Integrating the Circular Economy and Life Cycle Thinking into project-based learning of engineering students

Abstract

Circular economy (CE) and life cycle thinking (LCT) are two crucial concepts enabling the environmentally sustainable transition of the industry. However, engineering education programs neglect sustainability aspects, leading to lacking actors' skills and training. Therefore, this study presents an approach to how CE and LCT can be integrated into an existing project-based engineering course and what the learnings the students generate by the LCT integration. Our outcomes show that the LCT integration is crucial for students to reflect on material sourcing, links between products and business models, trade-offs in environmental impacts, and the importance of sustainability. Based on our experience and outcomes, we formulate the recommendations of 'initial simplification' and 'assumption challenging' for instructors who want to integrate sustainability into their courses.