Industry Agenda Intelligent Assets Unlocking the Circular Economy Potential

The report argues that the convergence of the digital and natural worlds—specifically through intelligent assets—provides the necessary infrastructure to enable circular economy principles. By providing real-time knowledge of the location, condition, and availability of assets, IoT can transform linear 'take, make, dispose' models into restorative systems. The document details opportunities across manufacturing, energy, the built environment, logistics, and agriculture, while highlighting systemic barriers such as data security, interoperability, and the need for open innovation and supportive policy frameworks.

• The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a massive economic opportunity, with the number of connected devices projected to grow from 10 billion in 2015 to between 25 and 50 billion by 2020. Various estimates suggest the total economic impact could range from $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion per year by 2025, or up to $14.4 trillion for companies and industries worldwide over the next decade.
• The circular economy's value creation is driven by four primary mechanisms: extending the use cycle length of assets, increasing asset or resource utilization, looping or cascading assets through additional use cycles, and the regeneration of natural capital.
• Intelligent assets enable circularity by providing three critical types of knowledge: the precise location of an asset, its current technical or biological condition, and its availability for use or sharing.
• In manufacturing, IoT enables a shift toward performance-based business models (servitization), where manufacturers retain ownership and are incentivized to design for durability and ease of remanufacturing. Examples include Rolls-Royce's 'power-by-the-hour' and HP's 'Instant Ink' service, the latter of which reports eliminating up to 67% of waste associated with printed pages.
• IoT can significantly reduce urban resource consumption; for instance, it is estimated that IoT systems in cities could achieve a 50% reduction in energy consumption and an 80% improvement in water usage over the next decade.
• In agriculture, 'precision agriculture' uses sensors to match farming practices to specific crop needs, reducing the use of water, fertilizers, and pesticides while boosting yields. This technology also helps prevent soil compaction and land degradation, which costs an estimated $40 billion annually worldwide.
• The built environment is a major source of waste, with 54% of demolition waste in Europe landfilled. Intelligent assets can transform buildings into 'resource banks' through embedded product inventories that track material composition, enabling a secondary materials market.
• Reverse logistics—the process of returning goods for value capture—is often hindered by high costs and regulatory barriers. Some countries, including Brazil, China, and Russia, do not distinguish between remanufactured and used products, which restricts their importation.
• Realizing the full potential of the IoT-circular economy interplay requires overcoming three main barriers: data security and trust, the lack of interoperability between closed-innovation silos, and the need for flexible business models that can handle rapid technological evolution.
• Blockchain technology is proposed as a solution to the 'broken financial trust and security model' of current payment systems, potentially enabling frictionless micro-transactions between intelligent assets and providing a transparent 'spreadsheet in the sky' for the provenance of goods.

APA

World Economic Forum (2015). Industry Agenda Intelligent Assets Unlocking the Circular Economy Potential. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Intelligent_Assets_Unlocking_the_Cricular_Economy.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Industry Agenda Intelligent Assets Unlocking the Circular Economy Potential. 2015. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Intelligent_Assets_Unlocking_the_Cricular_Economy.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Industry Agenda Intelligent Assets Unlocking the Circular Economy Potential |date=December 2015 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Intelligent_Assets_Unlocking_the_Cricular_Economy.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2015industry, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Industry Agenda Intelligent Assets Unlocking the Circular Economy Potential}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2015}, month = dec, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Intelligent_Assets_Unlocking_the_Cricular_Economy.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }