“Start Somewhere—And Start With a Partner” Dr. Susanne Kadner, co-founder of the CIRCULAR REPUBLIC and director at UnternehmerTUM, will be one of the speakers in the mind-opening session of the Circular Economy Future Skills track at the Circular Week 2026. In this interview, she shares her insights on a range of topics, from getting started on the circular economy journey to what sets successful efforts apart. Many companies are aware of the need for circularity and may be willing to act, but feel overwhelmed by where to start. What are some practical first steps companies can take to move from intention to action? Start somewhere—and start with a partner. Many companies get stuck searching for the most promising business model or the R-strategy with the greatest environmental effect. However, it is more important to start moving. A first project does not have to be perfect; it needs to generate experience. No company becomes circular alone, so the most valuable thing an early project produces is the experience of building new processes together with someone outside your own organisation: who takes the product back, who owns the material, who carries which cost… Building and testing out new partnerships is part of the learning process. It is exactly this experience that makes the next project—and the harder questions that come with scaling— considerably easier. Circularity is often perceived as a demanding transformation driven by regulation or environmental responsibility. How can we reframe it as a source of innovation, competitiveness, resilience, resource security and new business opportunities? We have reframed it ourselves. CIRCULAR REPUBLIC started with an ecological and a regulatory narrative; today we largely speak about resilience. The geopolitical situation pushes companies in a similar direction like Brussels did before with regulation. Chinese export restrictions on critical raw materials, which we need to drive our energy and mobility transition, constitute real challenges for businesses. What has changed is the incentive to act: not compliance, but the protection of one’s own business. This is particularly relevant for the medium-sized companies we work with. If critical materials become scarce, large players will still be supplied; medium-sized companies, however, may end up last in line and not be able to absorb the price spikes. Keeping access to products and to the materials inside them thus becomes an economic strategy—and that makes companies proactive rather than „just“ compliant. What distinguishes companies that remain stuck in circularity pilots from those that successfully scale circular practices across their business? We call it the Valley of Pilots, in analogy to the Valley of Death: the pilot works and then nothing happens. It affects large corporations as much as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). And here the human dimension becomes so important. Scaling such projects needs to be carried by people—internal champions who translate circular economy concepts into the specific context of their company, build networks across departments, and connect to peers in other companies. Two conditions make them effective. First, a mandate and a sponsor as high up in the hierarchy as possible: a pilot anchored too low is never seen by anyone with decision power. Second, the ability to make the economic case: at some point every project has to convince finance and management that it earns money; new customer segments for refurbished products, for example, are routinely underestimated. That is the exact reason why we built our Circularity Catalyst programme: the aim is to train these people systematically rather than leaving it to chance, because today most of them have to create their position and build their networks on their own. Dr. Susanne Kadner is co-founder of CIRCULAR REPUBLIC and director at UnternehmerTUM. Meet her at the Circular Week 2026 mind-opening session (in German) “Der Mensch macht‘s!? Wie die zirkuläre Transformation in Städten gelingen kann – register now! Learn more about the Circular Economy Future Skills track here and check out the full Circular Week 2026 programme here. For further questions, please contact Dr. Flandra Syla-Beqiri.