Circular Economy & Resources

We cannot afford to use our global resources ad infinitum, as there is only a limited amount of specific materials available on our small planet and because not every economy has access to all resources. Therefore, fostering a cyclical economy in terms of the reuse of product parts or use of secondary material is essential. With respect to the resources issue, two to three major trends related to the environment will be on the agenda in the years to come:

A circular economy package of the European Union in line with US-based initiatives such as Circular economy 100 of the Ellen McArthur Foundation
Small plastic particulates in the food chain and environment together with issues like the great Pacific garbage patch
Mitigation of food waste
Optimizing products and production processes in terms of use of resources

The major trend related to economics is securing the supply chain and developing alternative solutions for the use of rare materials or of compounds with reduced accessibility, which leads to more attention to sustainable supply chains. Overall, one main question remains: Is your organisation sufficiently prepared to tackle circular economy issues specifically for those specific businesses you will develop in the future?

Your benefit

A comprehensive perspective of all resource management issues from costs to availability and risks along the whole supply chain
Long-term experience in organizing and optimizing packaging recovery systems, nationally organised as well as those conducted company-wide
Cost reduction in production processes using material flow cost accounting
Optimizing corporate waste management costs as well as optimizing regional waste management solutions
How professional is our organisation in terms of a circular economy?

Our Services

Resource Efficiency

Using methodologies like material flow cost accounting, eco-mapping, cost-benefit analysis or environmental cost analysis, inefficient use of resources can be made transparent. Based on those results, optimizing the use of resources can be easily developed. However, roll out in practice might need some additional sector-oriented expertise. All of this is provided by denkstatt experts.

Sustainable Supply Chain Development

Sustainable sourcing in terms of availability and risks is an additional must and goes beyond the merely cost-oriented decisions of the past. A multi-criterial approach is necessary, taking into account additional aspects like environmental and social impact, human rights, corruption or critical materials as well as questions of sustainable transport.

Development of Circular Economy Solutions

THE EU circular economy package as well as activities driven by the US Ellen McArthur Foundation require a specific corporate strategy on circular economy. denkstatt uses long-term experience in stakeholder dialog and national strategy development based on evaluating sorting and recycling systems and optimisation of packaging recovery systems in terms of costs and environmental effectiveness (cost benefit analysis). Linking waste management and secondary resource users is an additional outcome.

Waste Management

To develop optimised waste management solutions using instruments like the evaluation of existing solutions, their handling in practice and developing an appropriate different solution in terms of optimizing costs, acceptance of employees or residents and in terms of environmental benefit. It is important to see the whole picture of local solutions, e.g. it makes a lot of difference whether treatment technologies or just landfilling are behind the final disposal.

Recovery of (packaging) materials

Long-term experience in organizing and optimizing packaging recovery systems, nationally organised as well as those conducted company-wide, has been developed based on one of the most modern systems in Austria. Optimizing collection systems internally in corporations as well as in settlement areas in addition to optimizing sorting plants in terms of capacity, quality of separation and costs builds a strong basis to support customers in all kind of recovery solutions.

Management of (Hazardous) Chemicals

The Reach and CLP regulations define the requirements on organisations with respect to the management of hazardous chemicals. They define the registration, notification, classification and labelling to reduce risks and help better understand the effects of the chemicals a company is using.

Sustainable Agriculture

Fertile soils are the foundation of our food supply and the answer to where and how we can grow food despite changing climate conditions. Our agricultural advisory services aim to increase the resilience of the agricultural value chain toward climate change. Our approach incorporates the reality of local farms and their farm advisors. Together we find a holistic and feasible way to maintain and increase soil fertility. Reusing biomass to build up more humus plays an important role for us. We prefer to provide our agricultural advice in a very practical way directly on farms. We have also developed a digital training programme that we can deliver anywhere in the world.

Our Stories

For an international beverage company, investigations were conducted concerning data about recovery and recycling shares of beverage packaging in 44 countries globally on all continents. The figures analysed specific national solutions for materials like glass, aluminium, steel, plastics and other compounds.

Commissioned by an international beverage company, research has been performed on the recovery and recycling rates of several packaging materials including glass, aluminium, steel or plastics in 35 European countries. This project includes the gathering, evaluation and description of relevant data and the development of an auditable process to standardize this data update in the future.
For an Austrian packing recovery system, the contribution of packaging to waste prevention and increased resource efficiency was evaluated in detail.
For an Austrian-based retail group, waste management costs were reduced by optimizing waste disposal costs, awareness-raising among staff and the reduction of residual waste and bio waste by improving on-site waste separation.
Facts and criteria for sustainable plastic waste management have been summarized for Plastics Europe after anonymising more than twenty years of relevant denkstatt projects.
For a wooden furniture company from Western Romania, we introduced the eco-design methodology approach during the development of a new product.
We conducted a feasibility study on the possibilities for energy recovery of organic waste for Sofiyska Voda (VEOLIA Water). As a result we prepared a list of potential suppliers interested to provide the organic waste generated by client’s production and activities, also consulted on the potential difficulties for project implementation and on the further possibilities.

Our Clients

ARA Altstoff Recycling Austria Austrian Federal Ministry of the Environment

Plastics Europe SPAR Österreichische Warenhandels AG The Coca-Cola Company

Contacts

Stefan Pichler – Service Lead, Austria
stefan.pichler@denkstatt.at

Timo Ernst – Service Lead, Germany
timo.ernst@sustainable.de

Csongor Bajnóczki – Service Lead, Hungary
bajnoczki.cs@denkstatt.hu

Monika Budiakova – Service Lead, Slovakia
monika.budiakova@denkstatt.sk

See next: Decarbonisation & Business strategies