From Waste to Wealth? How (Not) to Transition towards a Circular Economy

On Wednesday, 9th November, Prof. Dr. Moritz Petersen will hold his inaugural. The lecture is open to the public. After the lecture there will be a buffet and drinks.

While attendance is free of charge, we only have limited seats available. Please register ahead of time via e-mail at: events.faculty@klu.org with your full name and organisation. Please consider this carefully because we are booking a caterer for this event.

• Registration mandatory by e-mail.
• Reception after lecture.
• Venue: Forum / Foyer.

The circular economy aims at decoupling economic prosperity from environmental damage. It is a counterproposal to our current throwaway economy and focuses on preserving the value of materials and products instead of disposing of them quickly. Key strategies to achieve a higher degree of circularity are, for example, sharing, repair, remanufacturing, and recycling. Even though the general notion seems intuitive, and some strategies have been practiced for decades, implementing circular economy principles is far from easy. They challenge pervasive product design and waste handling models and require an unfamiliar high level of inter-company collaboration. In this inaugural talk, I will dive into the topic of circular economy from a supply chain perspective by introducing current research projects and providing an outlook on what is to come over the next years.

Moritz Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Supply Chain Practice at Kühne Logistics University since September 2020. Further, he is a Co-Director of KLU’s Center for Sustainable Logistics and Supply Chains. Holding a scholarship from ThyssenKrupp, he studied Industrial Engineering and Management at HWI Hamburg. Afterward, he joined Hamburg University of Technology as a research associate. He finished his engineering doctorate under the supervision of Prof. Wolfgang Kersten and joined KLU in July 2016 as a senior researcher. In his research, Moritz focuses on improving sustainability in global supply chains. Specifically, he investigates how to decarbonize logistics operations and how to foster the uptake of circular economy principles. Further, he looks into the role of information technology in the quest for more sustainable supply chains.