Workshop - Sustainable Electronics: Reuse, Recycling, and LCA I & II

Organised by: Leonie Dahlmann, Christina Dornack, Roman Maletz, Karoline Owusu-Sekyere, Harshali Shankar Yeram - Institute of Waste Management and Circular Economy, TU Dresden (DE)

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), or e-waste, is one of the world’s fastest-growing waste streams, driven by rapid digital transformation and technological innovation. However, a large share of globally generated e-waste never enters formal collection and recycling systems and poses environmental burdens at the end of its life. Even when it is collected, current recycling technologies often fail to recover many valuable and critical raw materials, particularly those in complex microelectronic components, resulting in losses to slags or other residual waste streams. At the same time, the manufacturing of new electronic devices, especially microelectronic components, is globally rising and highly resource- and energy-intensive, contributing to climate change, resource depletion, and water scarcity. 
This workshop explores how principles of early-stage sustainability decisions for emerging electronics can contribute to resource efficiency and climate change mitigation by shifting the focus from end-of-life approaches toward predictive circular design strategies. We will investigate how sustainability can be systematically embedded across device architecture, and component design to enable recycling, less resource use and higher levels of circularity throughout the electronics value chain. 
A further challenge lies in the early stages of innovation, where environmental impacts are overlooked during the design and development of novel materials and electronic components. We are assessing how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and sustainability considerations from the beginning of innovation can help avoid unsustainable material development and design choices associated with energy-intensive and solvent-heavy production pathways and enable more sustainable technology development before commercialization. 
The workshop presents research from the “Responsible Electronics in the Climate Change Era” (REC2) Cluster of Excellence at the TU Dresden and highlights innovative approaches to advancing circularity and sustainability in emerging electronics. 
Participants will explore:

• Integrating recycling into device design through predictive approaches that enable more sustainable electronics across their life cycle.
• Developing circular economy frameworks for design-for-reuse, with a focus on future electronic material flows and component-level reuse.
• Establishing reuse factors and materials libraries for emerging materials and micro- and nanoelectronics, supporting sustainability assessment and decision-making during early-stage technology development.

By connecting resource management, circular economy strategies, and sustainable electronics innovation, the workshop aims to foster interdisciplinary discussion on how responsible innovation can reduce environmental impacts while improving resource efficiency across the electronics value chain.

Agenda:

• C. Dornack (DE)
  Introduction to the workshop objectives and the challenges of e-waste, circularity, and climate impacts in the electronics sector and the REC2 Cluster of Excellence
  
  
• R. Maletz (DE)
  Enabling circularity in the electronics industry - State of the art and perspectives
  
  
• L. Dahlmann (DE)
  From reactive to predictive recycling: identifying environmental hotspots in the End-of-Life treatment of waste printed circuit boards
  
  
• K. Owusu-Sekyere (DE)
  Frameworks for component-level reuse and design-for-reuse concepts addressing future electronic material flows
  
  
• H. Shankar Yeram (DE)
  Closing the loop on automotive microelectronics: current challenges, regulatory drivers, and circular pathways for End-of-Life chips
  
  
• Summary of key insights and discussion, identification of future research priorities, and opportunities for collaboration across academia, industry, and policy