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Design competencies for a circular economy
Design competencies for a circular economy
Sumter, Deborah; de Koning, Jotte; Bakker, Conny; Balkenende, Ruud
FG Transdisziplinäre Nachhaltigkeitsforschung in der Elektronik
Limited research has been done on design competencies for a circular economy in practice.
Yet, an overview of design competencies for a circular economy would be useful to understand which
topics should be emphasized in both education and practice. This paper focuses on deriving circular
economy competencies for product designers working in industry. The study consisted of three focus
groups with twelve designers that are actively exploring circular economy opportunities in an industrial
product design context. We derived six design competencies for a circular economy: (1) circular
economy understanding, (2) circular economy storytelling (3) setting circular criteria, (4) assessing
circular solutions, (5) connecting reverse logistics with users, and (6) design for multiple use cycles.
These six competencies are presented and reflected upon by comparing them to competencies found
in literature. Two of the competencies found (i.e., circular economy understanding and storytelling) are
new compared to those mentioned in literature. The other four competencies found in this study overlap
or further specify competencies mentioned in literature. Ultimately, the relevancy of each of the six
competencies for an individual designer is determined by the role this designer has in a company.
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