Digital Solutions, Analog Barriers

Industry is considered a key player in the circular economy. It consumes significant amounts of energy and raw materials, generates large waste streams and at the same time has enormous potential to decouple value creation from resource consumption. Digital technologies play a central role in this. But despite these high expectations, the digital circular economy is making slow progress in many industrial companies. The study "Barriers to the Adoption of Digital Technologies for a Circular Economy: Insights from the Manufacturing Industry" by German scientists identifies a total of 36 concrete barriers that are slowing down companies on their way to a digitally supported circular economy. The study was published in the "Journal of Circu-lar Economy".