From Waste Streams to Circular Business Opportunities

About

Many companies generate by-products and waste streams with significant untapped potential. However, only a small proportion become new products or circular business opportunities.

What makes companies decide to transform a waste stream into a new business opportunity?

We believe the answer is about more than technology and ROI. We invite partners to explore this question together and develop methods that strengthen circular transition across European regions.

Our project aims to understand what enables companies to move from potential to implementation. We want to identify the technical, business, organisational and collaborative conditions that make higher-value use of industrial by-products possible.

Economic return is often seen as the main driver, but we believe there are other factors that determine whether companies decide to act. Our project aims to better understand what enables – or prevents – companies from creating higher value from their residual streams.

One ambition of the project is to investigate how a future digital decision-support tool could support companies in assessing the circular potential of their residual streams. Based on the insights generated through our regional work with companies, we see an opportunity to jointly develop a digital decision-support tool that helps assess the circular potential of industrial by-products and waste streams. Together with partners, we want to identify which data, indicators and decision criteria such a tool should include. Rather than starting with a predefined tool, we want to co-develop a practical digital solution based on real industrial cases, shared knowledge and evidence.

The methodology combines company dialogue, analysis of residual streams, resource mapping, matchmaking and business development. An equally important objective is to understand the organisational, technical, regulatory and economic conditions that make circular solutions succeed.

We are looking for partners who would like to co-develop and test this approach by:

• explore circular opportunities for specific industrial by-products and waste streams

• share case studies and practical experiences

• test and improve methods for analysing circular potential

• contribute knowledge about industrial symbiosis and circular value chains

• collaborate on the development of a digital decision-support tool

• identifying relevant data and decision criteria for future digital tools

• exchange methods, lessons learned and best practices across European regions