Circular economy advisory for companies across an industrial territory

auma delivers theone-to-one circular economy advisory service for companies across the Llobregat Delta, commissioned by a local authority seeking to turn circularity into a competitiveness opportunity for its industrial base.

Project overview

The challenge

Public circular economy programmes often fail for the same reason: they stop at the awareness seminar and never reach each company's production process.

• Distance between message and plant floor: companies know the concept but not what it means for their specific waste stream.
• A diverse business base: every company has different processes, wastes and margins; there is no common recipe.
• Scarce time: the contact person usually already covers production, quality and environment at once.

The auma solution

The service replaces generic training with site visits and concrete proposals:

• Individual diagnosis at each company: material flows, waste generated and loss points.
• Identification of real opportunities for valorisation, material substitution or symbiosis with nearby companies.
• Follow-up support through the regulatory and technical steps of each opportunity identified.

The result

• Local companies with their own diagnosis and specific opportunities identified, not generic recommendations.
• The authority holds an aggregated view of waste flows across its industrial base.
• A basis for spotting industrial symbiosis synergies between neighbouring companies.

Circular economy is not rolled out through seminars: it happens when someone walks onto the plant floor, looks in the skip and says what can be done with it.

Frequently asked questions

What does circular economy mean for a company?

Moving from take-make-dispose to keeping materials in use: prevention, reuse, valorisation of your own waste and use of by-products from other companies.

What is industrial symbiosis?

Using one company's waste or by-product as another's raw material, usually within the same geographic area. It cuts management costs for one and purchasing costs for the other, and avoids transport.

Can waste become a by-product?

Yes, if it meets the conditions of Spain's Law 7/2022 on waste: certain further use, no processing beyond normal industrial practice, and no adverse impacts. The by-product declaration must be filed with the environmental authority.