Die Main Stage ist ein Highlight der Circular Valley Convention – ein Ort, an dem führende Köpfe aus Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft ihre Visionen und bahnbrechenden Projekte präsentieren. Hier erfahren Sie aus erster Hand, wie die Zukunft der Circular Economy gestaltet wird. Mit inspirierenden Keynotes und richtungsweisenden Impulsen bieten renommierte Experten wertvolle Einblicke in innovative Strategien, transformative Technologien und globale Trends. Lassen Sie sich von den Perspektiven der Top-Speaker begeistern und erleben Sie, wie Ideen Gestalt annehmen, die unsere Welt nachhaltig verändern werden.
Format: Opening
Session: Opening & Welcome
Language: English
Managing director
CORPORATE KITCHEN®
CEO
Messe Düsseldorf GmbH
Chairman
Circular Valley Foundation
Head of Institute
Fraunhofer UMSICHT / CCPE
Format: Keynote
Session: Opening & Welcome
Language: English
Minister of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection, and Energy
NRW
For us, the circular economy is not an abstract concept, but a concrete path to more sustainable value creation. By using resources efficiently and promoting innovation, we are not only strengthening the resilience of our supply chains. New economic opportunities offer possibilities for successful investments and secure our competitiveness. We are resolutely pursuing this path together in a strong network here in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Format: Keynote
Session: Keynotes – Uniting Industries
Language: English
Executive Vice President Henkel Adhesive Technologies and member of the Henkel Management Board
Henkel AG & Co. KGaA
Circularity will succeed if we strengthen dialogue and collaboration across the entire value chain, from raw material suppliers to designers, manufacturers, and recyclers.
This keynote explores how design choices determine a product’s circularity and how Design for Sustainability guides those decisions. Within this framework, adhesive innovations such as Debonding on Demand become key enablers, making controlled material separation – for repair, reuse, and recycling – technically feasible. It also highlights why sustainability must start at the design table and why strong political guardrails are needed to scale circular solutions across industries.
Format: Impulse Keynote
Session: Keynotes – Uniting Industries
Language: German
State Secretary
Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Transport
Lecture information
BASF's ambition is clear: to be the preferred chemical company enabling our customers' green transformation. We are committed to advancing a Circular Economy by increasing our use of recycled and renewable feedstocks, shaping new material cycles, and creating innovative business models. This presentation will illustrate how we contribute to closing and extending these loops by developing and implementing circular solutions for sourced materials. Additionally, we will discuss our efforts to optimize operations and provide resource-efficient products and services that support our customers on their circularity journeys.
Format: Panel Discussion
Session: Keynotes – Uniting Industries
Language: English
Chairman
Circular Valley Foundation
Head of Circular Economy Coordination Center
Energy4Climate
Strategic International Advisor Circular Economy
Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management in The Netherlands
Manager
Strategic Advisor Circular Economy
Flanders Circular
CEO
Vito BE
CE innovations have a problem in scaling up. The bigger region of NRW-Flanders-NL offers opportunities to share knowledge and best practises, speeding up scaling and standardization of those innovations and organise strong cross-border value chain cooperation in different sectors, such as in batteries, electric and electronic equipment, chemistry and the built environment. For that we have to be selective and focus on creating the industrial facilities we need to shape the transregional circularity hub in Europe and support each other in guaranteeing feedstock and offtake to make the business case feasible.
Inge Neven will highlight how cross-border cooperation accelerates the circular transition in industrial regions. Drawing on the Trilate project, she will share concrete insights on joint energy infrastructure planning across Flanders, the Netherlands and North Rhine–Westphalia, and connect these lessons to the 3CVAX initiative. This broader collaboration, together with partners such as TNO and DECHEMA, focuses on strengthening circular value chains and securing the molecules and energy needed for a resilient, future-proof industry, aligned with long-term transition pathways such as Paths2050
Format: Keynote
Session: Keynotes – Uniting Industries
Language: English
Minister for Home Affairs, Local Government, Building and Digitalisation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, MdL
Format: Panel Discussion
Session: Keynotes – Uniting Industries
Language: English
Partner People Consulting
EY Consulting GmbH
Senior Vice Presitent R&D Henkel Consumer Brands
Henkel AG & Co. KGaA
Director Circular Economy
BASF SE
SVP, Manufacturing API & Medical Devices Lead
Bayer AG
Head of Sustainability
Evonik Industries AG
COO and Speaker of the Board
Vorwerk Elektrowerke GmbH & Co. KG
Format: Q&A
Session: Keynotes – Uniting Industries
Language: English
Duration: 00:15 h
Format: Speech
Language: Keynotes – Enabling Circular Economy
Language: English
Position
Company
Lecture information
TBA
Format: Keynote
Session: Innovation & Science
Language: English
CEO; Professor of Eco-Design
BRAUNGART EPEA – Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH; Leuphana University of Lüneburg
The contribution will juxtapose the concept of circular economy with Cradle-to-Cradle. After introducing the concepts and differentiating the definitions and elements of the two concepts in a general way, the speaker will argue for the need to employ Cradle-to-Cradle design criteria in product and service design. He will present recent developments and positive examples that contribute to the realization of a truly circular economy. The presentation will include examples of Cradle-to-Cradle product and service developments to serve as a source of inspiration for listeners.
Format: Keynote
Session: Innovation & Science
Language: English
Chairperson
Rat für nachhaltige Entwicklung
Format: Keynote
Session: Innovation & Science
Language: English
Head of Unit "Secondary Raw Materials"
German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA)
This presentation will give a broad overview of current raw material supply system and our dire dependencies of raw materials from other regions. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act can be part of the solution. Further strengthening circular use of raw materials within the EU is one of the most promising aspects. Continuous monitoring and forward-looking assessment of future supply situations also needs data and tools. One of the tools being set up is the DERA recycling-atlas, which provides market transparency, helps identify potential opportunities, and supports closing existing supply gaps.
Format: Keynote
Session: Innovation & Science
Language: English
EVP Strategy and Sustainability Crop Science
Bayer AG
This keynote explores the concept of Regenerative Agriculture as an outcome-driven, multi-season system that enables farmers to produce more while restoring nature. Using biofuels as a concrete example, the session illustrates how agriculture can function as a circular system that creates value on and beyond the farm. The rapid deployment and scaling of innovation play a critical role in enabling these systems and driving resilience, productivity, and long-term value creation.
Format: Panel Discussion
Session: Design for Circularity
Language: English
Managing Partner
Generationdesign
Associate Director, Sustainability Consulting
Designworks, a BMW Group Company
Corporate Sustainability Lead
Rosenthal - Arcturus Group
Executive Director
Indeed Innovation
Head of Innovation & Sustainability
hansgrohe
Circular economy starts at the design stage. Designers have been recognised as catalysts to move away from the take-make-dispose business models to achieve a more resilient, regenerative and circular economy. Due to their poweful technical and human-centred competences, they can help to design products and services for closed loops, as well as create new revenue opportunities.
At the Circular Valley Convention 2026, we will highlight how designers use circular design strategies like ‘Rethink‘, ‘Reduce‘, ‘Reuse‘, ‘Recycle‘ and how to implement them into the development process. We will show that circular products and business models have to be developed hand in hand and what the role of designers in the circular economy can be.
Format: Q&A
Session: Innovation & Science
Language: English
Format: Lecture
Session: Smart product usage & manufacturing – Refuse, Rethink, Redesign, Reduce
Language: English
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Format: Lecture
Session: Smart Economy
Language: English
Managing Director
Pöppelmann Holding GmbH & Co. KG
While many companies approach circular economy through regulatory compliance, Pöppelmann has taken a decidedly market-driven path. This lecture explores how Pöppelmann Blue transformed from innovative idea into strategic differentiator. Through large-scale circular solutions already running in series production, for example in the automotive industry, we’ll show how circularity becomes a competitive booster rather than an obstacle.
Format: Lecture
Session: Smart Economy
Language: English
Head of Lightweight Construction, Energy Storage and Circular Economy
Fraunhofer IWU
Whether we can have a functioning market economy without ruining the environment will be the deciding factor in the future.
Fraunhofer has set itself the task of gradually or disruptively changing production technologies so that they meet market requirements while still protecting the environment.
In our EU project ZEvRA, the aim is to build a Skoda with 0% new material and to further develop many environmentally friendly technologies. In addition to reshaping existing components and making extensive use of recycled materials at series production level, a large number of components in the car are being redesigned and built as prototypes. Examples of how this can also be implemented industrially are also being shown.
Format: Lecture
Session: Smart Economy
Language: English
Principal & PERLab Amsterdam Lead
A.T. Kearney GmbH
Products need to be designed circular – everyone agrees. And yet, most products still are not.
This keynote explores why circularity so often fails in practice, despite available technologies, materials, and strong intent. The core issue is not downstream recycling or lack of innovation, but upstream product design decisions, where cost, performance, and timing dominate – and carbon remains invisible.
Taking a Design-for-Circularity perspective, the talk shows how circular outcomes are determined early in design, long before products reach production or use. Using a real industrial case from Kearney PERLab, it demonstrates what happens when carbon becomes a decision-relevant parameter in product design: how priorities shift, where the true levers lie, and which trade-offs companies actually face.
The keynote concludes with a view on how Design-for-Circularity, supported by digital and AI-enabled decision tools, can move circular economy from ambition to scalable product reality.
Format: Lecture
Session: Smart Economy
Language: English
Project Coordination Carbon2Chem®
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion
EY Partner and Europe West Sustainability Leader; Carbon2Chem® project partner
EY Consulting GmbH
Nature shows us how to recycle carbon. In the Carbon2Chem® project, we are working on building blocks to make this possible in the technosphere as well. Even though the technologies and processes have been known for a long time, but there are many small challenges on the way to industrial application. Like nature, Carbon2Chem® does not solve challenges in isolation, but finds systemic solutions. Now is the time to put them into practice.
Format: Lecture
Session: Smart Economy
Language: English
Head of Funding Advice &
Customer Service
NRW.BANK
As the promotional bank for North Rhine-Westphalia, NRW.BANK actively promotes the sustainable and digital transformation of the state with its support programs. Promoting the circular economy is a priority strategy, as it offers companies the opportunity to combine innovation, resource efficiency, and digitalization, thereby improving their (global) competitiveness—and ultimately strengthening North Rhine-Westphalia as a business location. The presentation will show specifically how NRW.BANK promotes circular solutions from SMEs, including start-ups, and will present exciting examples.
Format: Lecture
Session: Smart Economy
Language: English
Head of Technology Management
Pöppelmann Kunststoff-Technik GmbH & Co. KG
At our booth, we’ll showcase circular automotive series products. Starting with the scale-up of PIR usage in the 2010s, Pöppelmann K-TECH introduced the first automotive exterior component made from packaging waste PCR in 2020. Subsequent innovations included exterior parts from end-of-life vehicle waste and interior components from PCR materials. The next milestone: utilizing automotive shredder residue (ASR) as a valuable resource.
Format: Lecture
Session: Smart Economy
Language: English
Executive Board
Wupperverband
For modern water management, the circular economy serves as a strategic guiding principle. It demonstrates that wastewater is far more than a disposal problem, but a carrier of energy, nutrients, and water for reuse. Integrated river basin management, intermunicipal cooperation, and long-term governance can enable closed material and energy cycles. Projects such as phosphorus recovery illustrate the contribution of water management to resource security, climate protection, cost stability, and regional value creation. Water management is thus positioned as a central public infrastructure for a sustainable circular economy.
Format: Q&A
Session: Smart Economy
Language: English
Format: Startup Pitches
Session: Innovation & Science
Language: English
DACH Lead Sustainability
A.T. Kearney GmbH
All targets are set, all challenges are understood – now it is time to act. The Circular Economy is a – or even the – key lever to future-proof our businesses. That is why we need initiatives like Circular Valley.
State Secretary
Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia MWIKE NRW
Format: Speech
Session: Evening event „Circular Night“
Language: English
Chairman
Circular Valley Foundation
Format: Keynote
Session: Evening event „Circular Night“
Language: English
Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering
Stanford University
Artist
