The Research
The academic foundations of
Nature’s Playbook
Nature’s Playbook is grounded in Dr Emma Fromberg’s doctoral research into ecological design thinking for a circular economy.
The research began with a simple but important question: if circular economy is meant to challenge the linear economy, why is it so often imagined through the same kinds of metaphors that shape linear economic thinking?
Across her research, Emma investigated how circular economy discourse is shaped by metaphors such as the machine, competition, and journey. These metaphors can be useful, but they may also narrow what becomes visible: focusing attention on flows, efficiency, inputs, outputs, and step-by-step progress, while making relationships, place, power, responsibility, care, and ecological conditions harder to see.
Her work explores how ecological metaphors , particularly the forest metaphor, can open up different ways of thinking. Living systems bring attention to interdependence, non-linearity, adaptation, diversity, feedback, transformation, and the conditions that allow life-supporting activity to emerge.
This research led to the development of Nature’s Playbook: a practical toolkit that translates ecological principles into prompts for circular economy innovation. It has since expanded into workshops, field observation activities, the Mandarin edition, and the AI-supported Field Guide.
From metaphor to method
The research shows that metaphors are not just decorative language. They shape what people notice, value, and imagine as possible.
If circular economy is understood mainly through mechanistic or competitive metaphors, it may reproduce some of the same assumptions as the linear economy. If it is understood through ecological metaphors, different questions become available: about relationships, conditions, adaptation, repair, openness, regeneration, and the wider health of the system.
Nature’s Playbook turns this insight into a practical method. It uses ecological metaphors not as ready-made answers, but as prompts for reflection, dialogue, ideation, and critical enquiry.
Publications
Conceptualising a Circular Economy — an Enquiry into Circular Economy Conceptual Metaphors
Emma H. E. Fromberg, Conny A. Bakker and David Peck
Circular Economy and Sustainability, 2024
This paper investigates the metaphors that shape circular economy discourse. It identifies the machine metaphor, competitive metaphors, the journey metaphor, and ecological metaphors as influential in how circular economy is currently understood. The paper argues that metaphors can create both insight and blind spots in circular economy thinking.
Circular Economy Through the Lens of the Forest Metaphor — a Teaching and Learning Perspective
Emma H. E. Fromberg, Conny A. Bakker, Joshua Entsminger, Chris Grantham, Adam Lusby, David Peck and Ken Webster
PLATE Conference, 2023
This paper explores how postgraduate learners engaged with the forest metaphor during a sustainability education workshop. Participants found the metaphor enriching, particularly in relation to interconnection and cooperation, but also experienced tension when applying these insights to organisational realities.
Conceptualising the Technosphere of a Circular Economy Through a Living Systems Metaphor
Emma H. E. Fromberg, Ken Webster, Conny A. Bakker and David Peck
What’s Design? Designing Nature and Humanity-Centered Futures
This paper explores the technosphere through the metaphor of products, components, and materials as “fruit” within a living system. It considers implications for transparency, toxicity, product longevity, repair, accessibility, and the ability of wider systems to metabolise materials.
Transforming Circular Economy Thinking Using the Forest as a Metaphor
Emma H. E. Fromberg, Conny A. Bakker and David Peck
Sustainability, 2025
This paper develops the forest metaphor into practical subdomains that can be applied in design, business, and educational contexts. It identifies themes around wholeness, relationships, and responses to change, and shows how ecological metaphors can support reflection and new circular economy conceptualisations.
Ecological Design Thinking for a Circular Economy: The Impact of the Forest Metaphor for Circular Business
Emma H. E. Fromberg, Conny A. Bakker and David Peck
Journal of Circular Economy, 2025
This paper evaluates the educational tool behind Nature’s Playbook. The study finds that the tool helped participants generate more concrete insights and apply ecological ideas to circular economy contexts, while also surfacing tensions between ecological principles and the realities of existing businesses and organisations.
Ecological Design Thinking for a Circular Economy
Emma H. E. Fromberg
Doctoral dissertation, Delft University of Technology, 2025
This dissertation brings the research together. It investigates dominant metaphors in circular economy discourse, explores the forest metaphor as an ecological alternative, develops a practical learning tool, and evaluates how ecological design thinking can support more systemic, relational, and regenerative circular economy thinking.