To design more sustainable products often means improving the sustainability of materials. Currently, sustainable innovation calls upon materials to not only minimize environmental impacts but also to become circular. That requires efforts to keep materials functional for longer, avoid early disposal, and re-entering the cycle via recycling and other feedback processes. Those emerging challenges for materials development and the Circular Economy (CE) are especially critical in the case of polymers. How to develop strategies to preserve the value of polymers remains a question that mobilizes both researchers and practitioners. Technology Roadmapping (TRM) is a tool traditionally used for planning innovation processes and has supported the development of sustainable materials and other sustainability-related projects. This study tests TRM’s potential to assist with the planning of new circular polymers solutions and proposes the Circular TRM method. This proposition results from the case study of the development of waste-based fiber-polymer materials and strategies for getting them into the market. Our case study demonstrates how it would be possible to differentiate the various polymer material technologies and determine the most circular strategy path.

中文翻译：

---

循环技术路线图 (TRM)：促进可持续材料开发

设计更可持续的产品通常意味着提高材料的可持续性。目前，可持续创新要求材料不仅要最大限度地减少对环境的影响，还要使其循环利用。这需要努力使材料保持更长时间的功能，避免过早处置，并通过回收和其他反馈过程重新进入循环。材料开发和循环经济 (CE) 面临的这些新挑战对于聚合物而言尤其重要。如何制定策略来保护聚合物的价值仍然是一个动员研究人员和从业人员的问题。技术路线图 (TRM) 是传统上用于规划创新过程的工具，并支持可持续材料和其他与可持续发展相关的项目的开发。该研究测试了 TRM 在协助规划新的圆形聚合物解决方案方面的潜力，并提出了圆形 TRM 方法。该提议源于对基于废物的纤维聚合物材料的开发案例研究以及将它们推向市场的策略。我们的案例研究展示了如何区分各种聚合物材料技术并确定最循环的战略路径。