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Lehrende: Prof. Dr. Fenna Blomsma; Julia Gross
Veranstaltungsart:
Vorlesung + Übung
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
Indust. Ecol.
Semesterwochenstunden:
3
Credits:
6,0
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
- | -
Kommentare/ Inhalte:
The module provides a comprehensive overview of key theoretical principles of industrial ecology, offering countless practical examples to outline how environmental sustainability can be implemented in everyday business. Given that waste and resource management is a key and current topic to avoid adverse environmental impact, the majority of the module will be dedicated to how to bring about a circular economy: an economy without waste and where resources continue to be productive instead of ending up in landfill.
First, the need for a circular approach to business will be discussed at the start of the module. A brief historic overview will be given, and important theoretical principles of industrial ecology will be presented (different system level approaches). This provides a bridge to circular economy, and the module continues to focus on structural waste, the role of circular strategies in addressing this, and how business practices need to be redesigned to create and capture value from providing circular solutions. Interactions between circular strategies will be discussed - both trade-offs and synergies; and the module will provide insight into the key differences between circular value chains and linear ones. The role of (re)design of process, product, business models and value networks will be covered.
Lastly, the module will cover the importance of purposeful and deliberate development of the next steps when it comes to implementing circular strategies within business (e.g. pilots and experiments), as well as ways in which to assess circularity and sustainability in various stages (e.g. life cycle analysing (LCA)).
Lernziel:
The objective of this module is to provide students with insight into the research field of industrial ecology, and in particular how circular economy strategies can be leveraged to provide value for both business and environment. Students will be put in a position to recognize the relevance of the topic of environmental sustainability for business practices and to understand corporate strategies for effective resource management.
Specifically, students will learn to:
- Explain how a circular economy is different from a linear economy
- Describe the unique features of a circular economy and list the reasons for why a business may want to ‘go circular’
- Describe the five types of ‘structural waste’ and the circular strategies that can be used to address each type and apply them to an example
- Including the contribution and drawbacks of different circular strategies
- Including how circular strategies can work together synergistically and how trade-offs between them can be managed
- Identify the different scales (macro, meso, micro, nano) that circular economy can be applied at
- And explain the relevance of these different perspectives from a business perspective
- Analyse which tools of the Industrial Ecology ‘toolkit’ and other relevant tools are needed to support circular oriented innovation, depending on the context
- From LCA to Design for Environment to System level redesign
- Evaluate approaches of companies conducting circular oriented innovation
- And suggest improvements based on your analysis, as to better address structural waste and work together more effectively
- Independently plan the steps for identifying, developing and implementing the (first steps of) a circular oriented innovation project within a company
- Describe the steps of circular oriented innovation, and formulate the key questions that need answering in each step
- Reflect critically on the circular economy concept
- Construct arguments in favour of circular economy approaches, whilst balancing these with the potential limitations and drawbacks of the approach
Vorgehen:
This module consists of a mix of asynchornous and synchronous (guest) lectures, and synchronous (live) (group) exercises. In the start of the course a number of asynchronous lectures will be provided. This is followed by a mix of synchronous (live) exercises and asynchronous lectures as the group is split into two for the live (group) exercises for the middle of the course. The course will be concluded with synchronous (live) (guest) lectures, including a closing question & answer session. Precise schedule to be confirmed.
Literatur:
Several lectures will have obligatory reading materials associated with them. These will be made available as the course progresses.
Zusätzliche Hinweise zu Prüfungen:
Module incl. take-home-exam are in English.
Take Home Exam:
Time to process the exam: 120 min
Time frame in which the exam can be completed:
1. Exam: 21.07.2021, 8.30 am - 11.00 am
2. Exam: 20.09.2021, 3.30 pm - 6.00 pm
The examiner of your course will provide information about the hand out of examination tasks / assignments and their submission during the course of this semester, at the earliest after the STiNE Changes and Corrections Period.
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