Architecting Circular Economy: Towards a Transdisciplinary Ontological Foundation

This paper provides a conceptual foundation to link the drivers of a circular economy with a set of process relationships. It identifies the elements to be considered in defining a top-down ontology supporting a reference architecture to guide bottom-up initiatives. A set of functional areas comprising a system of systems view is established, including Political, Economic, Social, Information, and Infrastructural dimensions. Project management is integrated with the systems engineering process to ground practical considerations for the "art" of implementation. Risk Analysis is discussed in terms of a transdisciplinary problem to glean insights into how reference architecture may be established that is valued and used. Decision processes are briefly addressed in a construct addressing the concepts of "bounded irrationality" and "bounded rationality". Additional challenges and areas for future research are identified that foster the coalescence of initiatives across policy making, business processes, and other areas.