Dipli Circular Index: Europe's first benchmark for circular market maturity

While trade-in programs and refurbished smartphones are gaining traction, stakeholders have struggled to benchmark maturity across European markets. Fragmented insights, local disparities, and evolving consumer expectations have made it difficult to scale with clarity. In short: the circular economy industry still lacks the tools to measure its real progress.

👉 That’s where the Dipli Circular Index (DCI) comes in. Built in collaboration with Ipsos as part of the 2025 Dipli x Ipsos study, the DCI is Europe’s first index to quantify circularity in the smartphone market. It offers a standardized, data-driven framework to compare adoption, trust, and readiness, country by country.

This article breaks down the methodology and strategic value of the DCI, providing a first look at the results across four key markets.

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What is the Dipli Circular Index? Your tool to measure circular tech maturity across Europe

1. A much-needed compass for circularity

The circular tech movement is gaining ground across Europe, but the landscape remains fragmented. Each market advances at its own pace, shaped by unique consumer behaviors, cultural perceptions, and levels of trust. This diversity creates both complexity and opportunity, but until now, there was no unified way to measure it.

That’s why Dipli created the Dipli Circular Index (DCI): to bring clarity and structure to a fast-moving but uneven market. Developed as part of the 2025 Dipli x Ipsos study, it offers the first data-driven benchmark of circular maturity for smartphones in Europe.

💡 The DCI enables businesses to assess how advanced each market is, compare levels of adoption, and pinpoint the barriers slowing down the shift to circularity. More than just an index, the DCI turns sustainability goals into measurable, actionable insights.

It offers a common reference point for the entire ecosystem, from telcos and retailers to insurers and OEMs, aligning strategies around a shared vision. Because circularity isn’t just a trend, it's a market shift.

2. A robust model rooted in European consumers data

Dipli partnered with Ipsos to build a reliable and actionable benchmark:

• The index is based on the responses of over 4,000 consumers across four key European markets: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Poland. It enables the index to be grounded in large-scale, representative consumer insights.
• Each country is assessed using a consistent methodology and receives a score out of 100, offering a clear view of its circular tech maturity.

At the heart of the model lie two equally weighted components. Together, they map the full lifecycle of a circular device, from initial trade-in to final reuse:

• The Trade-in Index (50%),
• The Refurbished Index (50%)

 These two indexes are then analyzed through four strategic metrics that capture the depth and quality of consumer engagement:

• Adoption (40%): how actively consumers are using trade-in and refurbished solutions,
• Satisfaction (25%): the level of perceived value and service quality,
• Trust / NPS (20%): willingness to recommend circular models to others,
• Consideration (15%): openness to switching in the near future.

💡 This four-pillar approach allows the DCI to go beyond surface-level statistics. It decodes market readiness by identifying not just where circular practices exist, but how deeply they are embedded in consumer behavior. It also reveals untapped potential, markets where awareness is growing, but adoption has yet to follow.