EDUCATION

EDUCATION FOR CIRCULAR, REGENERATIVE FUTURES

Enabling community action for climate

LEADING CHANGE: EDUCATION FOR BUSINESSES, SCHOOLS AND TEAMS

So you've started your circular transition or at least thinking about it. Or perhaps you'd like to identify, nurture and grow a community of champions within. But what tools do you need to educate your team, students or to engage your community, from the ground up?

Circular economy (CE) has emerged as the new economic model that tries to overcome the current production and consumption based on a “linear economy” - Take, make and dispose of model. CE is aimed at a systemic transformation of our current economy where the value of products, materials and resources are maintained in the economy for as long as possible, the generation of waste is minimized and a sustainable, low carbon, green, resource-efficient and competitive economy can actualise.

We work with councils, educational institutions, hospitality businesses and office teams to educate staff and facilitate behaviour change. Our team specialises in capability building workshops and education programs to build up zero waste and circular economy knowledge across a range of topics and industry sectors, to think about waste differently using regenerative design thinking frameworks.

EDUCATION PROGRAMS:

Let’s arm your people with the right weapons to fight climate change.

PRIMARY SCHOOL WAR ON WASTE SESSIONS

Through our work with Primary Schools, we have developed 45-90 minute interactive war on waste education program which can be delivered within the school curriculum or as an extra-curricular activity.This program features an introduction to the issue of waste (tailored for the year level), an intermediate overview of the major waste streams, followed by a participatory activity to test and embed knowledge.

This high-energy session is recommended to be delivered early in the school term if aligned with curriculum, as many teachers find it ignites interest in their class before students embark on their learning journey, but can readily be adapted to act as a capstone event.

Our program delivery team all hold Victorian working with children cards, and have experience delivering programs to young people living with disability and from diverse backgrounds.

CASE STUDY: GO FULL CIRCLE 2023 PROGRAM

Cirque du Soil was engaged as project delivery partner for the 2023 program and responsible for the business engagement, tech stack design and Learning Management System (LMS) integration and 1:1 business mentoring, designed specifically for SME owners and leaders across Hospitality, Retail and professional services in an 8 week virtual program, in partnership with City of Melbourne, City of Stonnington and City of Boroondara.

Learn more about the Go Full Circle 2023 program here.

CIRCULAR THINKING AND DESIGN MODULE(S)

Empowering our youth to understand and apply systemic thinking by exploring mindsets around systemic issues, and how to take action in the most relevant way. Our Circular thinking and design module for tertiary education will show students how to map a system before embarking on their own projects, raise awareness and critical thinking around systemic issues, and identify the main levers to redesigning a systems intervention.

Students will learn how value is distributed across market chains, to identify business and regenerative business models and market opportunities, how to create a Partner Map to identify the partners to bring together and establish the best hypothesis for shared value and key stakeholders identification.

CIRCULAR EDUCATION FOR BUSINESSES

Whether you're from the hospitality, retail or professional services sector, we can help you and your team with adopting circular and zero waste goals through a bespoke step change program. We deliver a range of interactive training and mentoring programmes for your team, commonly starting with an initial team knowledge and awareness session to start the journey towards continual improvement.

Our cultural change program empowers behavioural change and promotes an immersive and inclusive culture of shared responsibility where impact is measured and milestones celebrated. We’ve gone beyond the ‘lonely champion’ model to ensure the shift outlives any single motivated individual.

Our optional lifecycle thinking module is perfect for office manager and procurement managers wanting to introduce environmental evaluation into your asset, expenditure and ESG frameworks.

Serious about change? Talk to us about tailoring a program format to suit your needs.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

On Cirque Education

What sectors benefit from Circular Education?
The circular transition calls for one of the biggest collective rethinks our society has ever undertaken. Education is critical to ensuring people across all age groups, sectors and disciplines to develop the knowledge and skills required to redesign the organisation and operations of circular systems. For the transition to be successful, all sectors - from business owners, politicians, councils, students and everyone in between must learn new ways of thinking, working and living.
Why is educating our youth around this so important?
The ultimate goal of circular economy education is to change the way students approach problem solving, no matter what kind of problem they are solving. In time, this will also change the way our societies and economies are designed in the future.

Circular economy education must start in the kindergarten days where children start exploring society and engage with peers. It continues through primary and secondary (higher) school all the way to higher education as it becomes embedded in an individual’s way of living. Along the way, children learn about materials, waste leakage in daily life, business activities, personal skills and knowledge, collaborative action for change towards a circular economy society.
What formats do you do?
We run several formats, ranging from in-house to online workshops / presentations /pre-recorded content for a range of sectors: Schools, Office and Hospitality Teams.
What does it cost?
Our service delivery fee varies depending on the format and duration required, get in touch to discuss your requirements!

HAVE A QUESTION?

Want to join the fight against urban waste? Change the narrative around our food systems?
If you’re a values aligned volunteer, NFP, business or organisation...

Our soft plastics program is available in Oct 2022.

Do something drastic & cut the plastic. Single-use plastic food packaging is a major contributor to the global solid waste problem. Although the food industry is developing strategies to reduce single-use plastic packaging, we need to better understand consumer awareness and attitudes about the issue.

When you toss a plastic bottle into your recycling bin, there’s no guarantee it actually gets recycled. In fact, odds are, it doesn’t. 

This is one of our key priority streams, where by using the same containers, in the same form, over and over again – it eases demand for virgin materials, reduces energy needed to spit out thousands of new plastic bottles or cardboard boxes, and prevents heaps of trash from ending up in landfills or oceans.

They’re bulky, large in size and consumes large amounts of space.

We use paper and cardboard in so much packaging and stacks of it still ends up in landfill, resulting in stacks of methane production, a major greenhouse gas.

When when you recycle cardboard waste and keep it free of oil and contamination, you end up saving ample amounts of water and energy and minimise trees being chopped down to get virgin material.

Cigarette butts are the world’s most littered plastic item, with around 7 billion dropped in Australia every year. In partnership with Fungi Solutions, CigCycle collected cigarette butts will undergo a Myco-Remediation program (mushrooms, FYI) at their Thornbury myco-facility for research and development for new circular materials.