Meet ETH @Sustainable Switzerland Forum 2025
2 Sept. 2025 – ETH Zurich is a Scientific Partner of the Sustainable Switzerland Forum 2025. The thematic stream on the circular economy will feature ETH Zurich’s Martin W?rner, who will present the results of a survey on the current state and future prospects of the circular economy in Switzerland.
Based on a specially developed concept for mapping the circular economy at the company level, the Bern University of Applied Sciences and ETH Zurich’s KOF Swiss Economic Institute conducted a written survey of around 10,000 companies in the KOF Business Panel in 2024 – for the second time after an initial survey in 2020. The survey covered 37 specific circular economy activities and asked companies to indicate in which areas they had achieved measurable changes between 2022 and 2024. The data collected enables comparisons across industries, regions, and company size categories – providing Switzerland, likely the first country in the world to do so, with a representative and differentiated picture of the prevalence of circular activities in companies.
Programme
Welcome of guests and networking coffee
Welcome and opening – three parallel topic streams
- Circular economy
- Supply chain tensions
- AI & Energy management
Afternoon – Welcome and opening (main stage)
- Planetary overshoot: Where is the good news?
- Rethinking Leadership: Leading in times of responsibility
- Sustainable Shapers
- Systemic change instead of treating symptoms
- United for sustainability: Pathways to international cooperation
Check the detailed programme external page here.
Speaker
Prof. Dr. Martin W?rter
Prof. Dr Martin W?rter is Adjunct Professor at the Department of Management, Technology and Economics at ETH Zurich and Head of Innovation Economics at the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich. He is also a research associate at the ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim. Previously, he worked at the Scientific Institute for Communication Services in Bad Honnef, the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and the University of Innsbruck, where he also earned his doctorate in social and economic sciences. His research focuses on structural change and innovation economics, with particular emphasis on the economic relevance of environmental innovations, the digital transformation and the circular economy.