Project status: Completed.

Objective

The role of reuse and preparation for reuse in a circular economy has been significantly strengthened by the five-step waste hierarchy that now clearly states that reusing ore remanufacturing of products should be preferable over all kinds of recycling. Nevertheless, there are still a variety of relevant barriers and uncertainties for reuse and related innovative business models. Therefore, RUN focuses on the development of entrepreneurial support services that are tailor-made for the needs of the reuse and remanufacturing sector. In this way, it aims to contribute to a reduced demand for raw materials in Europe. More precisely, the project identifies and address specific needs of reuse and remanufacturing community, inter alia missing platforms to exchange experiences and relevant information on key success factors for reuse networks. Thereby and based on other ongoing activities of the consortium, this project has the potential to establish a reuse network within the EIT RawMaterials.

The solution (technology)

The development of entrepreneurial support services will be achieved through:

  • mapping of relevant stakeholders and setting-up of an institutional framework for cooperation in order to bring together expertise from fields of reuse and remanufacturing,
  • identification of best practice and and key barriers for innovative SMEs in the sector,
  • analysis of raw material savings for different reuse and remanufacturing approaches and priorisation of activities from a raw material perspective.

The targeted end customers of this project are followings groups, which are already today in close collaboration with the partners of the EIT RawMaterials consortium: local entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs in municipal and private organisations, existing SMEs, students and spin-offs.

Partnership

  • Wuppertal Institut fuer Klima, Umwelt, Energie GmbH (Wuppertal Institute), Germany (Lead Partner)
  • Technische Universiteit Delft (Delft University of Technology), the Netherlands
  • Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. VTT), Finland
  • Wiederverwendungs- und Reparaturzentren in Deutschland, Germany