Glossary Circular Economy

The goal of this glossary is to help students to understand some of the basics of circular economy. All definitions in the glossary are provided with reliable references as a source. For further explanation of definitions you might consult those references at the end of the glossary. Circular Economy is a relative new subject, besides a lot of publications (Webster, 2017) (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2025) (European Commission, 2020) (European Parliament, 2025) (Gleeson-White, 2014) (IIRC, 2021) (Hirsch & Schempp, 2020) (Raworth, 2017) (Schoenmaker & Schramade, 2023), there is not really a common Body of Knowledge (BoK). In several Dutch academic minors for bachelors (in educational units of 30 credits of ECTS or 840 academic hours of workload or study) we find some ideas of a body of knowledge (Kies op Maat, 2025), as well as in a master study (of 60 ECTS) in the circular economy (HAN, 2025). In the Body of Knowledge, we observe the well-known three elements of competencies: Knowledge, Skills and Attitude. In this glossary, we will develop the content of several competencies of circular economy.

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