NTT and Mitsubishi Materials to Launch NTT Circurust to Advance Recycled Materials Supply Chains

NTT and Mitsubishi Materials have announced plans to establish NTT Circurust, a joint venture designed to strengthen Japan’s circular economy by combining the supply of recycled materials with digital traceability of their origin, environmental attributes, and resource circulation data.

The new company will focus on recovering valuable materials from end-of-life IT equipment and telecommunications infrastructure while creating a system that enables manufacturers and other stakeholders to track and communicate the sustainability characteristics of recycled materials throughout the supply chain.

The initiative reflects growing demand for greater transparency in recycled material sourcing as manufacturers face increasing regulatory and customer expectations regarding resource efficiency, carbon reduction, and supply chain sustainability. By integrating physical material flows with digital attribute information, NTT Circurust aims to improve confidence in recycled materials and encourage their broader adoption across manufacturing industries.

Initially, the company will oversee the collection of discarded telecommunications equipment and IT hardware, resource recovery, production of recycled materials, and their distribution to downstream manufacturers. Alongside these activities, it will develop systems that capture and share information on material origin, allocation, environmental impact, and other sustainability attributes.

The companies said the platform will benefit both manufacturers and organizations generating end-of-life equipment. Manufacturers will gain greater visibility into recycled material content and environmental credentials, while equipment owners will be able to better understand how recovered resources from their retired assets contribute to circular economy initiatives and emissions reduction.

The venture addresses longstanding challenges within recycling supply chains, where information regarding recycled material provenance and environmental performance is often fragmented across collection, processing, manufacturing, and distribution stages. This lack of traceability has made it difficult for manufacturers to verify recycled content or communicate sustainability claims with confidence.

Demand for more transparent recycled material supply chains has accelerated alongside broader environmental commitments and evolving policy frameworks. Manufacturers are increasingly expected to demonstrate sustainability performance across their entire value chains, creating greater need for standardized methods of tracking recycled materials from recovery through final product manufacturing.

The announcement also aligns with Japan’s Circular Economy Action Plan, released in April 2026, which identifies strengthening domestic recycled resource supply chains as a national priority. The government has established a target for approximately 30% of Japan’s domestically produced copper to originate from recycled resources by 2030, including electronic scrap and copper scrap.

The policy also emphasizes expanding markets for recycled materials, improving collaboration between manufacturers and recycling industries, and strengthening information sharing throughout resource circulation networks.

Copper recovered from electronic equipment represents a strategically important secondary resource as global demand continues to grow, driven by electrification, renewable energy infrastructure, electric vehicles, and expanding digital networks. Recovering these materials from end-of-life electronics can reduce reliance on primary mining while improving resource security.

NTT and Mitsubishi Materials said NTT Circurust will support these objectives by creating an integrated circular business model that connects waste generation, resource recovery, recycled material production, and downstream manufacturing through enhanced data transparency.

By combining material recycling with digital information management, the companies aim to establish a more reliable market for recycled materials, enabling manufacturers to incorporate recycled content with greater confidence while demonstrating measurable environmental benefits throughout the supply chain.

The partners believe the venture will help accelerate the practical implementation of circular economy principles by making recycled materials more accessible, traceable, and commercially attractive for manufacturers seeking to meet sustainability goals.

Source: NTT

SUNSHINE Spotlight: NTT and Mitsubishi Materials are combining recycled material production with digital traceability through NTT Circurust, creating a platform designed to improve transparency, strengthen recycled copper supply chains, and accelerate circular manufacturing in Japan.