From Linear to Circular Ideas: An Educational Contest

This work proposes a framework with which to analyse Higher Education Institution (HEI) students’ knowledge and understanding of circular economy (CE) concepts and the potential of the CE to promote sustainability, using a contest. The framework integrates CE principles and business models with sustainable indicators, and it was applied to the accepted projects by the contest jury. The contest was launched in 2021 by the CE Working Group of the Portuguese Sustainable Campus Network to encourage creativity and the development of CE projects at HEIs. HEIs can play an essential role in promoting environmental education and creating partners with new visions for society and the economy concerning sustainability, developing knowledge, values, attitudes, and behaviours regarding the CE. The projects were mostly based on the recovery of secondary raw materials/by-products, the CE business model, and the CE principle of value optimisation. In addition, a strong relationship with environmental indicators was observed, but social and economic indicators of the CE were only marginally considered by the students. Therefore, students considered the CE as mostly mainly being related to product recovery/optimisation; thus, the CE concepts and principles and their relationship to sustainability implementation require reinforcement and transversal approaches to increase this knowledge and its dissemination.