Circular and resource-efficient production 

Alongside product design, which sets the course for a circular and low-resource product life cycle and largely determines manufacturing technologies, further frameworks are necessary for production processes in order to optimise them in terms of resource efficiency and circularity. The Federal Government therefore introduced the German Resource Efficiency Programme (ProgRess) in 2012 and has since updated it. This includes measures to improve resource efficiency in production and already incorporates measures for circularity within and between companies. 

Measures for resource efficiency and circularity in production address the following obstacles: 

• Implementing resource efficiency and circular production measures in day-to-day business operations is often not considered due to short-term costs and a lack of time and personnel capacity. Where measures are implemented in businesses, there is often no established methodology to measure their effectiveness.
• There is a lack of product- and process-specific information for the development and implementation of effective design-for-circularity solutions enabling high-quality circularity that is on an equal footing with the linear use of primary raw materials.
• For businesses, secondary materials in sufficient quantities and quality are often either not yet available in economically viable quantities or their availability is too volatile and uncertain to be incorporated into design specifications and material procurement routines for high‑volume quality production. This situation  prevents the creation of corresponding market demand.
• The absence or volatility of key secondary material markets creates high business risks and uncertainties, discouraging the necessary investment in more sophisticated sorting, processing and recycling technologies.