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CirculaTUM: circular economy as a model for the future

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The CirculaTUM research network is dedicated to a resource-efficient circular economy - a regenerative economic model in which material flows are transformed into cycles and waste no longer has a place. For the upcoming launch as a TUM Mission Network, initiator Niclas-Alexander Mauß explains what the Circular Economy means for research, teaching and transfer. The TUM School of Engineering and Design (ED), which has committed itself to the maxim of the circular economy and sustainability since its founding in October 2021, has a special role to play here.
Niclas-Alexander Mauss, research assistant at the Chair of Materials Handling, Material Flow, Logistics, Department of Mechanical Engineering, TUM School of Engineering and Design, talking about the goals of CirculaTUM. Image: Susanne Höcht / TUM

Interview: Cornelia Freund

ED: What is CirculaTUM all about?

Niclas-Alexander Mauß: CirculaTUM is a university-wide research network that bundles knowledge and diverse competencies across the various disciplines and locations of TUM. It makes a scientific contribution to the transformation of the economy and society towards a circular economy, an industrial system in which we continue to use products but no longer consume the valuable resources in them. Since the Industrial Revolution, our prosperity has been based primarily on the extraction and processing of natural resources. Given the finite nature of these resources, CO2 emissions, biodiversity loss and other environmental impacts associated with resource extraction and processing, this cannot be a model for the future.

The Circular Economy provides a counter-design to the traditional, linear logic of "take, make, waste" - by closing material and product cycles, rethinking business models, and ultimately decoupling our economic development from the need for new natural resources as far as possible. This means much more than "recycling": it is about sustaining value creation as much as possible by maximising the lifetime of products, and repairing, refurbishing or remanufacturing them, which happens all long before material recycling.

The shift towards such a regenerative economy is enormously challenging. Within the framework of CirculaTUM, researchers from different disciplines at TUM and industrial partners are working on technological, business and social solutions in joint projects to realise this goal. At the same time, we are advancing systemic thinking in teaching and want to help activate the many entrepreneurial potentials associated with the Circular Economy.

What progress have we made towards such a circular economy?

It is both a blessing and a curse that Germany brought waste management forward in the 1980s and 1990s - keyword: the "yellow bag"...

Please find the complete Interview here: CirculaTUM: circular economy as a model for the future - TUM School of Engineering and Design

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