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Connecting Research & Practice
The circular economy is a key pillar of the European Green Deal and plays a crucial role in ensuring a sustainable and secure supply of raw materials in Europe. However, its implementation in the Greater Region is complex: four countries mean different legal frameworks, varying industry standards, and different speeds of transformation.
At the same time, material flows and production chains cross national borders. They are closely interconnected and difficult to capture in their entirety.
The circular economy connects regions, systems, and stakeholders.
Explore its dimensions with UniGR-CIRKLA.
To make these interconnections visible and drive informed decisions across business, policy, and public administration, a shared knowledge base is essential. Reliable data, robust models, and comparable assessment approaches form the foundation needed to analyse cross-border developments, unlock regional potentials, and respect the unique characteristics of each sub-region.
Best Practices
Case studies from the construction and steel industries in Luxembourg, Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and Wallonia highlight pathways for implementing circular principles in major resource-intensive industries.
They combine existing knowledge and bridge the gap between research and practice.
Data
By integrating production data, geospatial information and digital models, material quantities and material flows can be systematically quantified, mapped and analysed.
The results support decision-making across the entire life cycle – from material selection and design to the use phase, maintenance and end-of-life strategies.
Potentials
Based on these analyses, material and resource potentials within buildings, infrastructures and industrial processes can be identified, assessed and evaluated with regard to their usability.
This includes the assessment of existing material stocks, opportunities for reuse and recovery, and above all the question of how stakeholders can apply circular strategies to their own processes, sectors and application areas.
