Circular design
Designs products, services and business models so that they create no waste and keep products and materials in use at their highest value.
What problem it addresses
The linear economy extracts, makes and throws away. Waste is a design flaw.
Principles
Eliminate waste and pollution
From the design stage, not at the end.
Circulate products and materials
Repair, reuse, remanufacture and recycle.
Regenerate nature
Give back more than is taken.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Design for disassembly: parts that can be separated and repaired.
Avoid
Calling something circular when it is only recycled once.
Don’t fall for it
Recycling is the last option: repair and reuse come first.
Connections
Authors and works
Ellen MacArthur Foundation (n.d.)
Sums up the circular economy in three principles and argues for applying them from the design stage.
- 2013
Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Popularized a model of the circular economy with two cycles, technical and biological, to keep materials and products in use.
- 2002
William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Proposed designing products as technical or biological nutrients so that waste ceases to exist.
Sources
Original sources
- Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013). Towards the circular economy, Vol. 1: An economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition. Ellen MacArthur Foundation. View source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013)
- McDonough, W., & Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things. North Point Press.
Secondary sources
- Ellen MacArthur Foundation (n.d.). Circular economy introduction. Retrieved 2026. View source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation (n.d.)
Last reviewed: