The CEO of Google recently said that “waste is a data problem”. What does it mean? We are not able to value waste and give it a second life just because we simply cannot see it; we do not collect data about it, as if it did not exist. Antoher important concept emerged lately: the circular economy. It aims to value waste and extend products’ lifecycle, but several challenges remain to its implementation. Waste is the connection point between data and the circular economy. This dissertation aims to investigate the nexus between data and the circular economy to understand why we have a “data problem” and where the data holes are located along the data value chain. From a methodological standpoint, the dissertation is based on a 2-step approach. First, a systematic literature review is conducted to leverage previous theoretical evidence in the nexus under investigation and, second, interviews are conducted to collect real-world evidence on this matter.