Where the Tool Fits in the Project
The mapping tool is the heart of Work Package 4. It started with stakeholder identification and a stakeholder registry, kicked off in Hamburg in May 2025 (Task 4.1). Through the second half of 2025 we constructed the CE-Ecosystem Mapping Tool itself (Task 4.2), and in 2026 we brought it to stakeholders in a series of regional workshops (Task 4.3).
What We Want the Map to Be
Our goal is a visual representation of the circular economy ecosystem in Hamburg, Novi Sad, and Cahul — built on a shared vocabulary of common stakeholder types and a circular economy activity taxonomy. Above all, it should be a navigable entry point into a vast landscape, and a tool that is openly accessible to everyone.
Every actor on the map is grouped into one of five stakeholder types:
How We Built the Map
The map is built from public data sources — open web pages, public registries and government bodies, industry associations and CE networks, university and research directories, and the innovation ecosystem of incubators, startup databases, and tech parks. That raw material flows through an AI pipeline that verifies, extracts, connects, and clusters the information before it reaches the interactive frontend.
A Shared Circular Economy Taxonomy
To compare regions meaningfully, every activity is mapped to a shared circular economy taxonomy. It spans the product lifecycle — design & production, use & consumption, collection & logistics, recycling & processing, and resource recovery — alongside cross-cutting enablers such as industrial symbiosis, digital & technology, policy & governance, education & research, and finance & business models.
The taxonomy is grounded in established frameworks: the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's circular economy framework, the EU Circular Economy Action Plan (2020), and the ReSOLVE framework.
What the Tool Extracts
For each organization, the AI extracts a structured profile: the entity's name, a brief LLM-generated description based on its "About" information, an inferred ecosystem role, and its address. It then infers circular-economy-related information — the activities, capabilities, and needs of the organization, each mapped to the CE taxonomy — and finally the connections between entities, including mentioned partnerships and other entities worth exploring.
See It in the Regions
We created two short explainer videos that introduce the tool and the local circular economy ecosystem in two of our partner regions. Take a look:
What We Need From You
The map is only as good as the conversations it starts. If you are part of one of these ecosystems, here is how you can help:
- Corrections — is anything about your organization wrong, outdated, or missing?
- Missing actors — who should be on this map but isn't?
- Synergies — who on this map should be talking to each other, but isn't?
- Tool feedback — what would make this more useful in your day-to-day work?
Explore the Map
The CE-Ecosystem Mapping Tool is openly accessible. Dive in, find your region, and tell us what we got right — and what we missed.
← Back to Blog