Circular Cities Asia
Organization Details
Circular Cities Asia has a mission to build a community that accelerates circular innovation in Asia Cities. To do this we identify small eco systems that mirror the life of cities where we can build capacity and test circular economy business innovations. Currently we are focused on university campuses.
Our early adopters benefit from circular economy capacity building and learning opportunities, opportunities to put their innovations into practice, opportunities to accelerate clean innovation business ideas and connections with industry experts and mentors. This in in addition to carbon and waste reduction outcomes from student circular economy projects.
Impact Story
Our economy is still largely operating on a linear basis (take-make-waste). There is a focus on reuse, reduce and recycling models however still only a small % of our economy is circular.
In order to disrupt the cycle of linear design, we believe it is essential that the next generation are trained think with a circular and sustainable design mindset. Innovation is key to this change.
Circular economy teaching and training is delivered at varying degrees within higher education institutions at a theoretical level, and may only apply to selected study areas and disciplines. Students may not be putting ideas into practice or thinking about the circular economy from an entrepreneurial perspective. It is also harder for clean innovation entrepreneurs to cross the "technology and commercialisation valleys of death" towards their proof of concept. Our economy still favours business models in the linear space.
We deliver a circular economy capacity building programme that compliments theoretical learning. We help students to address sustainability issues on campus, build skills to prepare them for the circular economy and we show them how to identify entrepreneurial and economic opportunities that also mitigate climate issues.
Rather than going deep into circular economy theory, we teach the intersection between innovation and circularity. We focus on youth entrepreneurship in higher education because we want to affect change amongst emerging innovators who can influence future systems. We use the campus environment as a living lab for young entrepreneurs to test and build their ideas in a safe and less complex space where they can fail and learn fast during the early stages of solution development. Having universities as a test bed can increase the likelihood of success when implementing and scaling innovations.
