ETCE: Emerging Technologies for a Circular Economy

The catastrophic worsening of climate change, severe environmental pollution and dwindling non-renewable resources are forcing society to abandon the inefficient and destructive linear economy (LE) that it has relied upon so far. A circular economy (CE) addresses the shortcomings of a LE by managing "stocks of manufactured assets, such as infrastructure, buildings, vehicles, equipment, and consumer goods, to maintain their value and utility as high as possible for as long as possible; and stocks of resources at their highest purity and value" (Walter R. Stahel (2019) – The Circular Economy: A User's Guide).

The ETCE research group aims to design and develop digital technology solutions utilizing autonomous and/or cooperative, smart machines that enable and support a CE as well as the corresponding interoperable, open and distributed ecosystems. To do so, we employ emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems, blockchain technology and wireless sensor networks.

Link to the Website of the ResearchGroup: etce-lab.com