The impending digital transformation of the Forth Industrial Revolution holds the potential to redefine the very basis of our materials-reliant industrial economy. Enabled by the internet of things, a new model of growth gradually gaining independence from finite resource extraction is emerging. Can pervasive connectivity become the new infrastructure enabling effective material flows, keeping products, components and materials at their highest value at all times, thus enabling the coming of age of the circular economy?

Report by the World Economic Forum