Samenvatting

Our current linear economy works in the following system; take-make-waste. The waste products, materials and components contain lots of valuable resources that will end up on a landfill or being incinerated in order to generate energy. The majority of the companies in the research area Mid Brabant, are using the linear business model to conduct business. By changing their linear business model into a more sustainable and circular one, the companies will be contributing to a more sustainable Mid Brabant.
The regional development company, Midpoint Brabant created a new entity to facilitate the transition from the linear economy a circular economy (CE), a company is called Midpoint Brabant Circular (MBC). During the transition from a linear economy to a circular economy several problems will occur.

These problems are often related to the transition of used business models, the circular models are characterized by take-make-reutilize instead of take-make-waste. For these problems, the entrepreneurs can visit MBC and ask for help. These problems can potentially be solved by technologies from the 4th industrial revolution. This potential is being explored in this qualitative research, with the following main question: How can data driven technologies from the 4th industrial revolution contribute to the circular economy in Mid Brabant and Midpoint Brabant Circular?
The method used is mostly desk research and due to Covid-19 less interviews were possible as expected.

The main results show, that the potential for a data economy is present in the province of North Brabant. The percentage of market share for North Brabant compared to the Netherlands is roughly 13%, this percentage is a significant share of the whole market. In the application areas of Midpoint Brabant are DALI, BioVoice, S4G, Gate2, Pitch logistics and Skills labs valuable projects as a source of information to build on. Other relevant organisations in Mid Brabant are MindLabs, Floow2 and JADS.
These projects can be placed in the network of the data driven ecosystem in Mid Brabant. Other components of the data driven ecosystem are the platform and co evolution. The platform allows the actors in the network to contribute and use the data driven ecosystem. Floow2 can be a good partner for the development of the platform. Co-evolution is in the data driven ecosystem is necessary to achieve the full potential of the data economy.

Recommendations are formed for the application areas of Midpoint Brabant, these recommendations are presented in Chapter 6. The recommendations for MBC are; first, to take a leading role by implementing the technologies from the 4th industrial revolution for the CE. Second, the standardisation of data is essential for usage. Third, searching for students (JADS, Tilburg University, MindLabs) whom could execute the follow-up research. Last, organising the data driven ecosystem.

The network needs to be established in collaboration with the applications areas of Midpoint. The platform (and dashboard) should be integrated in the portal (one-stop-stop) function. The co-evolution can be started with internal data sharing (between Midpoint application areas). When the internal data sharing is arranged properly, extend the data sharing with external quadruple helix organisations.