From Linear to Circular Ideas: An Educational Contest

Denner Deda, Murillo Vetroni Barros, Constança Rigueiro () and Margarida Ribau Teixeira ()
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Denner Deda: ISISE—Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Coimbra, 3030-790 Coimbra, Portugal
Murillo Vetroni Barros: Laboratório de Estudos em Sistemas Produtivos Sustentáveis, Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR), Ponta Grossa 84017-220, Paraná, Brazil
Constança Rigueiro: Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering, Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco, 6000-084 Castelo Branco, Portugal
Margarida Ribau Teixeira: CENSE—Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Universidade do Algarve, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 18, 1-13

Abstract: This work proposes a framework with which to analyse Higher Education Institution (HEI) students’ knowledge and understanding of circular economy (CE) concepts and the potential of the CE to promote sustainability, using a contest. The framework integrates CE principles and business models with sustainable indicators, and it was applied to the accepted projects by the contest jury. The contest was launched in 2021 by the CE Working Group of the Portuguese Sustainable Campus Network to encourage creativity and the development of CE projects at HEIs. HEIs can play an essential role in promoting environmental education and creating partners with new visions for society and the economy concerning sustainability, developing knowledge, values, attitudes, and behaviours regarding the CE. The projects were mostly based on the recovery of secondary raw materials/by-products, the CE business model, and the CE principle of value optimisation. In addition, a strong relationship with environmental indicators was observed, but social and economic indicators of the CE were only marginally considered by the students. Therefore, students considered the CE as mostly mainly being related to product recovery/optimisation; thus, the CE concepts and principles and their relationship to sustainability implementation require reinforcement and transversal approaches to increase this knowledge and its dissemination.

Keywords: circular economy; higher education institutions; sustainable development; university cooperation; educational context (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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