8 March 2018, Wirtschaftsclub Düsseldorf

Within the scope of the BMBF’s “r+Impuls” funding program, several projects are working on the development of recycling processes that can be operated on-site where the old material is produced and/or where the recycled secondary material is used. This approach can avoid complex and sometimes hazardous transports and the associated costs. Over the course of the funding program, it became clear that such decentralised operation can involve legal and economic challenges.

The networking workshop “Legal requirements and business models for the operation of decentralised plants”, which was organized by “r+TeTra“ the transfer project accompanying the funding measure, focused on these two topics. 16 participants from nine project teams, two representatives of the project management organization Projektträger Jülich and from the accompanying advisory group as well as three external experts met at the Wirtschaftsclub in Düsseldorf. Dr. Christian Sartorius (Fraunhofer ISI) and Marcus Bloser (IKU GmbH) moderated the meeting.

The first part of the one-day workshop was dedicated to the legal framework conditions. Brief presentations from the projects KOMPASS and ReeL helped to define the issue more precisely. These were followed by a keynote address on the basic licensing conditions from the viewpoint of the immission control law; various constellations were explained and described based on real examples. The participants then went on to discuss specific questions from the project teams present. Andreas Franz from the district government of Arnsberg and Dr. Jörg Siebert (Müller-BBM) were present as experts.

The second part of the workshop focused on business models, because the underlying business or operating model is just as important for the economic operation of the plants as the legal conditions. The operation of decentralised (recycling) plants can be accompanied by changes to business and operating models depending on the framework conditions. After brief presentations from the projects and a keynote address by Prof. Matthias Gotsch (Fraunhofer ISI and Hochschule Fresenius – University of Applied Sciences), there was still time for the participants to interact and discuss specific questions.