Impact unit: Circular Market
In the Circular Market impact area, we focus on transforming economic conditions: finance mechanisms, investment logic, and market incentives. Our programs bring together capital providers, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers to redesign how businesses create, share, and sustain value — for Berlin and beyond.
-
How to Develop Circular Economy in Tourism
-
Everything you want to know about Circular Berlin
-
New Report: Mapping Berlin’s Journey Toward Circular Electronics
Published by How circular is Berlin’s electronics sector today? And what needs to change so our devices stay in use longer? Our team at Circular Berlin is proud to announce the publication of our latest analysis: The 2026 Circular Electronics Report. This comprehensive study maps the current landscape of the electronics sector in our city and…
-
Title of the Program
Short description of the Program with Goal. We empower Berlin to become a living blueprint for the circular economy. Through education, policy change, community engagement, and systems innovation, we tackle the root causes of wasteful practices.
-
Driving Circular Economy: Circular Berlin’s 2024 Innovations
As 2024 draws to a close, we at Circular Berlin reflect on a year marked by significant achievements, collaborative endeavors, and a steadfast commitment to advancing the circular economy in our city. Building upon the foundations laid in previous years, we’ve expanded our initiatives, engaged with diverse communities, and fostered innovation across various sectors. Building…
-
SOLSTICE: Rs Strategies for a Circular Textiles Economy
The SOLSTICE project is funded by the EU’s Horizon Europe framework program and aims to promote climate-neutral practices and the transition to a circular economy in the textile industry. The project follows a systemic and holistic approach that considers all phases of waste prevention and is guided by the 5R strategies: Refuse / Reduce, Reuse,…
-
Reducing food waste in the hotel industry with zero waste and circular strategies
by Robert Hattaway Last year saw the conclusion of our 2-year project on food waste, a topic with huge environmental, social, and economic ramifications. Working together with partners NEW STANDARD.STUDIO, Seminaris Hotel, and visitBerlin, we explored this topic in the context of hotel gastronomy, looking at how the circular economy and zero waste approaches can…
-
Tech and Spaces: enabling circularity with photonics and material science
Funders Berlin Senatsverwaltung Wirtschaft, Energie und Betriebe (SenWeb) Partners Creative Climate Cities, WISTA Dates April 2024 – December 2025 Get in touch Stefan Aufrichter Project Management Through this project, we will explore the potential of Deep Tech applications and co-creation spaces for accelerating and implementing a circular economy in various industries in Berlin and beyond.…
-
Circular City Challenge 2.0: After intensive matchmaking, 23 circular economy solutions start implementation
In the Circular City Challenge 2.0, which was launched in August 2023, the 20-member jury, made up of city representatives from over 4 cities and municipalities, nominated the most promising solutions and approaches from the more than 120 submissions. From the large number of interesting projects, 23 concepts were particularly convincing in terms of making…
-
Driving Sustainable Construction: Exploring DGNB, LEVEL(s), and DIN’s Impact on Circular Construction.
by Alethya Cuberos and Daniela Raffo Organizations like DGNB (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen), LEVEL(s), and DIN-Normenausschuss Bauwesen (NABau) (Standards Committee for Building and Civil Engineering), play significant roles in promoting sustainability, setting standards in the construction industry, and also shaping and promoting responsible approaches within the construction and building sectors. While the three entities…
-
Study: Business models for circular construction and renovation
Funders Commissioned by the German Energy Agency (Deutsche Energie-Agentur, dena) Partners Circular Berlin, Circular Structural Design and Concular GmbH. Dates July 2023 – November 2023 Get in touch Dina Padalkina CEO, Founder This study addresses the potential of the Circular Economy (CE). It provides an overview of the latest trends and concrete examples of construction…
-
CircularPSP: Call for Tenders is open
The EU pre-commercial procurement project CircularPSP launched a €5.64 million tender (Contract Notice on TED) for Suppliers to design, develop and test an innovative ‘circular economy solution’ (CE-solution) that enables municipalities and their staff as well as businesses in the local economy to apply circular practice more quickly, frequently, widely and effectively. Individual users at City and Business are empowered…
-
AI in Circular Construction: current reality or a concept for the future?
by Alethya Cuberos Technologies for the construction sector to transition to the circular economy Along with the implementation of the circular economy strategies, such as extending building lifespans, redesigning with circularity in mind, reusing components, and recycling materials. We should also keep in mind the development of the new technologies that help to scale the…
-
White paper: Interactive design tool for multidisciplinary planning with re-use building components
Written by The construction industry faces the enormous challenge of significantly reducing negative environmental impacts on climate and resource consumption and, in addition to technical feasibility, also developing incentives for this necessary change. The increasing scarcity of resources calls for new and simple solutions to remove used resources from buildings with low CO2 emissions and…
-
BuildSkills Academy for Transitional Skills in the Built Environment
Funders Co-funded by the European Union, ERASMUS+ Programme under Grant Agreement number: 101104419 Partners 17 partners from 10 European countries Dates June 2023 – May 2027 Get in touch Daniela Raffo Senior project manager The BuildSkills Academy aims to upgrade knowledge and skills related to the green and digital transitions, focusing on the construction sector.…
-
3D Printing: is it a new technological path for the circular solutions in construction?
by Tabitha Ashley Opondo Technologies for the construction sector to transition to the circular economy The construction industry has long been known for its unsustainable practices, with buildings often being designed and constructed with little regard for their environmental impact. However, as concerns about climate change and resource depletion continue to grow, there is a…
-
CircularPSP: Public service platforms for circular and resilient municipalities
Funders European Union’s Horizon Europe Pre- Commercial Procurement Programme, under Grant Agreement n° 101092208 Partners Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, TAGES, Circular Berlin, Forum Virium Helsinki, Sandyford Business District, Câmara Municipal de Guimarães, Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, Skupnost občin Slovenije, empirica, RISE Dates January 2023 – 2026 Get in touch Dina Padalkina CEO, Founder…
-
Circular City Challenge: bringing the circular economy into the cities
Initiator 1st round: Circular Berlin 2nd round: funded by Stuttgarter Klima‐Innovationsfonds Partners 1st round: Circular Munich, Circonnact, Materialkreislauf 2nd round: Circular Munich, Circonnact, Materialkreislauf, Fab City Hamburg, Creative Climate Cities Dates 1st round: November 2021–June 2022 2nd round: March 2023-May 2024 Get in touch Dina Padalkina CEO, Founder The Circular City Challenge aimed to connect promising…
-
Multi-Stakeholder Workshop on collaborative take-back systems for textiles
In light of the incoming sustainability and circularity major legislations at national and European level, the German fashion industry needs to create new crucial partnerships with the textile reversible supply chain. Initiated by the German “Partnership for Sustainable Textiles” and in collaboration with the circularity agency “Closed Loop Fashion”, in a 4 days multi-stakeholder workshop…
-
Circularity through Zero Waste Approaches in Hotel Gastronomy
Funders Phase 1: VisitBerlin, Hans Sauer Stiftung Phase 2: VisitBerlin, Hiba Impulse Partners NEW STANDARD.STUDIO, Seminaris Hotel Dates Phase 1: December 2021 – February 2022 Phase 2: December 2022 – June 2023 Get in touch Dina Padalkina CEO, Founder The project aims to explore the best practices in the hospitality industry with a focus on…
-
The circular approaches to work with aluminium composite panels.
On 07-08.10, as part of the Haus der Materialisierung project, Material Mafia, together with Circular Berlin and TU Berlin, organised the second seminar and the workshop on the topic: Aluminium Dibond. An aluminium Dibond is a sandwich panel. It is known as a brand for a rigid composite material that belongs to the manufacturer 3A Composites, Singen. In our…
-
A-gain Guide: textile solutions for the consumer in Berlin
Funders Senat MVKU, Senat WEB, Postcode Lotterie Partners LoopLook, Büro Bum Bum, Cecilia Palmer, New Standard Studio Dates From June 2021 Get in touch Arianna Nicoletti Textiles & Education Lead Our A-gain Guide is a digital platform, designed to guide the user through the best options to locally repair, reuse and recycle their unwanted clothes…
-
A circular electronics sector in Berlin: how to leverage the city’s potential?
With continuous digitalisation, increasing affordability of products and rapid urbanisation, cities produce enormous amounts of electronic waste. Read more about framing the electronics sector here. BSR’s recycling centers separately collect a total of around 4 kg per person per year of old electrical equipment (Source). Berlin looks at the diverse options of the collection of…
-
Why should we care about Printing Blankets?
On 03-04.06, as part of the Haus der Materialisierung project, Material Mafia, together with Circular Berlin and TU Berlin, organised the first seminar and the workshop on the topic of Printing Blankets You would ask: Printing Blankets? The rubber printing blanket is used in the process of offset printing. It is stretched around a printing…
-
Defining the Electronics Sector: A first step to increasing the circularity of this sector.
The consensus is clear: electronics are one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world in terms of volume and environmental impact. For us, Circular Berlin, it was essential to start diving into this sector seeing the urgency it has for more circularity. With the help of five students from Utrecht University, we took…
-
Study: Berlin circular electronics
Initiator Circular Berlin Partners FixFirst, Utrecht University Dates April 2021 – July 2021 Get in touch The project explored the current circular electronics ecosystem of Berlin and identified near-future directions that the city of Berlin could pursue to increase circularity. The challenge With continuous digitalisation, increasing affordability of products and rapid urbanisation, cities produce enormous…
-
Circular Material Systems: Documenting circular construction practices
Funders In collaboration with TU Berlin and many other contributors Partners Georg Hubmann, Vera van Maaren and Circular Berlin Dates March 2021 – May 2024 Get in touch Dina Padalkina CEO, Founder Julius Schäufele Circular construction consultant With this project, we want to advance the awareness of construction practitioners about buildings with circular principles and…
-
CE strategies in construction projects: learnings from new construction and building redesigns
Shifting from business as usual towards circular economy principles in the construction sector is a long path. To do this: However, most importantly, the mindset of the construction sector’s actors has to shift, to stand behind that change. Over this year, we ran online workshops with a diverse group of stakeholders, to create new ways…
-
The steps to realise circularity in construction projects
In 2020 Circular Berlin is part of the project City Loops, with such partners as Provadis Hochschule (Germany), Wuppertal Institute (Germany), CleanTech Bulgaria (Bulgaria), Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation (United Kingdom). The core of the project is to bring circular economy thinking for the practitioners using advanced circular economy tools such as circularity compass, structural waste…
-
Report: Circular economy in Berlin’s construction
Written by Last year Circular Berlin took part in a big project run together with EIT Climate-KIC, building a circular construction ecosystem in Berlin. Of course building the ecosystem is not a one year task, it is a long way to go, but we are glad to keep the ball rolling. During 2019 Circular Berlin…
-
Learning from spaces or how spaces can underpin circular construction
Together with the Urban Ideation Lab at B-Part Am Gleisdreieck on August 22, 2019, Circular Berlin discussed the topic of spaces and how the use of space in the building can underpin circular construction. To accelerate the transformation from linear to circular economy in the construction sector, there is an urgency to deploy circular business…
-
Workshop results: Berlin Circular Fashion approach
At the beginning of 2019 Circular Berlin and Future Fashion Forward e.V. teamed up to organize the fourth and last workshop of the Circular Berlin event series targeting the issues of local waste streams in Berlin and bringing together municipalities and industry actors in different fields. After looking at the Construction Industry, at Material Urban Remanufacturing specifics…
-
Study: Berlin’s circular construction ecosystem
Funders EIT Climate-KIC Dates May 2019 – December 2019 Get in touch Dina Padalkina CEO, Founder The project Berlin’s Circular Construction Ecosystem aimed to identify leverage points in Berlin’s construction sector, which stakeholders can use to enable a circular economy in the city. The challenge Berlin remains a construction hotspot in Germany, however its booming…
-
Workshop results: Circular economy in the Berlin food sector
On the 26.02 Circular Berlin together with the partners Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie, visitBerlin, HealthCapital, and BeShared hosted our third multi-stakeholder workshop on the topic of Circular Economy potentials for Food and Biomass streams in Berlin and Berlin religion. The challenges of food waste, unsustainable agriculture and alternative ways of dealing with the biomass were addressed during the…
-
Workshop results: Center for Urban Remanufacture
On the 06.12 Circular Berlin together with the CURE project partners (TU Berlin – Chair for Circular Economy and Recycling Technologies, Material Mafia, and OMA e.V.) hosted a workshop on the topic of Berlin Center for Urban REmanufacture. Already during the preparation phase, we were more than excited to receive more than 100 registrations from…
-
Workshop results: Circular construction in Berlin
On the 20.11 Circular Berlin together with EIT Climate-KIC hosted a workshop on the topic of Circular Construction. Among others, the objective was to discuss current challenges for this field and what the potentials are to set Berlin Construction on the circular rails. Circular Construction is an approach, which requires a lot of discussion and…
-
Building the circular economy agenda for Berlin
Funders EIT Climate-KIC Partners Circular Berlin Dates April-August 2018 Get in touch Dina Padalkina CEO, Founder The Circular Berlin project started as an exploratory study at the start of 2018, with the idea to establish a coordinated network that connects key stakeholders in order to have more influence on local policies and regulations in the…
-
Bauen für Morgen training: understanding construction material loops
Funders EIT Climate-KIC Partners Provadis Hochschule (Germany), Wuppertal Institute (Germany), CleanTech Bulgaria (Bulgaria), Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation (United Kingdom) Dates October 2019 – December 2020 Get in touch Dina Padalkina CEO, Founder The Bauen für Morgen training program is part of the City Loops project aiming to provide professional training programs across Europe to…