The Forum began with good news from the Chancellery and ended with the prospect of new international partners. There was a special art event at the start and rarely seen drawings at the finale – the Circular Valley Forum promoted the circular economy on Friday (November 15) on many levels and with a lot of prominent support. More than 1,200 decision-makers came together in the Historische Stadthalle Wuppertal, including members of the federal and state governments, CEOs of large corporations and innovative SMEs, two great artists - and a Meistermacher (champion maker).

The head of the NRW State Chancellery, Nathanael Liminski, visited all three Circular Valley Forums - and was able to explain their importance first-hand. The circular economy is particularly important for the state and for North Rhine-Westphalia as an industrial area. It offers huge opportunities to conserve resources, reduce emissions and thus become more resilient. Liminski was therefore delighted that “the heart of the circular economy” is in the extended Rhine-Ruhr region thanks to Circular Valley.

Sarah Ryglewski, Minister of State in the Chancellery responsible for sustainability, defined goals and made promises at the opening of the Circular Valley Forum. Germany must become a circular industrial country and be a pioneer in the circular economy. This would make it possible to decouple raw material requirements and growth. Unlike in the past, Ryglewski said, it was not necessary to “set too many rules with good intentions”, but to resolve issues through dialogue.

Other members of the NRW state government also promoted the circular economy. Deputy Minister President Mona Neubaur is the patron of Circular Valley and pleaded for an optimistic approach: “We have to trust the citizens and companies,” she said.

Her colleague, State Minister of Labor Karl-Josef Laumann, emphasized the role of the chemical industry. With more than 100,000 jobs, North Rhine-Westphalia is now the largest location for the industry in Germany. It is therefore a key industry for the circular economy because it develops processes to reuse materials in high quality and to avoid waste. The circular economy thus opens new sales opportunities and creates good new jobs in NRW.

Important momentum will come from start-ups. At the forum's DemoDay, the young companies that Circular Valley is currently supporting presented their business models to a large audience. The founders make fuel from plastic waste, extract heavy metals from water, recycle large quantities of clothing and develop urgently needed energy storage systems. Their companies are based from Argentina to Australia and from Scandinavia to Uganda.

At the end of the meeting, Dr. Carsten Gerhardt, initiator of Circular Valley and host of the forum, outlined the next steps: thanks to new Circular Valley software, it is now much easier for potential business partners to come together. On March 12 and 13, there will be the first trade fair on the topic, the Circular Valley Convention in Düsseldorf. And on November 14, the next forum will be held in the heart of the circular economy.

Finally, the teams had the privilege of getting to know leading companies and research institutions in the region. Visits to Knipex, Vorwerk and RWTH Aachen gave them first-hand impressions of practical industrial processes.

The Circular Economy Accelerator program thrives on the commitment of numerous partners and experts, many of whom have been involved repeatedly - a special feature from which the startups of Batch 8 will also benefit in early 2025.

Visits to large industrial companies and innovative SMEs. Contacts with decision-makers from the German and European economy. Their own stand at a major trade fair. Workshops with top-class coaches and mentors - all this will be offered to participants in the next round of the Circular Valley funding program in early 2025. Applications for the Accelerator are open until 5 January.

So far, more than 120 start-ups from six continents have made significant progress in developing their business models in Circular Valley. The extended Rhine-Ruhr region with its industrial heart and unique scientific landscape becomes the Silicon Valley of the circular economy. Numerous collaborations between young and established companies have been created in the large network.

This encouraging development will continue in the next round of the funding program. Start-ups whose ideas are scalable and thus help to prevent emissions on a scale of billions of tons (giga-scale) are eligible to apply. This is possible in the following nine fields:

In mid-January, a jury will select 15 start-ups for the new round, which will start at the end of January. The participants will be given a stand at the Circular Valley Convention in Düsseldorf (March 12 and 13) and will be able to present their business models to several hundred guests at the Circular Valley DemoDay.

The Circular Economy Hotspot can be found in a different place on the European continent every year. After stops in the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Catalonia, Belgium, Scotland and Luxembourg, the meeting now took place in Wales. The country presented its ambitious work on the zero-waste target and offered its guests opportunities to present and learn about innovations.

One of the aims of this hotspot was to build and deepen relationships between countries and regions. The first cross-border cooperation in the circular economy plays a special role in this context. NRW and Flanders concluded this agreement - and deliberately kept it open for other partners. Dr. Carsten Gerhardt from Circular Valley spoke about this with Prime Minister Eluned Morgan and her deputy Huw Irranca-Davies, who is also responsible for climate protection in the Welsh government. The exchange on possible cooperation was further intensified during a visit to Germany by Welsh Business Minister Rebecca Evans.

Wales and North Rhine-Westphalia have some historical parallels. Both have a tradition in coal and heavy industry. The Welsh capital Cardiff, for example, was once the world's largest harbor for exporting coal. With this shared DNA, both are now looking for ways to transform their economies accordingly. The circular economy offers lots of opportunities for this.

The guest list was impressive. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other high-ranking representatives of the German government were represented at the first Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC), as were heads of government and ministers from half of Europe and from numerous countries in the Global South, such as Ghana, Namibia, Cameroon, Rwanda and Congo. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations have developed this new format to talk about collective action and scalability.

Both are topics that Circular Valley is very familiar with. That is why Thomas Müller-Kirschbaum, Chief Scientist of the initiative, and Franc Kamugyisha, alumnus of Circular Valley (Ecoplastile), were among those involved in the discussions in Hamburg.

The work in the Circular Economy Accelerator also serves this purpose. Start-ups from all continents are involved in the Circular Valley funding program. Through these young companies, knowledge on topics like water or waste disposal is brought to the global South.

For the next HSC in June 2025, Circular Valley has proposed to explore one question in greater depth: What do business models in the Circular Economy look like that are important for the Global South and at the same time offer opportunities for the Global North?

This also depends on joint financing by companies from the global North and banks, as Circular Valley initiator Dr. Carsten Gerhardt discussed in talks with top representatives of the World Bank and KfW Development Bank, including World Bank CEO Ajay Banga, World Bank Vice President Maitreyi Das, World Bank Executive Director for Germany Michael Krake and KfW CEO Stefan Wintels.

Circular Valley partners have already developed business models that are of interest to all sides. In January, they now intend to discuss the financing of such a model with the World Bank and commercial banks.

Egypt's economic potential is unfolding through infrastructure projects and a determined focus on renewable energies. The expansion of mega wind and solar parks has made the country a pioneer in the field of sustainable energy. Egypt is also making an important contribution to decarbonization as a producer of green ammonia.

This was the background to the business consultations between NRW and the North African country organized by NRW-Global Business at the end of November. In particular, the participants discussed nearshoring, renewable energy, market entry and the expansion of economic cooperation between companies from North Rhine-Westphalia and Egypt. Paul Höller, State Secretary in the State Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the Egyptian Ambassador Dr. Mohamed Elbadri officially opened the event. The guest of honor was the Egyptian Minister for Investment and Foreign Trade, Hassan El Khatib.

Before his time in his country's government, El Khatib worked in the investment industry and was intensively involved with start-ups. This was the perfect starting point for the exchange with Circular Valley in two significant ways. At the World Bank conference in Washington, the Egyptian minister spoke with Circular Valley initiator Dr. Carsten Gerhardt, and at the consultations in Düsseldorf, he followed up on this with Andreas Mucke, Managing Director of the Circular Economy Accelerator. Both sides want to further intensify their contacts.

NRW Minister-President Hendrik Wüst named common ground and objectives. The energy transition, the development of a hydrogen economy and the fight against climate change unite North Rhine-Westphalia and the United Arab Emirates. NRW being one of the leading hydrogen-producing countries in Germany, the two countries want to work together even more closely in the future, especially in this cutting-edge technology.

In response to an invitation from NRW-Global Business and following a meeting with the country's ambassador last year, top business and government representatives met with representatives from the Emirates. Circular Valley contributed its expertise in achieving a sustainable and circular economy.

Around 100 companies from the United Arab Emirates have set up shop here. In 2022, NRW exported goods worth more than 600 million euros to the United Arab Emirates, primarily machinery, chemical products and electrical equipment. At the same time, North Rhine-Westphalia imported goods worth 300 million euros, mainly metals and chemical products.

The list of collaborations between young companies that have been supported by Circular Valley and large corporations is getting longer and longer. These two cases have been added in recent weeks:

In the Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa, there are to be fewer landfills and less waste incineration. That is why the prefecture is supporting the partnership between the Japanese subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH and the startup AC Biode, which is based in Japan and Luxembourg. AC Biode was part of the third round of the Accelerator Program at Circular Valley.

The partnership with AC Biode enables the Japanese Bosch subsidiary to process difficult-to-recycle materials such as PET, PBT, PVC, nylon, textiles, PA, organic waste, urethane foam, cellulose, lignin and sewage sludge. The advantage of AC Biode's chemical recycling technology is that it can process multi-layered or damaged plastics. Conventional mechanical recycling cannot process such waste.

Although pyrolysis is possible, it is very expensive due to the high amount of energy required at temperatures above 400 degrees Celsius. AC Biode's approach works at 180 to 300 degrees. “We also don't use any expensive solvents during the process - just the catalyst and water,” says Tadashi Kubo, co-founder and CEO of AC Biode.

In 2023, AC Biode succeeded in depolymerizing PET into methanol. This year saw the next advance in the laboratory in Kyoto: the chemical recycling of organic waste into syngas. This process is more efficient than bio-digestion or gasification and currently subject of a patent application.

Berding Beton is one of Europe's largest manufacturers of concrete products - and a new shareholder in the start-up Polycare. From the beginning of next year, Berding will also be the first license partner to produce Polycare's cement-free masonry system (Sembla) at the Essen site. Until now, Sembla has been produced exclusively at Polycare's research site in the Thuringian Forest.

Production in Essen allows the system to be offered in larger quantities and with shorter delivery times. “The production of our cement-free Sembla building blocks in such a prestigious facility will help us to successfully establish our sustainable solutions on the German market,” says Andreas Kunsmann, Managing Director of Polycare, which was part of the first funding round of Circular Valley.

The Sembla masonry system is based on circular design: from the raw materials used from production and to easy dismantling. The plug-in connections enable construction without mortar or adhesive, and the masonry can be directly reused after non-destructive deinstallation. The bricks are made of geopolymer concrete and cement is completely replaced by materials such as fly ash and slag. These industrial by-products reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 70 percent and save valuable primary raw materials.

An existing production line at the Berding site in Essen was slightly modified for Sembla. The blocks are demolded using an earth-moist board finisher and stored in racks at room temperature, where they reach their optimum strength (“hardening”) - a firing process is not necessary. This process, which achieves high strength through compaction and “stamping”, is ideally suited to the material properties and design of the bricks. The decision to adapt an existing machine instead of purchasing a new one is fully in line with sustainability and resource optimization.

Until now, Berding Beton has mainly produced paving stones, curbstones and edge reinforcements in Essen. The production of Sembla represents a leap into building construction and an expansion of the portfolio. To mark the start of production, a pavilion will be erected at the plant in Essen to display the Sembla system and other sustainable products from Berding Beton. Circular economy you can touch.