenerative design for sustainable development. John Wiley & Sons, 2) Immagine adattata da Brown, Martin, Emanuele Naboni, and Lisanne Havinga
(2020). “Defining regenerative design”. In: Regenerative design in digital pracice. A handbook for the built environment. Edited by Emanuele Naboni and Lisanne Havinga. Bolzano, IT: Eurac
What is a regenerative system?
It is a system that "provides for the
permanent reintegration, through
its own functional processes, of the
energy and materials used in its
operation."

32. Active vs Passive house
32
Source:

33. Performance Economy
33
Source: The Potential for Substituting Manpower for Energy (W. Stahel, 1976).
Introduced by Walter Stahel in 1986 with the
goal of decoupling the use of resources from the
benefits produced
The "performance" of a product or service can
be evaluated with "value-per-weight" or "labor-
per-weight" ratios (value produced and labor
generated per unit of material used).
It anticipates many of the concepts and
principles inherited from the circular economy
such as product-as-a-service and closing and
slowing the loops:
Era-D (from de-bonding): understood as recycling of
materials
Era-R (from reusing, repairing)

34. Industrial ecology and the Kalundborg
district
34
Source:
INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY: the study of
material and energy flows in industrial and
consumer activities, the effects of these
flows on the environment, and the
influences of economic, political,
regulatory, and social factors on the flow,
use, and transformation of resources, and
social factors on the flow, use, and
transformation of resources"
ECOSYSTEM: a complex set of relationships
among resources, habitats, and residents of
an area, whose functional goals are to
maintain a state of balance
SYMBIOSIS: the relationship between two
different living things that live close together
and depend on each other, each obtaining
particular benefits from the other

35. Urban metabolism & Circular Economy
35
Source:

36. Urban mining
36
Source: http://code.waag.org/puma/

37. Biomimicry: design inspired by nature
37
Source:
 Term introduced by Otto Herbert Schmitt (biophysicist) in 1969 and
popularized by Janine Benyus in the 1990s.
 Biomimetics is the discipline of learning from and emulating biological
forms, processes, and ecosystems tested by the environment and refined
through evolution ... and (can) be applied to solve technical and social
challenges of any scale
BIOMIMICRY: 'Interdisciplinary
cooperation of biology and technology
or other fields of innovation with the goal
of solving practical problems through the
function analysis of biological systems,
their abstraction into models and the
transfer into and application of these
models to the solution

38. Why Biomimicry?
38
Source:
Using Benyus' words, "after 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures
are fossil, and what surrounds us is the secret of survival."
Three hierarchical levels to consider to ensure sustainability:
1) Form (e.g., aerodynamics)
2) Processes (e.g. photosynthesis)
3) System (e.g. symbiosis)
Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.
Janine M. Benyus (1997, p. 7)

39. Other concepts related to the circular
economy
Environmnetal Economics (Rockstrom, 2009; Pearce, 1990): planetary limits (existence
theorem) and local ecosystems (regenerative rate)
Extended producer responsibility (OECD, 2020): polluter pays principles
Life Cycle Thinking and System Dynamics (Meadows, 2008): feedback loops
Eco-design (Luttropp, 2006): DfX = Design for X, X= disassembly, flexibility, recycling
Bioeconomy (McCormick, 2013): biological cycle of products/wastes (biomass, biogas, ...)
Collaborative Economy (Botsman, 2015): product-as-a-service, decentralized networks, foster
accessibility and not ownership
39

40. Fundamental Principles and Strategies
40
Source:
Building on previous theories, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017), the
circular economy is based on five key principles:
1 •systems thinking
2 •waste is food
3 •design out of waste
4 •diversity is strength
5 •renewable energy
A circular economy is a highly interconnected
economic system (system thinking), where there
is no waste (design out of waste) and every
waste stream is used as an input for other
processes (waste is food).
Redundancy and diversity (of stakeholders in a
supply chain for example) provides greater
resilience (diversity is strength), and the entire
system/supply chain should be powered only by
the use of renewable energy (renewable energy)

41. Butterfly diagram: circular economy
strategies
41
Linear vs circular economy
Technical cycle VS biological cycle
6 reverse cycles:
1. repair & maintenance,
2. reuse & redistribution,
3. refurbishments & remanufacturing,
4. cascading & repurposing,
5. recycling,
6. biochemical feedstock extraction

42. Strategies and business model: Platforms
for product/waste exchange
42
Source:
Buy and sell near you
https://it.wallapop.com/
https://www.ebay.it/
Buying and selling of waste and industrial scraps
https://excessmaterialsexchange.com/en_us/
https://materialenmarktplaats.nl/

43. Strategies and business model:
up-cycling, down-cycling & repurpose
43
Source:
 "Upcycling": reusing items to create a product of
higher quality, real or perceived.
 "Downcycling," or cascading: the recycled material is
of lower quality/functionality than the original use.
 "Repurpose": the process by which an item with a use
value is transformed or redistributed as an item with
an alternative use value

44. Strategies and business model:
repairing e remanufacturing
44
Source:
Modular products
https://www.fairphone.com
Household appliances
regeneration
https://www.ri-generation.com
Remanufacturing means to remanufacture a product and bring it back to equal (or
greater) performance than the original product.

45. Strategies and business model: reverse
machine
45
Source: CM Consulting (2019). Deposits System for one way beverage containers: global overview. Technical report

46. Strategies and business models: deposit
systems and reusable packaging
46
Esempi: https://en.youbumerang.com/ - https://aroundrs.it/ - https://www.pcup.info/
Source: CM Consulting (2019). Deposits System for one way beverage containers: global overview. Technical report

47. Strategies and business model: Material
passport and material accounting
47
Esempi: https://madaster.com/ - https://www.cirdax.com/ - https://www.reusematerials.nl/
 Material passport, to improve recoverability,
with information such as quality, quantity, size,
color, recyclability and demountability of a
material.
 Embodied Energy and Circularity Indicators to
assess the environmental impact of various
materials, components and products in use.
Material accountability is becoming mandatory
for some specific sectors
(e.g. construction sector)

48. Why tracking the waste?
Source: https://senseable.mit.edu/trashtrack/

49. Smart City & Waste Management
Source: https://www.sentilo.io/wordpress/
Open Source software for smart
monitoring Sentilo.io developed
by OpenTrends
1. Route optimization
2. Smart containers
3. Waste identification
4. Waste characterization with AI

50. Blockchain technology for ewaste
Source: https://www.ereuse.org/
A blockchain is a decentralized,
distributed, and oftentimes
public, digital ledger consisting
of records called blocks that are
used to record transactions
across many computers so that
any involved block cannot be
altered retroactively, without the
alteration of all subsequent
blocks.
This allows the participants to
verify and audit transactions
independently and relatively
inexpensively

51. Strategies and business model:
Product-as-a-service and sharing economy
51
Source:
Pay-per-wash
https://bundles.nl/en/how-it-
works/
Car/Bike sharing
(pay-per-minute)
(Pay-per-lux)
https://atlasofthefuture.org/
project/pay-per-lux/

52. The Complexity of the Circular Economy
Assessing the effective circularity of new products and/or processes must
necessarily include several aspects and scales:
life stages of a product/service: from the extraction of materials and raw
resources needed to its use phase to end of life.
different levels: micro (product/company), meso (supply chain/district), and
macro (region/nation/world)
time scales: different products and impacts can "last" from a few days to
many years/decades (think of the difference in durability of organic materials
or metals or between a house and a smartphone)
52

53. Beyond slogans
53
VS

54. Beyond slogans
54
A cotton “eco-friendly” bag would
need to be used hundreds/thousands
of times (depending on which aspect
is considered) before it can be
classified environmentally better than
a single-use bag.
Source: Edwards, C., Fry, J.M., 2011. Life cycle assessment of supermarket carrier bags: a review of the bags available in 2006. Technical Report SC030148.
isinella, V., Albizzati, P.F., Astrup, T.F., Damgaard, A., 2018. Life cycle assessment of grocery carrier bags

55. Beyond slogans
55
VS

56. CO2 emissions by number of (re)uses
56
Source: Cottafava, Dario, et al. "Assessment of the environmental break-even point for deposit return systems through an LCA analysis of single-use and reusable cups." Sustainable
Production and Consumption 27 (2021): 228-241.

57. Acidification by number of (re)uses
57
Source: Cottafava, Dario, et al. "Assessment of the environmental break-even point for deposit return systems through an LCA analysis of single-use and reusable cups." Sustainable
Production and Consumption 27 (2021): 228-241.

58. What is acidification?
58
Source:
Acidification is the phenomenon of lowering the
pH (of oceans, freshwaters or soil) due to the
introduction of substances such as sulfur and
nitrogen oxides.
Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels are
primarily responsible for the phenomenon of acid
rain, the main cause of the lowering of the pH of
lakes, forests and soil, with serious consequences
for living organisms, ecosystems and materials.
Category indicator: sulfur dioxide (SO2)

59. What is the main issue with single-use
plastics: littering & TecnoGrabber
59
Source:
TecnoGrabber Installed in Sant Fruitós de Bages (Barcelona) last week with the support of Ajuntament de Sant Fruitós de
Bages y a Aigües Manresa

60. Downcycling & Recycling
60
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZKP4UAtL8

61. How to assess circularity
There exist several methods to assess the circularity (and most in general
the environmental impacts) of products and services.
According to Corona et al. (2019) the main methodologies, tools and
approaches, among others, are:
1. Life Cycle Assessment
2. Input-Output models
3. Circularity indicators & design criteria
61

62. Life Cycle Assessment: fundamental
concepts
A process-based LCA
follows four stages:
1. Goal and scope;
2. Inventory analysis;
3. Impact Assessment;
4. Interpretation.
62

63. Life Cycle Assessment: impact categories
63

64. Input-Output models
64
Input Output models were originally
introduced by Leontief (1941) as a statistical
tools for macroeconomic analysis during the
II World War
Basically, they describe all economic
exchanges among all economic sectors in a
country through the technical coefficient
matrix A
A=
𝑎11 ⋯ 𝑎1𝑛
⋮ ⋱ ⋮
𝑎𝑛1 ⋯ 𝑎𝑛𝑛
where 𝑎𝑖𝑗 is the normalized economic
interchange between economic sector 𝑖 and
𝑗.

65. Input-Output models
65
Source: Cottafava, D., et al., 2022, Modelling economic losses and greenhouse gas emissions reduction during COVID-19 pandemic: past, present, and future scenarios for Italy,
Economic Modelling, Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2022.10580
Input Output models were originally
introduced by Leontief (1941) as a statistical
tools for macroeconomic analysis during the
II World War
Basically, they describe all economic
exchanges among all economic sectors in a
country through the technical coefficient
matrix A
A=
𝑎11 ⋯ 𝑎1𝑛
⋮ ⋱ ⋮
𝑎𝑛1 ⋯ 𝑎𝑛𝑛
where 𝑎𝑖𝑗 is the normalized economic
interchange between economic sector 𝑖 and
𝑗.

66. Circularity indicators: Material Circularity
Indicators
66
Source: Circularity Indicators. An Approach to Measuring Circularity. Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation, 2015
Circularity Indicators, mainly
focus on three aspects (EMF,
2015):
1. the amount of used
virgin materials;
2. the amount of
unrecoverable waste;
3. the lifetime of the
products

67. Circularity indicator for buildings:
Life Cycle Energy
67
Source: Ian-Frederic Häfliger et al., Buildings environmental impacts' sensitivity related to LCA modelling choices of construction materials,
Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 156, 2017, Pages 805-816,ISSN 0959-6526, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.04.052.
Life Cycle Energy
=
Embodied Energy (EE)
+
Operational Energy (OE)
+
Recurrent Emdodied Energy (REE)
+
Demolition EE (DEE)
With new European Directive for energy efficiency
and nZEB (EP
, 2010) the embodied energy is now
representing the majority of energy of the totale
Life Cycle Energy of a building

68. Circularity indicator for buildings:
building layers
68
Source: Reconditioning and Reconstruction: A Second Wind for Serbian Kindergartens, December 2015, Procedia Engineering 117(1):756-770, DOI:
10.1016/j.proeng.2015.08.218 Adapted from: Brand, S. (1994). How Buildings Learn; What happens after they’re built. Penguin Publishing Group.

69. Circularity indicators: Building Circularity
Indicators
69
Source: Verberne, J. (2016). Building circularity indicators - an approach for measuring circularity of a building. 165.
Retrieved from https://pure.tue.nl/ws/files/46934924/846733-1.pdf
• MCIp = MCI for a specific
• Fd = Total sum of the
maximum value of the
disassembly possibilities (Fi)
for each product;
• Ws = Total sum of the mass
weighting factor (Wj) for each
product;
• LKi = Total sum of the level
of important (LKk) for each
system.
NB: Classical LCA analysis are
given as pre-requirements

70. Design criteria: design for disassembly
70
Source: Cottafava, D., & Ritzen, M. (2021). Circularity indicator for residential buildings: Addressing the gap between embodied impacts and design aspects. Resources,
Conservation and Recycling, 164, 105120.

71. Current demolition practices
71
Source: TNO, 2017

72. Current demolition practices
72
Source: TNO, 2017

73. Current renovation practices
73

74. Future demolition practices?
74
Source: https://www.superlocal.eu/

75. Deep Circular renovation definition
75
A circular deep renovation, which contributes to a circular built environment, is
based on 100% life cycle renewable energy, and all materials used within the
system boundaries are part of infinite technical or biological cycles with lowest
quality loss as possible.
Source: https://www.drive0.eu/

76. 76
Source: http://catalonia.com/circulareconomy.jsp
Circular Urban Design: Leading Circular Economy
Solutions in Catalonia

77. 77
Circular Urban Design: beyond a myopic vision of
sustainability
NEW EUROPEAN BAUHAUS PILLARS
 BEAUTIFUL: aesthetics quality of experience and style, beyond functionality,
 SUSTAINABLE: sustainability from climate goals, to circularity, zero pollution, and
biodiversity
 TOGETHER: inclusion valorising diversity, equality for all, accessibility, and affordability
THREE GUIDING APPROACHES
 A multilevel approach
 A participatory approach
 A transdisciplinary approach
FOUR CHALLENGES
 Re-connecting with nature EIT Community NEB Challenge
 Re-gaining sense of community and belonging EIT Community NEB Challenge
 Prioritising the places and people that need it the most EIT Community NEB Challenge
 The need for a long term, life cycle and integrated thinking in industrial ecosystem EIT Community NEB Challenge

78. 78
https://www.eitfood.eu/news/post/new-european-bauhaus-call-co-creation-of-public-space
https://www.eitfood.eu/news/post/new-european-bauhaus-call-citizen-engagement
The circular design of our
cities involves managing
the physical environment
within the site-specific
processes of nature.
But how does this relate
to how we design our
cities?
And what’s in it for the
citizens?
Circular Urban Design: beyond a myopic vision of
sustainability

79. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION
Dario Cottafava
Dario.cottafava@unito.it