AUTHOR=Wrase Isabelle , Haase Matthias , Wang-Speiser Zifei 

TITLE=Towards a circular built environment – Focus on the new M.Sc. program in real estate and facility management

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sustainability

VOLUME=Volume 4 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainability/articles/10.3389/frsus.2023.1163394

DOI=10.3389/frsus.2023.1163394

ISSN=2673-4524

ABSTRACT=The sustainability transformation of the built environment is one of the mega tasks of the 21st century. Real estate professionals who manage sustainability transformation must be acknowledged in all disciplines that reside around the lifecycle of a property. In addition, these managers must have expert knowledge of the megatrend of sustainability and possess the highest level of interpersonal skills to enable society and organizations to manage the associated change. Considering the current challenges and the critical role of education to empower real estate (RE) and facility management (FM) students to explore new paths of sustainable development and grow into active citizens, conscious producers and consumers, this contribution investigates new ways of effective ways for teaching sustainability concepts and in particular circular economy (CE). To this end, 122 European university degree programmes were examined based on a review of all course titles to determine whether the relevant key words and content for enabling future real estate managers to drive the sustainability transformation towards a circular built environment are present. The results show that topics on sustainability are covered significantly. Graduates are empowered in several disciplines that evolve around the real estate lifecycle, but not in all required ones. There seem to be gaps in teaching especially in the subject area of CE. The extent to which students are also socially empowered is hard to trace. Furthermore, this paper describes and critically discusses how the introduction of a holistic approach of the management of real estate to master-level students, can help them gain a sustainability perspective and prepare them to act circularly in the future.