Motivation and research gaps

Earth Overshoot Day, i.e. the day on which humanity's demand for natural resources exceeds the Earth's ability to regenerate, has already shifted forward from December 30 to July 28 in 2022 since it was first calculated in 1970. This rapid increase in global resource consumption means that 1.75 Earths would have been needed in 2022 to cover humanity's global resource consumption. [Glo-22]

The circular economy offers a solution to this problem and is defined as an industrial model that decouples production output from the use of resources and is therefore inherently restorative and regenerative [EMF-13]. A wide range of research will therefore be required in the coming years to establish circular economic models across the board and thus achieve the EU's climate neutrality targets by 2050 and Germany's by 2045 [BDI-21]. In addition to the creation of the necessary legal and regulatory framework conditions and the development of suitable business models for the circular economy, research and the development of technologies are particularly necessary to enable the transformation of the linear economy to a climate-neutral circular economy economically and on an industrial scale [BDI-21].

The Collaborative Research Centre 1574 "Circular Factory for the Perpetual Product" addresses precisely this need for research and innovation and aims to enable a breakthrough in circular production on an industrial scale that has not yet been possible. The aim is to ensure that the solutions developed are compatible with both current and conceivable future framework conditions and can therefore be implemented sustainably in the long term.

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