While cars may never be fully carbon neutral, the automotive industry can significantly reduce its carbon footprint by adopting a high degree of circularity to deliver economic, societal and ecological dividends. Indeed, the convergence of technology and environmental megatrends is already propelling the modern automotive industry towards its first deep transformation. This report, the first of three, provides a framework that helps adapt policy tools to promote circularity, material and energy efficiency and support sustainable markets for circular cars and services.

This report was published by the World Economic Forum as part of the Circular Cars Initiative, a collaboration formed by WBCSD and the Forum, with support from Accenture, McKinsey & Co., SYSTEMIQ and EIT Climate-KIC. The goal of CCI is to accelerate the sustainability transformation of the automotive industry.