World Bank learning series – Circular Economy and Emerging Technologies
Circular Economy (CE) is a paradigm for sustainable growth that aims to transform how societies design, produce and consume goods and services towards a regenerative economic cycle (SmaCE 2019). Emerging technologies and their convergence are having a transformational effect across global value chains. The range of these innovations across the digital, physical and biological technologies −from AI/machine learning, robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), bioeletrochemical engineering, to sharing platforms etc.− play a crucial role in enabling circular business models by: increasing efficiencies and reduce wastage; driving innovation by allowing new entrants in the markets; increasing information transparency allowing companies to gather insights; and enabling to move away from use of traditional limited or resource/intensive materials (Accenture, 2020).
This session aims to address those emerging technologies most frequently embraced by industries that can be catalytic enablers for new disruptive business models and facilitate the required fast pace for the transformation to CE. The objectives of this session are:
- Obtain insights into the analytical and industry overview on the importance and growth of emerging technologies for CE
- Learn about how industries are leveraging key technologies to promote CE in their operations
- Understand how tech providers are helping companies enable CE in their products
- Learn how enabling environment is working with industries to help promote CE practices
- Gain insights into how entrepreneurs in developing countries have used digitalization to promote CE
In the fourth session of this learning series on ‘Circular Economy and Private Sector Development’, we invite global leaders, scientists, researchers and relevant stakeholders from industry to share experiences, discuss challenges and report state-of-art and in-progress research in the intersection of ICT and Circular Economy.