Towards urban symbiosis of critical raw materials: collaborative value creation models in circular ecosystems

There is a major need to find efficient and innovative solutions on how to stop the loss of resources, including critical materials, in the future economy. High technology products including critical raw materials (CRMs) are not efficiently recycled and their life-time can be relatively short. The project aims to explore what kind of new sustainable value creation models in cities would be the most impactful in the selected high technology products. The focus is on three application areas: Medical devices, Smart buildings and Consumer devices. As a result, the project creates various means and models to support decision making for extending the lifetime of the high technology products and increasing the circularity of CRMs, and creating value for stakeholders in the cities. The research consortium partners are VTT (coordinator), Hanken and Finnish Environment Institute.