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Adriana Neligan / Rupert J. Baumgartner / Martin Geissdoerfer / Josef-Peter Schögg in Business Strategy and the Environment External Publication 23. May 2022 Circular disruption: Digitalisation as a driver of circular economy business models

New circular business models can evolve at all stages of the life cycle of a product. Digitalisation can drive disruptive innovations, new business models and novel ways of collaboration and thus can accelerate the economic transition to more resource-efficient and circular production systems.

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Digitalisation as a driver of circular economy business models
Adriana Neligan / Rupert J. Baumgartner / Martin Geissdoerfer / Josef-Peter Schögg in Business Strategy and the Environment External Publication 23. May 2022

Circular disruption: Digitalisation as a driver of circular economy business models

German Economic Institute (IW) German Economic Institute (IW)

New circular business models can evolve at all stages of the life cycle of a product. Digitalisation can drive disruptive innovations, new business models and novel ways of collaboration and thus can accelerate the economic transition to more resource-efficient and circular production systems.

Yet, there is little empirical research on the enabling role of digitalisation for a circular economy. To address this gap, this paper investigates the role of digitalisation in facilitating circular business models, based on the empirical analysis of a data set of 599 German manufacturing firms and 296 industrial service providers. While relatively few German firms rely on new business models to foster their resource efficiency strategy, we find this share higher for companies with a strong digital focus in the manufacturing sector. This suggests that digitalisation can indeed be a driving force for the implementation of circular business models.

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External Publication
Digitalisation as a driver of circular economy business models
Adriana Neligan / Rupert J. Baumgartner / Martin Geissdoerfer / Josef-Peter Schögg in Business Strategy and the Environment External Publication 23. May 2022

Circular disruption: Digitalisation as a driver of circular economy business models

German Economic Institute (IW) German Economic Institute (IW)

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Markus Demary / Adriana Neligan in Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies External Publication 24. April 2024

Financing the Sustainability Agenda

The EU has set legally binding targets for climate-neutrality by 2050. To succeed in the transition to a low-carbon economy, companies need to continuously develop new and improved climate-friendly technologies, and to adopt or move towards low-carbon business ...

IW

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Galina Kolev-Schaefer / Adriana Neligan IW-Report No. 8 8. February 2024

Due Diligence - Effect of Supply Chain regulation: Data-based results on the effects of the German Supply Chain Act

After the agreement of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU in December 2023, a few formal steps remain to introduce the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

IW

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