Digitalisation as Enabler Towards a Sustainable Circular Economy in Germany

Abstract

The increasing use of digital networking in complex industrial processes opens up new potential for more sustainability. This paper delivers the first empirical findings on the relevance of digitalisation for improving material efficiency in German industry based on a unique dataset including nearly 600 manufacturing firms. The survey results indicate that the opportunities of digital networking for increasing material efficiency are only being used to a limited extent thus far, primarily for traditional efficiency-raising measures optimising manufacturing processes.