Zero Waste Bornholm is a joint public-private partnership and network based on the quadruple helix model. Based on the principles of the circular economy, we are paving the way for the world’s first industrialized society without waste.

With Bornholm as a living platform for innovation and co-creation, partners can gain concrete knowledge that can be applied on a larger scale. Here they can test technologies and competencies in practice before expanding their activities in the growing global market with new waste and resource solutions.

Read more about how we collaborate and what challenges we can solve together.

Overall challenges

Zero Waste Bornholm is based on an integrated approach that encompasses the entire value chain and the surrounding ecosystem. We balance changes in design, behavior, and technology to create a circular economy driven by multiple actors.

From a waste management perspective, design primarily serves as a catalyst for change further down the value chain. Behavior is crucial to how we consume and dispose of products. Further down the value chain, new technologies and methods simultaneously open up the possibility of bringing materials and resources back into the cycle, thereby strengthening circularity.

The path to 2032

Efforts are needed on several fronts to become waste-free by 2032.

The framework conditions for the coming years require that we quickly adapt to high real recycling rates, while at the same time cooperating on schemes for extended producer responsibility, waste prevention and recycling.

In the medium term, we only have partial knowledge of the requirements and the available solutions. In the long term, most of it remains unknown.

By working together, we can stay ahead of developments.

Circular challenges

For each overarching challenge, we have concretized a series of related circular challenges and outlined projects that can serve as a basis for the future circular society worldwide.