Circular economy modeling towards cleaner air Research Unit

This unit addresses research and education on the circular economy, which is essential for realizing a sustainable society. The circular economy refers to an economic system in which resources are not used linearly from mining, processing, consumption, and disposal but are instead circulated through recycling and reuse, and so on.

 A system for circulating resources, which are expected to be in short supply in the future and impose a large environmental impact during mining and processing, is essential. To achieve this goal, cooperation among various industries, academia, and the public is strongly required.

At the same time, it is necessary to research:

1. What kind of circulating is technically possible to reduce the environmental impact.
2. Which resources should be priority treated.
3. How the economic system, business model, and people’s sense of values should be transformed by using research methods such as life cycle assessment (LCA), material flow analysis (MFA), econometric analysis, and scenario analysis, knowledge from public policy studies, sociology, transition studies, and actual production data.

This joint research unit first studies the circular economy business modeling towards cleaner air and aims to expand the resultant methods to other fields. To realize this, we will clarify the technologies, socioeconomic infrastructures, and business models which should be involved in the circular economy through various analyses and collaborative work between industry, academia, and the public.