Raising Ambitions: A new roadmap for the automotive circular economy

The World Economic Forum and Accenture Strategy outline a framework for 'circular cars' to align the automotive sector with a 1.5°C climate scenario. The report identifies a gap between current linear 'make-use-waste' models and a net-positive ecosystem, proposing four transformation pathways—energy decarbonization, materials circularity, lifetime optimization, and utilization improvement. It argues that shifting from product sales to mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) is essential to reduce carbon emissions by up to 75% and resource consumption by up to 80% per passenger kilometre by 2030.

• The automotive industry is currently overshooting its carbon and resource budgets while global mobility demand is projected to increase by approximately 70% by 2030.
• To align with a 1.5°C climate scenario, the automotive industry must target a 50% reduction in absolute carbon emissions by 2030, which would require the full fleet to achieve 'Level 3' circularity.
• The report proposes a five-level taxonomy for circularity, ranging from Level 0 (no circularity/classic make-use-waste) to Level 5 (net positivity in the system), measured by carbon efficiency (life-cycle CO2e per passenger km) and resource efficiency (non-circular resource consumption per passenger km).
• Four complementary transformation pathways are identified to increase circularity: energy decarbonization, materials circularity, lifetime optimization, and utilization improvement. Combined, these could reduce carbon emissions by up to 75% and non-circular resource consumption by up to 80% per passenger kilometre for a battery electric vehicle (BEV) hatchback by 2030.
• A critical barrier to circularity is the current business model optimized for selling cars as products rather than providing mobility-as-a-service, which leads to inefficient capital allocation and low vehicle utilization (approximately 1.5% of seat and time capacity).
• The transition to battery electric vehicles (BEVs) reduces exhaust emissions to zero but increases non-circular resource consumption by 20% compared to internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), unless offset by longer vehicle lifetimes.
• The report identifies 16 promising solutions for circularity, including modular vehicle design, 'breathing fleets' (sharing fleets across multiple service offerings), and component-as-a-service models, specifically for batteries.
• Policy recommendations include establishing carbon pricing schemes to prevent global carbon leakage, incentivizing subscription and on-demand services, and enabling data transparency and product passports across the value chain.

APA

World Economic Forum (2020). Raising Ambitions: A new roadmap for the automotive circular economy. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Raising_Ambitions_2020.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Raising Ambitions: A new roadmap for the automotive circular economy. 2020. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Raising_Ambitions_2020.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Raising Ambitions: A new roadmap for the automotive circular economy |date=December 2020 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Raising_Ambitions_2020.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2020raising, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Raising Ambitions: A new roadmap for the automotive circular economy}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2020}, month = dec, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Raising_Ambitions_2020.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }