Seventeen companies are in the running for November 16: the Circular Valley® Foundation jury has selected them for the new round of its Accelerator program. The successful applicants are from Singapore, Nigeria, Ecuador, the US, and Mexico, among others. Together with top-class coaches and mentors from Circular Valley®, they will further develop their business models over the next three months. The shared goal: To advance the transformation from a linear to a circular economy. On November 16, the best ideas will be presented on a big stage and to a large audience at the DemoDay, as part of the Circular Valley® Forum.

With the new cohort, the number of Circular Valley® startups approaches the 100 mark. Since its founding in the summer of 2021, the initiative has already attracted more than 70 companies to Germany's extended Rhine-Ruhr region and connected them to its large network. What many of the alumni and all of the newly selected companies have in common: Their idea can prevent emissions in the order of billions of tons. This impact is another reason why Circular Valley® is developing into a hotspot for the circular economy in the same way that Silicon Valley has for the digital economy.

The experiences of the first four rounds, as well as the intensive exchange with partners from politics, business, science, and civil society, have revealed one thing: A large number of aspects need to be considered to achieve an actual circular flow. These aspects include the use of alternative raw materials, rethinking product design and use, enabling sustainable construction, avoiding waste and recycling more. To this end, Circular Valley® has identified six topics that startups will address in the new round of the funding program:

They are all globally active and they are all partners of Circular Valley: in the past weeks, three major companies have signed contracts with the foundation.

One of the new partners is Henkel. Through the strategic alliance with Circular Valley, the consumer goods manufacturer wants to get in touch with startups and scientists from all over the world and expand its own local network in Germany's Rhine-Ruhr region.

"Together, we will exchange ideas on new technologies and innovative approaches, share knowledge and best practices, and set new impulses in order to join forces to further advance the transformation towards a circular economy," said Thorsten Bastigkeit, Director R&D Research & Open Innovation at Henkel, at the signing of the partnership agreement.

Kearney has offices in over 40 countries and is a trusted advisor to some of the world's largest companies and organizations. The term "trustworthy" also describes the partnership now concluded with Circular Valley. The good relationship between the two has existed since the early days of the initiative's foundation. Kearney has supported Circular Valley startups in developing innovative circular solutions and initiating pilot projects to test ideas with global leaders from various industries.

The partnership now also intends to address the biggest challenges companies face when trying to realize their transformation goals.

The third new partner is another large industrial company. The EMKA Group is the global market leader for closures, hinges, and seals used in switch and control cabinets. Its product portfolio includes around 30,000 items, all of which are developed, manufactured, refined, and assembled at eleven sites in Germany, France, England, Spain, Bosnia, Serbia, China, Indonesia, and India.

The cooperation with Circular Valley ties in perfectly with EMKA Groups' environmental management. Environmental protection in general and the responsible use of natural resources in particular are part of the corporate philosophy. This is evident in the planning and implementation of production processes as well as in their facilities. This includes solar panels on the roof, a closed cooling water circuit in its plastics technology division, and the cooling and purification of water in its zinc die casting production. EMKA has been consistently certified according to the international environmental management standard since January 2007.

Since space for new turbines is limited, replacing obsolete wind turbines at existing sites with more powerful new ones is one way of solving this problem. And in view of the waste generated in the process, the energy transition can only succeed if circularity principles are considered. That's why Circular Valley, the initiative for the circular economy, has dedicated their first movie to this topic. It is called "Rückenwind" (Tailwind) and is now available on Youtube and www.circular-valley.org.

Author Lutz Polanz and the team from Kintopp Film have been on the road all over Germany. In their movie. They introduce those people who are most advanced in considering materials for turbines as part of the circular process. The examples in the documentary vividly show the challenges that still need to be overcome but, above all, the movie shows the opportunities that this market offers.

A few figures illustrate this particularly well:

However, when it comes to the rotor blades or the concrete from the foundation and tower, the real challenges begin.

According to the Federal Environment Agency, rotor blades will generate around 20,000 tons of waste per year by 2030; however, this is not simply waste, but also offers a large potential for new raw materials. With mineral construction waste, including concrete from wind turbine foundations and towers, the figure is much higher. 220 million tons are generated each year, up to 70 percent of which are high-value materials suitable for new construction projects.

So far, old rotor blades are primarily used as fuel in the cement industry. While this may be beneficial in replacing other substances otherwise used as fuel, the high-tech material and its properties are in fact lost. That's why the documentary "Rückenwind" (Tailwind) shows three ways to deal with this material in a different way.

The company Novo-Tech Circular, based in Aschersleben, sorts the components of the former wings, shreds them, mixes them with sawdust or wood shavings and turns them into environmentally friendly outdoor floorboards. At Siemens Gamesa, engineers are developing recyclable rotor blades that can be broken down into their component parts at the end of their life cycle.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Umsicht Institute in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Bavaria, use heat to recover the glass and carbon fibers, thereby allowing them to be reused in other applications. The oil, a byproduct of the process, is used to produce plastics. Project manager Matthias Franke expects the technology to be on the market in around five years.

A single wind turbine can contain up to 700 tons of concrete. It can remain in a material loop, as long as it is properly separated after blasting and suitable second-use applications are found. The Hagedorn Group, for example, removes the rebars from the reinforced concrete, crushes the concrete further and then re-uses it again in the wind farm for the pathways or new foundations.

The Heinrich Fees company produces a rock aggregate from concrete and construction waste, which can be used in concrete production. This creates so-called R-concrete (R for recycling). The advantages: Less gravel is extracted, less rock is blasted, and much less waste material ends up in landfills. At the beginning, there was a lot of skepticism. By now, however, the Heinrich Fees company supplies around 30 concrete plants. And in Kirchheim unter Teck, a school has been built that is largely made of R-concrete.

The company Holcim regularly tests the recycled building material and finds no significant differences to regular concrete. This is why Holcim now supplies a large number of their customers with R-concrete. Material from former wind turbines could be another important source for this approach.

The expansion of wind energy requires large quantities of raw materials, while at the same time large amounts of waste are already produced at wind farms. As shown, this waste can be raw material for new turbines. Some companies are already taking advantage of this opportunity, but a lot of potential to be exploited remains - also as a tailwind for the energy transition and the circular economy.

This currently includes an analysis of the new EU regulation on batteries prepared by Dr. José Diez-Rodríguez, Project Manager and Technology Scout for the project in Circular Valley. In his view, there are four main points to consider:

Mona Neubaur, Deputy Minister President and Minister of Economic Affairs, and Environment Minister Oliver Krischer reflected on the progress already made over the past five years.

The aim of the network is to promote exchange, initiate cooperation, and bundle activities in order to tap into the state's already extensive expertise for this process. The network has more than 40 active participants, one of which is Circular Valley. Plenary meetings focusing on higher level issues of Circular Value Creation are held three to four times a year.

That's why representatives of Circular Valley regularly visit schools and work on the topic with young people in a very practical way. And they are happy to add more project days.

The courses are divided into three parts: First, participants learn about the United Nations' 17 sustainability criteria and relate them to their everyday lives. In the second part, they learn more about Circular Valley and the solutions that have been developed there. Finally, they pretend to become founders themselves and tackle one of the challenges of the circular economy.

Among the approximately 160 guests at Schloss Dyck were members of the European Parliament, the Federal and NRW State Parliaments, and City and District Councils, as well as representatives of the Diplomatic Corps of foreign countries based in the Rhineland.

"From this point of view, this year's Rhineland Summer Festival at Schloss Dyck was a complete success," said Dr. Stephan Keller, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Rhineland Metropolitan Region and Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf.

A boring topic? Not at all! The numerous participants listened with great interest and then engaged in a lively discussion because they all understand the topic's relevance - after all, standardization can have a huge impact on work processes in the respective companies.

In his half-hour presentation, Dr. Jens Giegerich, responsible for Technical Regulatory Affairs at Circular Valley partner Vorwerk, emphasized the strategic implications for companies:

This motto applies not only at the level of individual companies, he said, but also at the level of national economies. At the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), standardization in Circular Economy is now a significant topic (see ISO/TC 323 or ISO 59000 standards). Giegerich expressed his concern that some large corporations are already trying to impose their interests in this context, but also pointed out that so far, no country has taken the global lead in the field of the circular economy: "If we succeed in establishing a circular economy as 'Made in Germany', then I see good times ahead for Germany as a business location." The German government is also aware of the strategic importance of the circular economy and standardization, he said. This is why the Federal Ministry for the Environment, through the German Strategy Forum for Standardization (Deutsches Strategieforum für Standardisierung), is committed to strengthening the German role in global standardization - with the circular economy as a key topic.

Giegerich, who heads the Circular Economy division within this strategy forum, was also involved in the development of the German Standardization Roadmap for the Circular Economy (Deutsche Normungsroadmap Circular Economy), which was published in early 2023. It examines in seven working groups - Electrical Engineering & ICT, Batteries, Packaging, Plastics, Textiles, Buildings & Municipalities, and Digitization, Business Models & Management - regarding each of the following five criteria: Sustainability Assessment, Lifetime Extension, Digital Product Passport, End of Waste and Recyclability.

Giegerich believes, "If we standardize these topics wisely and solve the respective problems, we'll have taken a giant leap forward."

Andreas Mucke, Managing Director of the Circular Economy Accelerator GmbH, concluded: "It was again demonstrated why it is important to become an innovation driver in the Circular Economy, to become a global market leader in the context of the fifth industrial revolution – and for that, we are in exactly the right place here."

That is why the team has welcomed numerous guests in recent months, for example:

Paul Höller, State Secretary in the State Ministry of Economics, got a practical impression of the various dimensions Circular Valley is working on. He met with Dr. Michael Kroh from Vorwerk as well as with the startups Carboliq, Bioweg, Polycare and Space Era.

A delegation from the state Green Party had a similar experience. Party chairwoman Yazgülü Zeybek and state parliament members Ina Besche-Krastl and Jan Matzoll held discussions in Wuppertal with representatives of Bayer and Vorwerk as well as the startups Rhinopaq and Bioweg.

The CDU and FDP fraction from the Regional Council in Düsseldorf combined the pleasant with the useful. It moved its meeting to Wuppertal and learned from Andreas Mucke, Managing Director of Circular Economy Accelerator GmbH, how Circular Valley is advancing the transformation towards a circular economy.