"Circular Valley" – an initiative of the Wuppertal Movement e.V. – covers the greater Rhine-Ruhr area from Bonn to Münster, where economic growth and environmental protection are to be brought into balance in the future under the guiding principle "Grow the Economy - Protect the Environment". The project is supported by several ministries and NRW Economics Minister Prof. Dr. Pinkwart as patron. The initiator of Circular Valley, Dr. Carsten Gerhardt, is a sustainability expert with many years of experience in the successful implementation of large-scale projects with business, politics and society.
The search for start-ups with solutions for closing material cycles is oriented towards the Green Deal, which focuses, among other things, on waste avoidance, production technologies with minimal environmental impact, tracking & tracing, waste logistics, reuse models, novel recycling technologies and service models. Interested start-ups could benefit from Circular Valley's proximity to over 300 global market leaders, leading companies in the recycling industry and the densest university and research network on the circular economy worldwide.