Using products longer: Reducing the environmental impact with circular approaches

This study is part of the project "Circular City Berlin - Pathways from Potential to Implementation", which investigates the potential of a circular economy in Berlin and its social and environmental impacts in three sectors: textiles, construction, and information and communication technology (ICT). The project explores possible pathways to implementation, and supports a diffusion of possible business models. 

In addition to the amounts of waste avoided, the calculations show the potential of the circular economy to help address the climate crisis by reducing the overall material: with the circular practices studied, Berlin can avoid 476,003 metric tons of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) annually in textiles, 244,606 metric tons of CO2e in construction, and 217,505 metric tons of CO2e in ICT, thus saving a total of nearly one million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in CO2e per year. This is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from the use of around 470,000 cars.