ETCE Lab

About Us

The Chair for “Software Services of the Circular Economy” at the Clausthal University of Technology conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of computer science and sustainability. Our research focus includes the development and conceptual design of dynamic, adaptive and self-organizing software systems, digital identities
as well as digital technologies facilitating the circular economy and circular societies.

Circularlity

The catastrophic worsening of climate change, severe environmental pollution and dwindling non-renewable resources are forcing society to abandon the inefficient and destructive linear economy (LE) that it has so far relied upon. A circular economy (CE) replaces our LE with circular, more sustainable forms of consumption and production and decouples economic growth from using natural resources. To do so, CE aims to maintain natural resources and to minimize the discharge of harmful substances. In CE, products and services are designed and constructed in a way that enables them to be returned to the economic and material flow at any time.


Related concepts, such as circular societies, go beyond just economic means and circulate and redistribute wealth, knowledge, technology and power throughout society.