This enlightening book presents a framework of the various factors influencing the transformation of societal thinking towards the circular economy, including individual, organizational and macro-environmental levels of analysis. The Human Dimension of the Circular Economy delivers an array of diverse perspectives on the human aspects of the Circular Economy: one of the key models for building a more sustainable future.

Circular Economy Re-imagine the future of economics and society Are you excited about a regenerative, efficient, and waste-free future? You should be! The circular economy is making short work of old-school (and wasteful) ways of thinking. Players in the circular economy are re-imagining business processes and material lifecycles to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and make their families’ futures brighter and more prosperous. You’ll learn to transform the way you live and work and feel great about being part of the solution to many of the world’s energy and environmental problems. Inside... Why Take-Make-Waste is outdated Finding opportunity in ecology The 6 R’s of circular economies Rethinking material lifecycles Turn trash into treasure Creating careers in circularity Why circular ideas are healthier Make, use, reuse, repair and recycle

Circular Economy in the European Union: Organisational Practice and Future Directions in Germany, Poland and Spain presents the EU's journey towards a circular economy (CE), identifying significant organisational practices in this gradually adopted field among member countries. The book also aims to develop and propose innovative initiatives and practices for implementing CE across various economic sectors in selected EU countries, such as Poland, Spain and Germany. Covering topics which include the implementation of CE in the EU and worldwide, green employee behaviors, corporate social responsibility in creating pro-environmental attitudes and models of eco-digital factory transformation in SMEs, the book emphasises the importance of innovative, environmentally friendly, low-waste, and low-emission technologies. Consisting of thirteen interconnected chapters, it discusses the challenges and opportunities of CE, the importance of business engagement in addressing social and environmental problems, and provides practical examples of innovative solutions in various sectors. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of circular economy, corporate governance, business ethics and sustainable business, as well as entrepreneurs, managers, government representatives, and non-governmental organisations active in CE.

This open access book provides new perspectives on circular economy and space, explored towards the definition of regenerative territories characterised by healthy metabolisms. Going beyond the mere reuse/recycle of material waste as resources, this work aims to understand how to apply circularity principles to, among others, the regeneration of wastescapes. The main focus is the development over time, and in particular the way how spatial planning and strategies respond to new unpredictable urgencies and opportunities related with territorial metabolisms. The book specifically focuses on living labs environments, where it is possible to tackle complex problems through a multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach - including the use of digital spatial decision support environment – which could be able to include all the involved stakeholders. Through a spatial scope of circularity, this book describes several examples including among others ideas from different contexts such as Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and Vietnam. Through including reflections on methodology and representation, as well as on solutions for circular and healthy metabolisms, the book provides an excellent resource to researchers and students.

Nowadays, organisations are confronted with the imperative to enhance their organisational sustainability. This involves establishing an appropriate balance between the economic, ecological, and social aspects of an organisation's operations and striving to accomplish their economically viable goals that are both socially and environmentally responsible. By aligning the priorities and incorporating environmental, social, and economic factors into their operational strategies, organisations can generate value for themselves, while also making a positive impact on the current and future welfare of society and the environment. Noticeably, the advancement of organisational sustainability relies heavily on human capital management in the workplace. Today, more than ever, human capital is regarded as the foundation of organisations and ought to be treated as such. Given the pivotal role of human capital management for ensuring the long-term organisational sustainability of an organisation, emphasis should be placed on redefining leadership strategies and priorities, focusing on diversity and inclusion, cultivating talent, facilitating remote work, fostering employee engagement, promoting skill development for environmentally friendly practices, and prioritising job satisfaction and employee well-being. In response to the multi-faceted challenges of the third decade of the 21st century, this book provides an in-depth review of research avenues addressing present and future human capital development concerns in terms of enhancing organisation sustainability. The main aim of the book is to indicate the direction of demand for new competences regarding workplace human capital and identify synergies between its particular aspects with reference to contemporary human capital development. The monograph’s objectives include presenting tools that allow the analysis and development of human capital competences, pro-active and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, the coexistence of workers and AI in the organisation, as well as providing employee well-being, satisfaction, and commitment. Moreover, the book offers recommendations for contemporary responsible organisations that carry themselves towards the new economic and social order and sustainability.

This book provides support to academics and researchers, as well as those operating in the management and engineering fields that need to deal with policies and strategies that allow to move towards a more sustainable paradigm, a greener economy that guarantees economic development and the improvement of living and working conditions. Drawing on the latest developments, ideas, research and best practice, this book examines the new advances in the subjects of circular economy.

The main theme of this book is the social dimension of the circular economy (CE). This book’s objective is to provide a foundation for the discussion of social aspects of CE that also allows the integration of CE with the UN SDGs. The circular economy is increasingly becoming the consensual pathway for a transition towards sustainable production and consumption that balances the economic and ecological pillars of sustainable development. However, researchers have noted that the social dimension of sustainable development is noticeable missing or, at best, weakly developed in CE ideas and frameworks (Sehnem et al., 2019). The main argument of this book is that CE research and practice needs to embrace its social impacts, not only in terms of understanding and avoiding negative social impacts but also in terms of exploring the potential that CE models have for addressing social challenges.

Written to complement civil engineers’ technical knowledge, this book explains the sociocultural contextual knowledge that civil engineers need if they are to be effective in their professions. Civil engineers design and build the world in which we all live. The decisions that they make can guide us toward a more sustainable society since the infrastructure that they create has a direct impact on how sustainably we are able to live. Sustainability is value-laden, however, and embedded within larger contexts. Whilst engineers are well versed in technical matters and the evaluation of physical contexts, their education often leaves out essential knowledge about the larger social, cultural, economic, historical, and political contexts in which they operate. This book helps readers to understand contextual knowledge and why context matters—which is useful to engineering students and professionals who have found this topic absent from their education, who would like to understand contextual issues, and who would like to know why they should care. The book lays out essential sociocultural contextual knowledge for today’s civil engineers, relevant across a wide variety of workplaces.

The development of a closed-loop cycle is a necessary condition so as to develop a circular economy model as an alternative to the linear model, in order to maintain the value of products and materials for as long as possible. For this motive, the definition of the value must be demonstrated for both the environment and the economy. The presence of these analyses should be associated with the social dimension and the human component. A strong cooperation between social and technical profiles is a new challenge for all researchers. End of life of products attract a lot of attention, and the final output could be the production of technologies suitable for managing this waste.

A Circular Economy seeks to rebuild capital, whether this is financial, manufactured, human, social or natural, and offers opportunities and solutions for all organisations. This book, written by Walter Stahel, who is widely recognised as one of the key people who formulated the concept of the Circular Economy, is the perfect introduction for anyone wanting to quickly get up to speed with this vitally important topic for ensuring sustainable development. It sets out a new framework that refines the concept of a Circular Economy and how it can be applied at industrial levels. This concise book presents the key themes for busy managers and policymakers and some of the newest thinking on the topic of the Circular Economy from one of the leading thinkers in the field. Practical examples and case studies with real-life data are used to elucidate the ideas presented within the book.