About
Digital Enablers are vital for a successful transition to a more circular economy - and there are so many out there.
Yet all too often we are working in silos or unaware of the amazing work happening in a different sector.
The Circular Tech Map is one way of sharing and supporting the innovative software that is leading the way in circularity enablement.
What is "circular tech"?
Every discussion of circularity and the circular economy will mention "digital enablers", however there is no standard definition of what this means.
For this version of the Circular Tech map, we are including a sample of tech that meets the following criteria:
- Must have Software is at the core
- We have excluded the exciting areas of material technology or those where hardware is at the core
- Must enable circularity in others
- "Others" includes individuals (EG marketplaces or platforms allowing citizens to engage in circular behaviours) or organisations (EG SaaS services to support more circular product innovations)
- We have excluded the (very many) amazing organistaions who are using software to enable their own circular transition or circular products.
The categorisation problem
There are many ways to categorise or view different aspects of circularity. One of the most easily understood is the "R Strategies", but you might also look at different business models or how circularity plays our in different sectors.
We could look at the types of technology: marketplaces, platforms, Internet of Things, Blockchain, big data and more. Or we could look at the enabling roles: such as Tracking, Reverse Logistics or Education.
One challenge is categorisation of "enabling" technology that is not directly doing the circular strategy, but may be supporting multiple different strategies in different ways.
We used the "R Strategies" for this prototype Circular Tech Map; but we think there is a better way to view the tech enablers - we hope to include multiple categorisations in future versions of the Circular Tech Map!
Can you help us improve the Circular Tech Map?
Your feedback is needed
This prototype is far from complete.
We need your help you make it better:- Suggest digital enablers that we are missing
- Spot an error? Please let us know
- Let us know how we could improve the categorisation and visualisation to make this more useful (and more fun!)