Developing a maturity model for circular economy in SME

The importance of implementing a circular economy in industry is constantly increasing and poses a variety of challenges, especially for SMEs. Maturity models help structuring the development of organizations by making trend topics more tangible and are, therefore, suitable for supporting the implementation of a circular economy. However, the existing circular economy maturity models lack specific recommendations for increasing the maturity level and do not consider the specific characteristics of SMEs. To address this gap, this paper presents the development path of a maturity model for a circular economy that is intended to provide holistic support for SMEs in the transition to a circular economy.