Eleven Walloon SMEs receive strategic support to remove legal, technical and normative barriers to circular entrepreneurship. Their experiences reveal where opportunities lie and which obstacles still need to be addressed.
11 Walloon Breakthrough Projects That Drive Dircular Entrepreneurship Forward
1. Circular Models Require Clear Rules
Many innovative companies are hindered by an unclear or missing legal framework. This lack of clear standards unnecessarily slows down circular initiatives.
Circular progress sometimes moves faster than regulation. Pilot projects and experiments remain crucial to highlight obstacles.
2. Public Procurement Must Reward Circular Solutions
Today, the procurement process is still mainly focused on the lowest purchase price. As a result, circular solutions receive too few opportunities, even though companies are legally required to take their CO₂ impact into account.
3. Standards and Norms are Lagging Behind
RecyclingAny recovery operation through which waste, including organic waste, is reprocessed to become substances, materials or products that can be used for their initial function or other functions. companies often reach a dead end because recyclates technically comply with requirements but are not accepted within existing certification systems. Without updated standards, high‑quality recycled materials cannot scale up.
Collaboration with Experts Accelerates Breakthroughs
Support from legal and technical specialists helps SMEs make much faster progress when dealing with complex regulations, standards or sector‑specific challenges.
Value‑Chain Partnerships Are Essential for Scaling Up
Many obstacles do not lie within a single company, but between links in the chain. Transport operators, public authorities, designers and processors must collaborate as a value chain to make circular models viable.
Do You Want to Accelerate Circular Innovation as an SMESmall and medium-sized enterprises?
Get inspired by these Walloon pioneers and discover which obstacles you can already turn into new opportunities for sustainable growth. Check our toolbox for an overview of available support.