Resource efficiency and circularity in engineering higher education

Changing engineering student’s knowledge, skills and attitudes about resource efficiency, regenerative design and circularity in the built environment is a serious challenge. The development of engineering students’ capabilities to design within a circular economy paradigm in higher education can foster sustainable behaviour and contribute to the global sustainable development global agenda. This chapter presents the experience of introducing the concept of regenerative design within a project oriented design studio for undergraduates. The regenerative design objective and principles are used a method to develop engineers capabilities to design within a circular economy paradigm. The aim of the study is to evaluate the adoption of circular economy principles and their influence on the decision making and final outcomes. A state of the art provides an over view on the similar approaches to incorporate sustainability into university courses and curricula with a focus out case study to make a step forward. The chapter describes a thorough evaluation of the course and report the outcomes in the form of projects evaluation and students’ feedback, interviews and surveys, in order to assess the students’ knowledge uptake, learned skills and design capabilities. Students completed a knowledge, skills, and attitudes questionnaire before the curriculum, after the final learning experience, and one year later. This chapter provides insights into the effectiveness of introducing circularity in an engineering course. Based on the lessons learned from our case study we provide a discussion on the main challenges such as complexity, decision making uncertainty and interdisciplinarity, institutional reforms in engineering higher education. Finally, the chapter presents a range of tangible and realistic recommendations to better incorporate resource efficiency and circularity in engineering higher education.