J A R G O N B U S T E R
Adaptive Reuse
The process of repurposing existing buildings for new uses while retaining their historic features. This approach conserves resources, reduces waste, and preserves cultural heritage. Adaptive reuse often involves creative solutions to meet modern building codes and sustainability standards while maintaining the integrity of the original structure.
Source: ArchDaily
Advanced Materials
Materials that are engineered to have superior properties or functionalities compared to conventional materials. These materials can include nanomaterials, biomaterials, and smart materials, and are often used to improve the performance, durability, and sustainability of products and structures.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Agroecology
A holistic and integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agriculture and food systems.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Agroforestry
The deliberate integration of trees and shrubs into farming systems. This can be any combination of trees and shrubs that support a function, from providing shade and shelter and capturing carbon to delivering products like fruit or timber.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Automated Sorting
The use of automated systems and technologies to sort waste materials for recycling or disposal. Automated sorting can improve the efficiency and accuracy of waste management processes, ensuring that valuable materials are recovered and reused.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Biodiversity
The variety of life, such as animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms like bacteria, in different areas that make up our natural world. Each of these species and organisms work together in a web of ecosystems to maintain balance and support life. Biodiversity supports everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, medicine, and shelter.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Biomaterials
A material derived from, or produced by, biological organisms like plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, and other life forms.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Biomimicry
An approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature's time-tested patterns and strategies. This involves studying biological systems and processes to inspire more efficient, resilient, and environmentally harmonious built structures and systems. Biomimicry in architecture can lead to buildings that mimic natural forms for better energy efficiency, or materials that replicate nature's self-cleaning or self-repairing properties.
Source: Biomimicry Institute
Blue infrastructure
A water-based natural area or natural feature, or a system or feature designed to protect, mimic, or enhance a natural function, that absorbs and filters pollutants; attenuates shoreline erosion; protects communities from flooding or storm surge; reduces erosion; or sequesters carbon.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Brownfield Site
Land within the urban area on which development has previously taken place.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Built Environment
Human-made structures, features, and facilities viewed collectively as an environment in which people live and work. This includes all forms of buildings, civil engineering infrastructure both above and below ground, and managed landscapes in between and around buildings.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Carbon Sequestration
A natural or artificial process that removes carbon from the atmosphere storing in soils, living matter, or engineered structures. Carbon sequestration plays a crucial role in stabilising the Earth’s climate system.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Business Models
Strategies that design business operations to be restorative and regenerative, keeping products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value throughout their lifecycle. These models often involve practices such as product-as-a-service, sharing platforms, product life extension, and resource recovery. For example, a furniture company might offer leasing services, repair and refurbishment options, and take-back programs to ensure materials remain in use for as long as possible.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular City
Urban systems that implement circular economy principles to close resource loops, ensuring sustainability by involving stakeholders in the recycling, reusing, and repurposing of resources. This approach transforms cities into ecosystems where waste is minimized, resources are circulated, and natural systems are regenerated. Circular cities might feature integrated waste management systems, urban farming initiatives, and buildings designed for disassembly and material reuse.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Construction
Building practices that minimize resource consumption and waste production throughout a building's lifecycle by focusing on recycling, reusing, and designing for disassembly. This approach considers the entire lifecycle of a building, from material sourcing to eventual deconstruction. Techniques might include using recycled materials, designing modular components for easy replacement or reuse, and implementing on-site waste sorting and recycling systems.
Sources:
Circular Design
The creation of products, services, and systems that aim to eliminate waste and maximize resource efficiency from the outset, facilitating end-of-life recycling and reuse. This approach considers the entire lifecycle of a product or system, ensuring that materials can be easily separated, recycled, or biodegraded at the end of their useful life. Circular design might involve creating products with easily replaceable parts, using mono-materials to simplify recycling, or designing packaging that can be repurposed.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy
An economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources through recycling, reusing, and remanufacturing. This contrasts with the traditional linear economy, which has a 'take, make, dispose' model. In a circular economy, resources are kept in use for as long as possible, extracting maximum value before recovering and regenerating products and materials at the end of their service life. This system aims to decouple economic growth from resource consumption.
Sources:
Circular Economy Accelerators
Programs designed to scale up businesses and innovations that support the circular economy, providing resources and support to accelerate growth and impact. These accelerators often offer mentorship, funding, networking opportunities, and access to expertise to help circular economy startups and initiatives grow rapidly. They may focus on specific sectors (e.g., fashion, food, construction) or provide general support for circular innovations.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Assessment
Evaluations that measure an organization's or product's alignment with circular economy principles, identifying areas for improvement and tracking progress. These assessments might include metrics on material circularity, waste reduction, energy efficiency, and product lifespan. They help organisations understand their current circularity performance and set targets for improvement.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Auditing
The systematic examination of an organization's circular economy practices to ensure compliance with principles and standards, identifying areas for improvement and ensuring effective implementation. This process involves reviewing material flows, waste management practices, product design, and business models to assess how well they align with circular economy principles. Audits can help organizations identify inefficiencies, reduce waste, and improve their overall sustainability performance.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Certification
Certification programs that validate products, processes, or organisations as adhering to circular economy principles, providing recognition and assurance of sustainability efforts. These certifications often involve rigorous assessments and standards to ensure that certified entities are genuinely implementing circular practices, such as resource efficiency, waste reduction, and product lifecycle management.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Clusters
Geographical concentrations of interconnected businesses and institutions that collaborate to enhance circular economy practices, driving innovation and sustainability within a region. These clusters foster collaboration, resource sharing, and joint initiatives that promote circularity, such as industrial symbiosis, where waste from one process becomes input for another.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Consulting
Professional services that assist organizations in transitioning to circular economy models, providing expertise, strategies, and implementation support. Consultants help businesses identify opportunities for circularity, develop circular business models, and implement practices that reduce waste and enhance resource efficiency.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Education
Educational programs and initiatives focused on teaching circular economy principles and practices, aimed at building knowledge and skills for sustainable development. These programs can range from academic courses and professional training to public awareness campaigns, equipping individuals and organisations with the tools to implement circular solutions.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Financing
Financial mechanisms and instruments designed to support projects and businesses that promote circular economy practices, facilitating investment in sustainable initiatives. This includes green bonds, impact investing, and other financial products that provide capital for circular economy projects, helping to scale up circular innovations and business models.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Framework
Structured approaches and guidelines for implementing circular economy principles within organisations, providing a roadmap for sustainable practices. These frameworks outline key strategies, processes, and metrics for achieving circularity, helping organizations transition from linear to circular models.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Governance
Systems and processes by which organizations are directed and controlled in alignment with circular economy principles, ensuring accountability and sustainability. This includes policies, regulations, and organizational structures that promote circular practices and ensure compliance with circular economy standards.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Hubs
Centralised locations that bring together stakeholders to collaborate on circular economy initiatives, fostering innovation and shared resources. These hubs serve as focal points for circular activities, providing space for research, development, and the implementation of circular projects.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Indicators
Metrics used to measure progress towards a circular economy, such as recycling rates, material productivity, and waste reduction. These indicators help organizations track their performance, set goals, and demonstrate the impact of their circular economy initiatives.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Incubators
Programs that support the development and growth of startups and innovations in the circular economy, providing resources, mentorship, and funding. These incubators play a crucial role in nurturing new ideas and businesses that can drive the transition to a more sustainable, circular economic model.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Innovation
The development of new technologies, processes, and business models that support the transition to a circular economy, promoting sustainability and resource efficiency. This innovation is key to finding novel solutions to reduce waste, improve resource utilization, and create value from previously discarded materials.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Investments
Financial investments aimed at supporting and accelerating the transition to a circular economy, funding projects that promote sustainability and resource efficiency. These investments are crucial for scaling up circular solutions and driving systemic change across industries.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy LABELLING
Product labeling schemes that communicate circular economy attributes to consumers, ensuring transparency and promoting sustainable choices. These labels help consumers make informed decisions about the environmental impact and circularity of the products they purchase.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Leadership
The practice of guiding and influencing others towards circular economy objectives, fostering a culture of sustainability within organizations. Leaders in this field play a crucial role in driving the adoption of circular principles across businesses and industries.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Marketplaces
Online platforms that facilitate the buying, selling, or exchanging of circular economy products and materials, promoting reuse and recycling. These marketplaces play a vital role in connecting suppliers and consumers of circular products and materials, helping to close resource loops.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Metrics
Quantitative measures used to assess the circularity of products, businesses, or economies, providing insights into sustainability performance. These metrics help organisations track their progress towards circular economy goals and identify areas for improvement.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Mindset
A way of thinking that aligns with circular economy principles and values, promoting sustainability and resource efficiency in decision-making. This mindset is essential for driving the cultural and behavioral changes necessary for a successful transition to a circular economy.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Networks
Collaborative networks of businesses, organizations, and individuals working together to advance circular economy practices, sharing knowledge and resources. These networks facilitate knowledge exchange, collaboration, and the scaling of circular solutions across industries and sectors.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Partnerships
Collaborative relationships between organizations aimed at advancing circular economy objectives, leveraging synergies and shared goals. These partnerships are crucial for addressing complex challenges and creating systemic solutions that individual organizations might not be able to achieve alone.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Platforms
Digital platforms that facilitate circular economy practices such as sharing, reusing, and recycling, enhancing efficiency and collaboration. These platforms connect users with services and products that support circularity, such as marketplaces for second-hand goods, platforms for sharing tools and equipment, and systems for tracking and managing waste and resources.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Policy
Government policies and regulations designed to promote and support the transition to a circular economy, setting standards and incentives for sustainable practices. These policies can include tax incentives for recycling, regulations mandating product take-back schemes, and standards for sustainable product design.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Reporting
The practice of disclosing an organization's circular economy performance and impacts, promoting transparency and accountability. This involves reporting on metrics such as material circularity, waste reduction, and resource efficiency, helping stakeholders understand the organization's commitment to circular principles.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Research
Scientific and academic research focused on advancing knowledge and understanding of circular economy concepts and practices, driving innovation and evidence-based decision-making. This research helps identify new opportunities for circularity, develop new technologies and processes, and assess the impacts of circular economy initiatives.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Roadmap
A strategic plan outlining steps and milestones for transitioning to a circular economy, providing a clear path towards sustainability goals. This roadmap typically includes specific actions, timelines, and metrics for measuring progress, helping organizations and governments implement circular economy principles effectively.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Strategies
Plans of action designed to achieve circular economy goals, detailing specific initiatives and approaches to enhance sustainability. These strategies can include measures such as promoting product reuse, increasing recycling rates, and encouraging the use of sustainable materials.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Taxation
Tax policies designed to incentivise circular economy practices and discourage linear economic activities, promoting resource efficiency and waste reduction. Examples include tax breaks for companies that use recycled materials, taxes on single-use plastics, and incentives for businesses that implement circular business models.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Transformation
The fundamental change in business models, systems, and practices required to achieve a circular economy, involving a shift from linear to circular approaches. This transformation includes redesigning products and processes to eliminate waste, optimizing resource use, and regenerating natural systems.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Transition
The process of moving from a linear to a circular economic model, involving changes in practices, policies, and mindsets to promote sustainability. This transition requires collaboration among businesses, governments, and communities to implement circular principles and create a sustainable economy.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Economy Vision
A long-term aspiration for what a fully realized circular economy would look like, guiding strategic planning and decision-making. This vision includes a sustainable economy where resources are continuously cycled, waste is eliminated, and natural systems are regenerated.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Fashion
A regenerative system where clothes, shoes, and accessories are designed to be used and circulated responsibly and effectively for as long as possible. This involves designing products for durability, repairability, and recyclability, and promoting business models that extend product life, such as resale, rental, and upcycling.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Food Systems
Food systems designed to eliminate waste, improve resource efficiency, and regenerate natural systems, promoting sustainability in food production and consumption. This includes practices such as regenerative agriculture, reducing food waste, and using by-products and waste as inputs for new products.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Innovation
The creation of new technologies, processes, and business models that support the circular economy, driving sustainable development and resource efficiency. Circular innovation focuses on developing solutions that reduce waste, enhance resource use, and create value from previously discarded materials.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Investments
Financial investments aimed at supporting circular economy projects and businesses, promoting sustainability and resource efficiency. These investments can include funding for innovative recycling technologies, product-as-service business models, or companies developing circular materials.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Life Extension
Strategies to extend the useful life of products through repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and upgrades, reducing waste and resource consumption. This approach keeps products and materials in use for longer, maximizing their value and reducing the need for new production.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Metrics
Quantitative measures used to assess the circularity of products, businesses, or economies, providing insights into sustainability performance. These metrics might include recycling rates, material circularity index, or product longevity measures.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Packaging
Packaging designed to be effectively recycled or reused, reducing waste and resource consumption in packaging materials. This can include using mono-materials for easier recycling, designing for reuse, or using biodegradable materials.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Procurement
A purchasing approach that recognizes the role of buyers in supporting the circular economy, promoting the selection of sustainable and resource-efficient products and services. This involves considering factors like recyclability, repairability, and overall lifecycle impacts in purchasing decisions.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Standards
Standardised criteria and guidelines for circular economy practices and products, providing benchmarks for sustainability performance. These standards help ensure consistency and comparability in circular economy initiatives across different sectors and regions.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Supply Chain
A supply chain model that considers the full lifecycle of products and materials, aiming to minimize waste and maximize resource efficiency through circular practices. This includes strategies like reverse logistics, remanufacturing, and closed-loop recycling.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Taxation
Tax policies designed to incentivise circular economy practices and discourage linear economic activities, promoting resource efficiency and waste reduction. This could include tax breaks for recycling or repair activities, or higher taxes on virgin material use.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Value Chain
A value chain designed to keep resources in use for as long as possible, extracting maximum value from them while in use and ensuring effective recovery and regeneration at the end of their lifecycle. This approach considers circularity at every stage from design to end-of-life management.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular Water Management
Approaches to managing water resources that emphasise reuse, recycling, and recovery of water and its constituents, promoting sustainability in water use. This can include strategies like greywater recycling, rainwater harvesting, and water-efficient technologies.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Closed-loop Systems
Production processes where post-consumer waste is collected, recycled, and used to make new products, creating a closed-loop of material use that minimises waste. This approach aims to eliminate the concept of waste by turning it into a valuable input for new production.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Cradle-to-Cradle
A design framework for products and systems that are not only efficient but essentially waste-free, ensuring that materials are kept in continuous cycles of use and reuse. This concept envisions all materials as nutrients that can be safely returned to either technical or biological cycles.
Source: Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute
Critical Raw Materials
Under the act Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), the European Union has identified a list of 34 critical raw materials, which are important for the EU economy and face a risk of disruption, of which 17 are designated “strategic” because of their importance and global demand/supply imbalances. The strategic materials include base metals aluminium, copper, and nickel, along with key battery material lithium and rare earth elements used in permanent magnets for wind turbines or in electric vehicles.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Decarbonisation
Reducing the carbon emissions produced by a manufacturing process, an industrial sector, or even a larger economic system.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Digital Product Passport (DPP)
A structured collection of product-related data across a product’s lifecycle, sharing information for every product placed on the EU market across the entire value chain.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Design for Disassembly
Designing products with future disassembly in mind, facilitating repair, refurbishment, or recycling, and ensuring that components can be easily separated and reused. This approach supports circular economy goals by making it easier to keep materials and components in use.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Downcycling
The process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of lesser quality and reduced functionality, often resulting in a decrease in the value of the material. While not ideal, downcycling can still help extend the life of materials that might otherwise be discarded.
Source: Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute
Eco-efficiency
The concept of creating more goods and services while using fewer resources and creating less waste and pollution, thus reducing the environmental impact of economic activities. This approach focuses on optimizing resource use and minimizing negative environmental impacts.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Eco-Industrial Park
An industrial park designed to reduce environmental impact through shared resources and symbiotic relationships between businesses, promoting the efficient use of resources and the recycling of waste. These parks facilitate the exchange of materials, energy, water, and by-products among nearby companies, creating a closed-loop system that mimics natural ecosystems.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Ecosystem
A dynamic, complex system of living (biotic) organisms, including plant, animal, and micro-organism communities; and their non-living (abiotic) environment comprising elements such as water, soil, sunlight, and nutrients. These biotic and abiotic components are intricately linked and function together as a cohesive unit. Ecosystems can vary greatly in size and complexity, ranging from small, localised communities to vast, global-scale systems.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Ecosystem Services
When trees regulate climate, wetland reeds filter water, or bees pollinate, they are investing in the health of the ecosystem through mutual value creation. These direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems (and their biodiversity) to human wellbeing — such as climate regulation, clean water, pollination, and more — are called ecosystem services. They are an excellent proxy for the health of ecosystem functioning, supporting the quantitative assessment of nature-positive impact.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
A mandatory, fee-based policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle, shifting the responsibility of waste management upstream to the producer and away from municipalities. Under EPR legislation, businesses that place products on the market become responsible for managing their products when these are discarded by consumers.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Green Cover
Natural or planted vegetation covering a certain area of terrain, functioning as protection against soil erosion, protecting the fauna, and balancing the temperature.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Greenfield Site
Land on which no urban development has previously taken place; usually on the periphery of an existing built-up area.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Green Infrastructure
This term relates to a network of green spaces and other natural features that can provide a wide range of environmental, economic, health, and wellbeing benefits for nature, the climate, and local and wider communities. Green infrastructure comprises different kinds of components (for example, parks, green roofs, urban forests, and road verges) which can be classified according to several parameters (e.g. spatial scale, dimension, location).
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Green Roofs
A vegetative layer grown on a rooftop providing shade, remove heat from the air, and reduce temperatures of the roof surface and surrounding air. Using green roofs in cities or other built environments with limited vegetation can moderate the heat island effect, particularly during the day.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Green Spaces
A plot of vegetated land separating or surrounding areas of intensive residential or industrial use and devoted to recreation or park uses.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Industrial Ecology
The study of material and energy flows through industrial systems, aiming to optimise resource use and minimise waste by understanding the interactions between industrial processes and the environment. This approach seeks to create industrial systems that operate more like natural ecosystems, where waste from one process becomes input for another.
Source: Biomimicry Institute
Just Transition
A set of principles, processes and practices that encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers’ rights and livelihoods when economies are shifting to sustainable production, primarily combating climate change and protecting biodiversity. While definitions vary across thematic and geographic contexts, a just transition ensures the whole of society — all communities, all workers, all social groups — and places, sectors, countries or regions are brought along in the pivot to a net zero, and a nature-positive future.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Land Footprint
An indicator used to assist the analysis of global land use — the human use of a specific area for a certain purpose (such as residential, agriculture, recreation, industrial, etc.) — related to consumption of a country or region and to monitor land use.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Leasing Economy
An economic system where consumers pay for the use of a product without owning it outright, promoting the efficient use of resources and extending the life of products through shared use and maintenance. This model encourages manufacturers to design durable, repairable products and take responsibility for their lifecycle.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Material-Efficiency
Activities designed to reduce the use of material resources during production and consumption, as well as measures to improve the reusability, recyclability, and durability of products, components, and materials.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Material Footprint
A consumption-based indicator of the total amount of raw materials extracted to meet final consumption demands.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Material Passport
A digital set of data describing defined characteristics of materials in products, providing information on how they can be reused, recycled, or disposed of, thus facilitating circular economy practices. Material passports help track the lifecycle of materials, ensuring they can be efficiently recovered and reused.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Modular Building System
A process in which a building’s components are constructed off-site under controlled factory conditions, using the same materials and designing to the same codes and standards as conventionally built facilities. In a modular system, the individual components are produced as standardised ‘modules’ allowing for flexibility in the configuration of the building as well as facilitating the reuse of modules in future buildings. Modular buildings systems are a type of pre-fabrication, but are differentiated by the standardised, repeating modules.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Modular Design
A design approach that subdivides a system into smaller parts (modules) that can be independently created, modified, replaced, or exchanged, enhancing the ability to repair, upgrade, and recycle products. Modular design supports circular economy principles by making products more adaptable and easier to maintain.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Natural Capital
Refers to the elements of the natural environment that provide valuable goods and services to society. It applies an economic lens to the world’s stocks of natural assets — like forests, rivers, and soil — and how society and businesses rely on them to function.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Nature-Based Solutions
These involve working with nature, as part of nature, to address societal challenges, supporting human wellbeing and biodiversity locally. They include the protection, restoration, or management of natural and semi-natural ecosystems; the management of aquatic systems and working lands; and integration of nature in and around our cities.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Nature-Positive
Human activities that contribute to the restoration and regeneration of natural habitats and ecosystems, as well as local communities.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Prefabrication
An approach to construction where structural components are manufactured offsite under factory conditions. These components are then delivered to site and are assembled to form the final building or facility.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Product Life Extension
Strategies aimed at extending the useful life of products through repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and upgrades, thereby reducing waste and conserving resources. These strategies help keep products and materials in use for longer, maximizing their value and reducing the need for new production.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Product-as-a-Service (PaaS)
A subscription-based business model offering products as a service instead of product ownership as a way to support efficient resource use. Through renting or leasing, groups of consumers can achieve a product’s desired result without owning the equipment or product itself.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Recover
The process of recovering energy or materials from waste through methods such as incineration with energy recovery or anaerobic digestion, which converts organic waste into biogas. This approach helps to extract value from waste that cannot be reused or recycled.
Source: Circularise
Regenerative Agriculture
A broad set of food production methods with two clear and complementary outcomes: the production of high quality food and the improvement of the surrounding natural ecosystem. It borrows from an older pre-industrial form of cultivation, updated and improved based on a better scientific understanding of soil, water, and the relationships that exist in natural ecosystems. Its overall ambition is a radical shift from extractive, linear thinking that prioritises high yields above all else, to establishing cycles of regeneration.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Regenerative Practices
Approaches that restore, renew, or revitalise their own sources of energy and materials, promoting sustainability and the regeneration of natural systems. These practices aim to create positive environmental impacts rather than simply reducing negative ones.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Regenerative Production
An approach to managing agroecosystems that provides food and materials in ways that create positive outcomes for nature. These outcomes include, but are not limited to, healthy and stable soils, improved local biodiversity, improved water and air quality, and higher levels of carbon sequestration. They can be achieved through a variety of context-dependent practices — such as regenerative agriculture, restorative aquaculture, agroecology, agroforestry, and conservation agriculture — and can together help regenerate degraded ecosystems and build resilience on farms and in surrounding landscapes.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
R0 Refuse
The strategy of refusing to use raw materials and instead opting for alternatives that reduce waste and resource consumption from the start. This is the most proactive approach in the circular economy hierarchy.
Source: Circularise
R1 Rethink
The strategy of rethinking product use by intensifying the use of products through sharing or designing multifunctional products. This approach aims to maximize the utility of products and reduce overall resource consumption.
Source: Circularise
R2 Reduce
The strategy of increasing efficiency in product manufacture or use by consuming fewer natural resources and materials. This approach focuses on minimizing waste and resource use throughout the product lifecycle.
Source: Circularise
R3 Reuse
The strategy of using a discarded product in good condition to fulfill its original function, extending the product's lifecycle. This approach helps to keep products and materials in use for longer, reducing the need for new production.
Source: Circularise
R4 Repair
The strategy of repairing and maintaining defective products so they can continue to be used with their original function, thus extending their lifecycle. This approach helps to reduce waste and the need for new product manufacturing.
Source: Circularise
R5 Refurbish
The process of restoring an old product and updating it to extend its life and functionality. This strategy helps to maintain the value of products in the economy while reducing the need for new production.
Source: Circularise
R6 Remanufacture
The process of using parts of discarded products to create new products with the same function, thus conserving resources and reducing waste. This approach helps to maintain the value of materials and components in the economy.
Source: Circularise
R7 Repurpose
The strategy of using discarded products or their parts in new products with a different function, promoting creativity and innovation in product use. This approach helps to extend the useful life of materials and components.
Source: Circularise
R8 Recycle
The process of converting waste materials into new materials or products, ensuring that valuable materials are not lost. While not as preferable as reuse or repair, recycling helps to keep materials in the economy and reduce the need for virgin resource extraction.
Source: Circularise
R9 Recover
The process of recovering energy from waste through methods such as incineration, which generates electricity or heat from the combustion of organic waste. While this is the least preferred option in the circular economy hierarchy, it can help to extract value from waste that cannot be recycled or reused.
Source: Circularise
Site Remediation
The process of removing polluted or contaminated soil, sediment, surface water, or groundwater, to reduce the impact on people or the environment.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Triple Planetary Crisis
The United Nations system refers to three interlinked global environmental crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Acting on this triple crisis lies at the core of the strategy of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Unsustainable patterns of consumption and production are identified as the common thread of this triple crisis.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Upcycling
The process of transforming by-products, waste materials, or unwanted products into new materials or products of better quality or environmental value, often adding value to the original material. This approach differs from traditional recycling by focusing on creating products of higher value or utility than the original materials. Upcycling can involve creative repurposing, such as turning old clothing into new fashion items, or industrial processes that convert waste into valuable raw materials.
Source: Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute
Urban Ecology
The study of biodiversity (trees, rivers, wildlife, and open spaces) in cities and urban areas to understand the extent of those resources and the way they are affected by urbanisation and environmental risks.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Urban Greening
Urban greening is the incorporation of green spaces and elements into urban environments and infrastructure, such as streets, cities, roofs, and walls. Following the principles of biophilic design, urban greening techniques make up a part of green infrastructure.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Urban Heat Island Effect
A phenomenon where urban areas experience higher temperatures than outlying areas due to a combination of diminishing green cover, heat gain and thermal properties of the materials commonly used in urban surfaces, as well as waste heat from human activities (such as industrial processes, transport, and air conditioning).
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Urban Landscape
An outdoor environment that is dominated and influenced by both man-made and natural elements found in an urban area such as buildings, roadways, parks, and other elements that are present in a city or town. The type of urban landscape depends on the city or town that it is located in and the amount of space that is available. For example, some urban landscapes may include modern architecture and high rise buildings, while others may focus on green spaces and parks.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Urban Regeneration
Private or public investment in areas with unemployment, poor quality services, housing, and decaying streets and public spaces to bring back underutilised assets and redistribute opportunities, increasing urban prosperity and quality of life.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Urban Sprawl
The decentralisation of the urban core through the unlimited outward extension of dispersed development beyond the urban fringe, where low density residential and commercial development worsens fragmentation of powers over land use.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation