What makes a truly circular economy so difficult to achieve - technically, economically, and socially?
Kai Sundmacher, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, and Dietmar Harhoff, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, share their insights in a joint interview. They discuss the incentives we need, the importance of durable products, and how even small decisions can drive big change.
Kai Sundmacher (right) develops new process engineering procedures for a climate-neutral chemical industry. Dietmar Harhoff (left) researches how innovations can be successfully implemented - including in the circular economy.
© Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Kai Sundmacher, Mr Sundmacher, Mr Harhoff, what are you currently researching - and how did the circular economy become part of your work?
Kai Sundmacher: I'm fascinated by new technical processes and the physical and chemical principles behind them. To make a circular economy work efficiently, we need to explore and better understand these fundamentals. In my department, we're currently researching how to close carbon cycles - for example, by chemically recycling plastic waste or using biogenic residues. Our goal is to help transform the chemical industry into a sustainable production system.
Dietmar Harhoff: I've long been interested in how innovation works: where do new ideas come from? How do they make it into practice? And what incentives help that process? This is key for the circular economy - because it's not just about new technologies, but also about viable business models. Part of our mission is to ensure that researchers like Kai Sundmacher have the best possible conditions to develop innovations.
The circular economy is a much-used term. What does it mean from your point of view?
Sundmacher:
