Best Practices
In this section we highlight further best practices from other regions and along different material flows, showcasing how circular bioeconomy solutions are implemented in real-world contexts. The presented initiatives demonstrate how biological resources, by-products and organic waste streams can be transformed into valuable products, services and business models through innovative, circular approaches. By featuring examples from both urban and rural environments, the fact sheets illustrate how circular bioeconomy strategies can strengthen regional value chains, increase resource efficiency and reduce environmental impacts. At the same time, they highlight the social and economic opportunities created through new collaborations, local job creation and sustainable entrepreneurship.
Each fact sheet provides insights into applied methods, technologies and resource cycles, offering transferable knowledge and practical inspiration for stakeholders from industry, research and civil society. By sharing these experiences, this section aims to support learning, replication and scaling of circular bioeconomy solutions across regions and sectors.
Cambium - vertECO
Closing water and nutrient cycles. Cambium in Fehring (Styria, Austria) transforms a former barracks into a sustainable living place for over 70 people, using the vertECO system for wastewater treatment and reuse.
BeanSaver - Upcycling Coffee Grounds
BeanSaver® is an Austrian company specializing in the reuse of coffee residues. The focus lies on the development and production of an organic fertilizer based on coffee grounds, combined with sheep wool and wood. The aim is to use this by-product as a valuable resource, return it to natural material cycles, and reintroduce it into economic utilization cycles.
futureBloc - S
Recycling wall system with natural insulation materials. futureBloc - S is a research and development project by Salzburg Wohnbau, Fachhochschule Salzburg and several regional partner companies. The aim is to develop a circular wall system that is largely based on regional secondary raw materials, using materials from building demolition as a resource instead of relying on primary materials.
Unverschwendet
Upcycling surplus food into high-quality products. Unverschwendet is an Austrian company based in Vienna that focuses on rescuing and utilizing surplus food. In close cooperation with agricultural businesses and producers, the company uses raw food materials that cannot be sold due to overproduction, visual imperfections or lack of market demand, transforming them into jams, syrups, chutneys and sauces.
BauKarussell
Circular deconstruction and reuse of building components. BauKarussell is an Austrian cooperative based in Vienna that uses a "Social Urban Mining" approach to analyse buildings, identify reusable materials, and organise their selective dismantling and redistribution — combining material reuse with qualification and employment for people distant from the labour market.
HummusPLUS
Humus build-up as a circular model for climate-positive agriculture. HUMUS+ is an Austrian programme of the Ökoregion Kaindorf that supports farms in implementing humus-building land management practices, backed by scientific monitoring of soil carbon and nutrient cycles, and integrates participating farmers into a network for knowledge transfer and long-term implementation.
Hut&Stiel
Mushrooms from coffee grounds — circular economy in the heart of Vienna. Hut & Stiel collects spent coffee grounds from Viennese coffee houses and gastronomy and uses them as a nutrient substrate to cultivate edible mushrooms; the harvest is marketed regionally and the used substrate is composted as fertiliser, closing a local urban food loop.
Kern Tec
Upcycling stone fruit pits into high-value raw materials. Kern Tec is an Austrian B2B supplier that uses unused stone fruit pits — from apricots, cherries or plums — as starting material to produce plant-based pastes, oils and functional ingredients for the food and cosmetics industries, transforming a previously discarded side stream into circular value chains.