Talk:Circular economy

For consideration: World Resources Institute and partners launched a new section of systemschangelab.org that tracks 34 targets around the shift towards a circular economy on April 2, 2024. https://systemschangelab.org/circular-economy Wondering if perhaps this could be added in the "Towards the circular economy" section? The Platform for a Circular Economy (PACE), which World Resources Institute is also a partner, is already included later on in this section. 73.196.102.10 (talk) 05:47, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm planning on adding a section about CE indicators and measuring progress; I will consider your suggestion, thanks! GergoSuto (talk) 09:25, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

I propose removing the section "Engineering the circular life cycle". It has been tagged with a warning message since September 2025 for potentially AI-generated content. I reviewed the section and believe that its contents are indeed (at least in large part) AI-generated, and have little to no added value.

The first suspicion is about the figures, which contain text with a font without straight edges, typical of AI-generated images. The figures also include conceptual errors, like the "recycling" arrow circling within the "operate" stage of the life cycle in this figure. Anyone working on circular economy knows that this makes no sense.

The second suspicion is about the text. The sentences use eloquent wording but are otherwise very vague. For example: "As with the traditional engineering lifecycle, this approach can be applied to all engineering systems, with the depth of activity tailored depending on the complexity of the product. and can incorporate multiple inter requiring planning, substantial resource consumption, and prolonged service lifetimes." As far as I can tell, phrases like "multiple inter requiring planning" and "incorporate [...] substantial resource consumption" are not something someone would say are benefits of a circular economy.

My third (and last) suspicion is about referencing. The section is based almost entirely on a single paper (Meldrum et al., 2023). In fact, the user @Mc4zero who added the section used only that one reference (see specific diff https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=1160886425). I'm not familiar with the journal and the publisher, and the article is behind a paywall, so I cannot verify its contents. A couple of other references have later been added to the introductory paragraph by other user(s), but these are general engineering and software development handbooks and guidelines; I see no direct relevance to an article about circularity.

All in all, with or without AI, I think the section adds little to no substance to the overall article, thus I suggest removing it.

@Gnomingstuff You added the AI-generated warning last year. I'm only learning about Wikipedia editing. Do you have any remarks or tips about how to resolve this/your warning? GergoSuto (talk) 09:22, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

@GergoSuto thanks for the tag. It wasn't written by AI, but the text ". and can incorporate multiple inter requiring planning, substantial resource consumption, and prolonged service lifetimes." was indeed a typo.

The figures, which contain text with a font without straight edges, typical of AI-generated images - this was produced in MS office, predating AI if I remember correctly.

Thanks for the question about the "recycling" arrow circling within the "operate" stage of the life cycle in this figure. This is not a conceptual errors. This is a Lifecycle Design framework, so it shows the application of design principles, rather than the flow of materials. From an engineering design perspective, the recycle and reuse processes can be redesigned without impacting the certification of the system (eg aircraft), because these only impact the handling of material disposed of during the repair cycle.

As another example, modularity (which improves repairability and in turn circularity) or life extension of the system, often requires the design engineer to go back to the beginning of the lifecycle. As design changes need innovation, certification (if fit, form, or function changes), and new manufacturing and/or support organisations.

It was a good question though, I made changes to make this clearer in the text.

It should remain in the article because circularity is often described in very simple terms. These can be difficult to implement though for design engineers who are not used to systems design approaches, and who may not be familiar with the engineering disciplines that focus on the performance and support of in service equipment (testability, maintainability, supportability, and reliability engineering, etc). Bringing innovation in these areas, and in relationships with suppliers and customers in the supply chain, can significantly shift the value delivered through circularity - because the focus is moved from recycling to repair and product longevity.

The paper was peer reviewed and published as part of an SAE International conference, to provide guidance to various engineers who wanted to understand more. I totally agree, it's not ideal that it's behind a paywall. There were limited other references provided, because there has been very little published that addresses circularity from the perspective of complex and certified platforms/equipment, precisely why it was published. Though it's not referenced much (probably because it's behind the paywall, is 'only' a conference paper), it has definitely raised awareness, changed behaviours, and prompted further consideration in a community that have traditionally been more heavily focused on cost and operations than sustainability, which was the goal. SAE International are the governing body for industry wide standards in aviation and automation (https://www.sae.org/standards/committees). They're home to cross industry committees, allowing, for example, each aerospace company to allocate only one engineer part time, with the result being a consistent set of quality guidelines that everyone works to. Rather than every supplier <> customer relationship working to a different set of requirements.

You can ask directly in researchgate for evidence of the paper https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rebecca-Meldrum-2/publications Mc4zero (talk) 23:27, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

@Mc4zero Thanks for the detailed explanation. I suppose your section is about a part of the circular economy discussion that I'm not familiar with. Thanks also for making improvements already. If you don't mind, once I have some free time again, I would like to go through the section and make suggestions on improving its integration within the article, as I feel it's not well connected to the other sections – leading some to assume it was AI-generated! You will hear from me soon, and I hope you can then review my suggestions. Until then, GergoSuto (talk) 21:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @GergoSuto that would be great. Ping me when you've finished or are ready for input, and I'll take a look.

I also just had another quick look and have edited 'Lifecycle-value stream matrix' for clarity. Also I deleted 'Implementation challenges and opportunities'. It was nodding towards inter-organisational and operational ecosystem wide transformation, but as a footnote here its really duplication of the economic themes.

It would probably fit better in the 'Towards the circular economy' section, after 'Circular product design and standards' or 'Design of circularity processes'? I'll leave it you to think about the flow though. Cheers, Mc4zero (talk) 14:43, 13 March 2026 (UTC)