Marktforschung zur Kreislaufwirtschaft

As the global imperative to minimize waste, conserve resources, and mitigate environmental impact intensifies, comprehensive circular economy market Forschung becomes paramount for companies seeking to unlock the untapped potential of circularity.

In einer Zeit, in der Nachhaltigkeit ein Muss ist, gewinnt der Übergang von einer traditionellen Wirtschaft zu einer Kreislaufwirtschaft im globalen Wirtschaftssystem an Bedeutung. Die Kreislaufwirtschaft ist ein Modell, bei dem der Schwerpunkt darauf liegt, Ressourcen so lange wie möglich in Gebrauch zu halten, den maximalen Wert aus ihnen zu ziehen und dann Produkte und Materialien am Ende ihrer Lebensdauer zurückzugewinnen und zu regenerieren.

Doch wie lässt sich dieser Wandel effektiv meistern? Marktforschung zur Kreislaufwirtschaft hilft multinationalen Unternehmen und Organisationen, die von diesem Wandel in der Weltwirtschaft profitieren, diesen Übergang zu erleichtern.

Das Konzept verstehen: Was ist Kreislaufwirtschaft?

Das Konzept der Kreislaufwirtschaft bedeutet einen Paradigmenwechsel in unserer Sichtweise auf Konsum, Produktion und den inhärenten Wert von Ressourcen. Es stellt die traditionelle lineare Wirtschaft in Frage, in der Verbraucher Produkte nach ihrer Verwendung entsorgen. Das Kreislaufmodell fördert ein geschlossenes Kreislaufsystem, in dem nichts verschwendet wird. Die Kreislaufwirtschaft dreht sich um drei Leitprinzipien: Reduzieren, Wiederverwenden und Recyceln.

Mehrere Faktoren machen die Kreislaufwirtschaft zu einem überzeugenden Modell:

• Ressourceneffizienz: Da die globalen Ressourcen knapper und teurer werden, sorgt ein Kreislaufansatz dafür, dass die Verbraucher jeden Rohstoff optimal nutzen.
• Wirtschaftliche Vorteile: Eine Kreislaufwirtschaft kann Kosten sparen, neue Einnahmequellen erschließen und die Abhängigkeit von volatilen Rohstoffmärkten verringern.
• Umweltschutz: Dieses Modell reduziert den ökologischen Fußabdruck von Produktion und Verbrauch erheblich, indem es Abfall minimiert und die unermüdliche Ausbeutung von Ressourcen einschränkt.
• Innovation und Design: Die Kreislaufwirtschaft drängt die Industrie zu innovativen Designs, die die Wiederverwertbarkeit der Produkte erleichtern.

Circular Economy Market Research: How Industrial Leaders Capture Material Value

Circular economy market research has moved from sustainability reporting into core P&L planning. Industrial manufacturers now treat material recovery, remanufacturing, and product-as-a-service models as growth strategies, not compliance exercises. The shift creates measurable upside for companies that quantify the opportunity early.

The reason is structural. Virgin material volatility, extended producer responsibility rules in the EU, and procurement mandates from buyers like Unilever, Schneider Electric, and Philips are reshaping bills of materials. The firms gaining ground are the ones treating circularity as a sourcing strategy and an aftermarket revenue strategy, then pricing it accordingly.

What Circular Economy Market Research Actually Measures

The work goes beyond recycling rates. It quantifies four flows: feedstock substitution economics, product life extension through remanufacturing, asset-light service models, and reverse logistics cost allocation. Each flow has distinct unit economics and distinct buyer behavior.

Feedstock substitution requires supplier qualification audits across recycled polymers, secondary metals, and bio-based inputs. Total cost of ownership comparisons against virgin materials must include yield loss, processing differences, and customer acceptance testing. A drop-in claim from a supplier rarely holds up in production without primary validation.

Life extension is where the margin sits. Caterpillar’s Reman program, Xerox’s parts recovery, and Renault’s Choisy-le-Roi facility demonstrate that remanufactured units can hold 40 to 60 percent of new-unit price at materially lower COGS. The research question is which SKUs in the installed base support that economics, and which channels accept refurbished inventory at full margin.

Where the Real Opportunity Sits in B2B Industrial

SIS International’s B2B expert interviews with engineering, procurement, and sustainability leaders across industrial software, aerospace, automotive, and specialty chemicals indicate that circular economy adoption accelerates when environmental data is embedded directly into CAD, PLM, and IoT toolchains rather than treated as a separate reporting layer. The implication for product strategy is direct. Buyers no longer want a sustainability dashboard. They want material impact scores at the design decision point.

This is why platforms like PTC, Dassault Systèmes, and Autodesk are integrating ecoinvent and similar life-cycle inventory datasets into native workflows. The competitive question for industrial OEMs is whether their suppliers can deliver part-level emissions and recyclability data through the same API their PLM already consumes. Most cannot. That gap is the addressable market.

Based on SIS International’s analysis of supplier qualification engagements across automotive and industrial OEMs, the suppliers winning long-term contracts are those that have already mapped their bill of materials to a recognized life-cycle inventory standard and can deliver emissions data at SKU level on request, not on a quarterly cadence.

The Four-Lens Framework for Sizing Circular Opportunity

Sizing a circular initiative requires four lenses applied in sequence. Skipping any one produces a business case that collapses under CFO scrutiny.

Quelle: SIS International Forschung

The lens most companies underweight is buyer willingness. Procurement organizations at firms like Siemens, BMW, and Nestlé have published circular sourcing targets, but the price elasticity behind those targets varies widely by category. Sustainability commitments do not equal pricing power. Primary research closes that gap.

Why Product-as-a-Service Models Need Different Research Inputs

Servitization changes the research design. When Hilton sells lighting outcomes through Signify rather than buying fixtures, the relevant data shifts from purchase intent to usage patterns, downtime tolerance, and contract structure preference. Standard category research misses these.

The methodologies that work are ethnographic research at customer sites, structured B2B expert interviews with facilities and operations leadership, and contract analysis across comparable service agreements. The output is a service design that prices the asset, the maintenance, the data, and the residual value as four separable revenue streams.

SIS International’s proprietary research across industrial software and automotive supplier networks indicates that the most successful product-as-a-service launches were preceded by at least twelve weeks of qualitative customer work focused on procurement approval pathways, not technical specifications. Buyers rarely block these deals on engineering. They block them on capex-to-opex conversion, audit treatment, and exit clauses.

The Data Gap That Decides Winners

Most industrial firms hold rich data on their forward supply chain and almost nothing on their reverse one. Where products go after sale, how long they operate, who repairs them, and what condition they return in are largely unknown. This is the data gap that decides which OEMs capture remanufacturing margin and which cede it to independent refurbishers.

Closing the gap requires installed base analytics combined with primary fieldwork. Connected products provide telemetry. Independent service networks, dismantlers, and second-hand dealers provide the rest. Companies like John Deere and Komatsu have built this picture for high-value equipment. Most mid-market industrials have not, which is precisely why the opportunity is still open.

Regulatory Catalysts Worth Tracking

Three regulatory streams now move industrial planning calendars. The EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation expands minimum durability and recyclability requirements across categories. Digital Product Passport requirements will force part-level traceability. Right-to-repair legislation in the US and EU expands aftermarket access for independent service providers.

Each stream changes the answer to a different strategic question. Ecodesign affects design choices. Product Passports affect data infrastructure. Right-to-repair affects aftermarket revenue defensibility. Treating them as one bucket called “ESG regulation” produces planning errors that are visible to the board.

What Strong Circular Economy Market Research Delivers

A defensible circular economy market research engagement delivers four outputs: a quantified addressable market by material flow and geography, a buyer segmentation with willingness-to-pay by use case, a competitive map of who controls reverse logistics in each category, and a regulatory timeline tied to product roadmap milestones. Anything less leaves the CFO without a model and the COO without a sequence.

The firms moving fastest are not the ones with the loudest sustainability narrative. They are the ones treating circular economy market research as a sourcing, pricing, and aftermarket revenue exercise, executed with the same rigor as any market entry assessment. The upside is measurable, the timeline is compressing, and the data infrastructure to capture it is available now.

Über SIS International

SIS International bietet quantitative, qualitative und strategische Forschung an. Wir liefern Daten, Tools, Strategien, Berichte und Erkenntnisse zur Entscheidungsfindung. Wir führen auch Interviews, Umfragen, Fokusgruppen und andere Methoden und Ansätze der Marktforschung durch. Kontakt für Ihr nächstes Marktforschungsprojekt.