Accelerating circular economy through informational infrastructures

By Niko Lipiäinen & Robin Gustafsson

Despite the circular economy’s rising prominence in academic, business, and political realms, challenges persist due to regulatory hurdles, data sharing concerns, and resource limitations among businesses. This policy brief identifies three challenges and offers detailed recommendations for overcoming them. It emphasises the necessity for interoperable data platforms, the value of data reusability, and the importance of high-quality, impactful data to ensure efficient circular economy processes. Additionally, this policy brief addresses the need for viable platform and data-driven business models to reconcile supply and demand disparities, and suggests creating market incentives for sustainable resource use through informational infrastructures. Furthermore, the recommendations underscore the importance of digital collaboration platforms, and informational infrastructure-enabled market incentives and business models in driving systemic change toward sustainability. The insights and recommendations are derived from the IN2MISSION research project funded by Business Finland.