{"id":22617,"date":"2026-04-28T10:29:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovation-salzburg.at\/?post_type=cpt_project&p=22617"},"modified":"2026-04-28T10:40:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:40:24","slug":"circular-foresight-initiative","status":"publish","type":"cpt_project","link":"https:\/\/www.innovation-salzburg.at\/en\/projekt\/circular-foresight-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Circular Foresight Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a Future-Ready Economy in the Bavarian-Austrian Border Region<\/h2>\n

The Bavarian-Austrian region is facing a dual challenge: the necessary transition toward a sustainable, resource-efficient economy is coinciding with a structural crisis in industry. In this context, the circular economy represents a promising approach.<\/p>\n

The Circular Economy (CE) offers potential solutions to the three most pressing challenges facing the European economic area and many regions across Europe:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Greater sustainability through circular economy practices: Circular approaches reduce material consumption and thereby lower greenhouse gas emissions (ecological sustainability), while also reducing material costs and cost-related risks for companies (economic sustainability).<\/li>\n
  2. Diversification of raw material sources through the development of existing material stocks as an additional source of raw materials, using R-strategies such as reuse, refurbishment, and similar approaches.<\/li>\n
  3. Greater resilience in raw material supply through increased availability of secondary raw materials and reduced demand resulting from longer-lasting products.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The Circular Foresight Initiative (CFI) brings together seven pioneering circular economy organizations and CE networks from Bavaria and Austria to promote innovative circular value creation processes in industries with high material intensity.<\/p>\n

    CFI pursues a cross-border approach that benefits from the experience, expertise, and networks of all partners. It supports circular transformation in the Bavarian-Austrian border region through an open-ended, bottom-up approach. In contrast to top-down approaches, which develop predefined solutions such as digital tools, CFI addresses the as-yet-unknown needs of companies implementing measures to strengthen circular economy practices. In doing so, it leverages the expertise and practical knowledge of pioneering circular businesses from material-intensive sectors.<\/p>\n

    Through workshops, the experiences of these pioneers are analyzed, existing and previously overcome challenges are identified, and successful strategies used to address these challenges are examined. Based on these insights, practical and action-oriented circular future pathways are developed for companies. New findings are validated with participating businesses to ensure coherence and precision.<\/p>\n

    The foundation for this analysis and synthesis is a newly developed Circular Foresight Methodology (CFM)\u2014a combination of scenario analysis and corporate foresight with a focus on the circular economy. The CFM is being developed at TH Rosenheim and applied in specially designed workshops. A prototype of the methodology already exists; it was explicitly developed as a draft for this project within the part-time master\u2019s degree program in Circular Economy.<\/p>\n

    The primary target group consists of SMEs with experience, know-how, practical expertise, and implementation experience in circular economy measures. Based on the understanding developed through the project, company- and value-chain-specific future pathways for circular economy implementation are created for these businesses. These insights are then used to support and develop concrete offerings for companies that are at the beginning of their circular economy journey.<\/p>\n

    To better reach this core target group, CFM workshops are integrated into existing event formats such as trade fairs and industry gatherings. CFI supports companies in successfully shaping their green transformation. A key outcome is a deep understanding of business needs and challenges, as well as the identification of the most important factors for successful circular transformation.<\/p>\n

    At the heart of the project is the development of a structured, cross-border innovation network that harnesses the knowledge of circular economy pioneers to jointly develop circular future strategies together with research institutions and cluster organizations\u2014strategies that can be applied by SMEs across the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Circular Foresight Initiative (CFI) brings together seven pioneering organizations in the field of circular economy to promote innovative circular value creation processes in material-intensive industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":19436,"menu_order":0,"template":"","ctx_project":[],"class_list":["post-22617","cpt_project","type-cpt_project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innovation-salzburg.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cpt_project\/22617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innovation-salzburg.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cpt_project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innovation-salzburg.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cpt_project"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovation-salzburg.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innovation-salzburg.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ctx_project","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovation-salzburg.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctx_project?post=22617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}