Your path to the Circular Economy

Decouple growth from resource consumption and use resilience as a competitive advantage!

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Ecological pressure

  • Our economic system consumes ~175% of the planet's renewable biocapacity. (Overshootday, Global Network, 2023)
  • Globally, only 7.2% of resources are reused at the end of their lifecycle. (The Circularity Gap Report, 2023)
  • 6 out of 9 planetary boundaries have been exceeded.(Planetary Boundaries, Stockholm Resilience Center, 2023)

Economic pressure

  • Sustainability and Circular Economy is evolving from an enthusiasm factor to a hygiene factor among customers and value chain partners and has a direct impact on competitiveness.
  • Since 2020, assets under management by public equity funds with a Circular Economy investment focus have increased six-fold from USD 0.3 billion to > USD 2 billion. (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Financing the Circular Economy: Capturing the opportunity (2020)
  • Make yourself less dependent on primary raw material shortages and increase the resilience of your supply chain by recycling critical resources!

Regulatory pressure 

  • Circular Economy is part of various regulatory provisions and recommendations such as: CSRD/ESRS, Eco Design Directive, EU Circular Economy Action Plan.

Let's shape the path to a circular future together!

Our Circular Economy competencies

Decoupling growth and resource consumption – Resilience as a competitive advantage!

The Circular Economy provides a widely accepted concept for this, with the goal of establishing a regenerative system in which the consumption of natural resources and energy as well as waste and emissions are minimized through four key approaches:

  • NARROW: Use fewer resources (materials and energy) by being resource efficient and increasing the use intensity of your products!
  • SLOW: Increase the longevity of your products and components.
  • CLOSE: Return resources to the cycle at the end of life and reuse products, components and materials!
  • REGENERATE: Regenerate natural ecosystems by using renewable and regenerative resources.

Consulting Services for Circular Economy

Implement concrete initiatives with speed!

Your challenges:

  • You want to identify circular potentials in an interdisciplinary and creative way
  • You lack the speed to drive and test ideas in everyday life
  • You want to sensitize and inspire your employees in the context of the Circular Economy

UNITY solution approach:

  • Generation and validation of circular ideas along your product lifecycle based on our proven ideation and prototyping methods
  • From a one-day ideation workshop or a multi-day boost camp format to a Sustainathon for >50 participants – our fast-track formats provide you with the right impulses for transformation
Anchor the Circular Economy in your strategy!

Your challenges:

  • You are unclear about where to focus your goals and looking for strategic guidance on how to implement the Circular Economy
  • You are lacking an organizational structure to effectively manage Circular Economy activities through clearly defined roles and responsibilities

UNITY solution approach:

  • Creation of a basic knowledge of the Circular Economy and based on this, derivation of goals that are appropriate for your company
  • Development of strategic guidelines in the form of measurable and reportable targets (KPIs and guidelines)
  • Collaborative development of an empowering governance structure
Design a circular business model!

Your challenges:

  • Would you like to modernize your service portfolio and expand it with sustainable solutions in line with the CSRD/EU taxonomy?
  • Are you struggling to implement and scale circular business model ideas?

Our solution approach:

  • Design circular business models in accordance with the CSRD/EU taxonomy, e.g. using a triple layer business model canvas (economic, ecological and social)
  • Prioritize and select relevant circular business model patterns (e.g. XaaS models) with subsequent development and piloting phase
Circular design principles as the credo of tomorrow!

Your challenges:

  • Do you want to have a positive impact on the environmental footprint of your products as early as the product development stage?
  • Are you facing the challenge of integrating circular development principles into your processes and systems?

Our solution approach:

  • Develop an integrated framework for circular principles in product development and systems engineering
  • Establish an efficient backbone for managing circular data in product development
  • Implement life cycle analyses to optimize the environmental impact of systems.
[Translate to English:]
Make your product life cycle circular!

Your challenges:

  • Do you want to make your products circular along their entire life cycle, but don't know how or where to start?
  • Would you like to uncover and utilize the circular potential of your products, especially in the post-use phases?

Our solution approach:

  • Identify circular potentials along the entire product life cycle together
  • Develop concepts for the implementation of identified areas of action together
  • Enable the implementation of these areas of action
Digitalization as an enabler for circularity!

Your challenges:

  • You feel that you are not taking full advantage of the potential of data and your existing system landscape
  • You want to make data-based decisions in the circular development, production and traceability of your products

UNITY solution approach:

  • Analysis of the existing PDM/PLM system landscape, uncovering potentials and creating uniform understanding of topics such as the digital product passport or the digital twin
  • Joint development of digital use cases along the product lifecycle and support during piloting
Culture eats strategy for breakfast!

Your challenges:

  • Would you like to sensitize, motivate and empower your employees in the context of the circular economy?
  • Do you have difficulties integrating the circular economy into your existing structures and processes?

Our solution approach:

  • Use our experience to build a consistent Target Operating Model including organizational structures, roles and processes!
  • Develop methods, tools and training materials with us to empower your organization!
  • Establish formats with us to promote a circular mindset!
The Circular Economy will not work on its own!

Your challenges:

  • You need support in contacting value creation partners 
  • You lack the right contacts to make strategic partnerships in the context of the Circular Economy

UNITY solution approach:

  • Joint development of a collaboration concept and piloting of initial partnerships, starting with co-sourcing and co-engineering and ending with cross-manufacturer traceability
  • Comprehensive insight into the possibilities of shared services

Enquire now: Your path to the Circular Economy

Ideation Workshop
Future Business
1-2 Day Workshop

UNITY Fast Track format to identify and prioritize focus topics within a selected context.

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Innovation Boostcamp
Future Business
4-5 Day Boostcamp

UNITY Fast Track format for initial prototype development and validation.

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Hackathon program
Future Business
2-3 Months

UNITY Fast Track format to concretize prototypes and develop an action plan to pilot prioritized prototypes.

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Project Stories Circular Economy

  • Sustainability governance & CSRD/ESRS
  • Sustainability Strategy & Governance
  • Green Customer
  • Corporate Sustainability @ Pfannenberg
  • Vision and Idea Development for the Energy Sector
  • Scenarios for the future of the marine business
  • Award-winning sustainability project
  • Implementation plan for the sustainability strategy

Circular Economy Insights

Contacs Circular Economy

Lars Holländer

Head of Sustainability Services

Stuttgart, Germany
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Maximilian Straube

Senior Manager

Hamburg, Germany
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Lea Wendlandt

Senior Consultant

Hamburg, Germany
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Malte Rubel

Senior Consultant

Hamburg, Germany
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Dr. Michael Herbst

Partner, Head of Business Area

Cologne, Germany
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[Translate to English:]

Katharina Pierschalik

Partner, Head of Business Area

Paderborn, Germany
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