Value chain generator to accelerate the European transition to circular economy

Project Information

VCG

Grant agreement ID: 101188906

DOI

10.3030/101188906

EC signature date 20 November 2024

Start date 1 December 2024

End date 30 November 2026

Funded under

• The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 2 490 105,31

Coordinated by

VCG.AI GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VCG (Value chain generator to accelerate the European transition to circular economy)

Reporting period: 2024-12-01 to 2025-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Value Chain Generator (VCG) tackles one of Europe’s biggest sustainability challenges: the slow transition from a linear “take–make–waste” model to a circular economy. Despite large investments and increasingly strict regulations, most industrial residuals (waste, by-products, side-streams) still end up being underused or discarded, while companies struggle to redesign their value chains across materials, technologies, and partners.

VCG is a deep tech cloud platform that uses AI and big data to design circular value chains in real time. It intelligently connects three key stakeholder groups: industrial residual producers (who generate waste), technology providers (who can transform these residuals into valuable raw materials), and buyers (who use the recovered materials). By doing so, VCG enables the efficient use, reuse, and upcycling of resources across industries.

At the core of VCG are dynamically generated “BioLink” models: validated circular value chain blueprints derived from scientific and expert literature on bioeconomy, industrial residual valorisation, and circular business models. Using large language models and deep learning, VCG identifies, evaluates, and matches concrete circular opportunities for companies based on technical feasibility, economic viability, and environmental impact.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We have completed the target activities of WP2 Big data aggregation and modelling (discovery process), including database scaling, acquisition of data sources and scaling-up of data acquisition channels. We also upgraded the discovery process of circular opportunities with LLM integration. WP3 BioLink agent development (evaluation and validation process) is in progress. We have completed the setup of the pipeline for document analysis and are currently working on other activities tied to the agent development. We are also progressing well on WP4 Technology scale-up of the matchmaking procedure (matchmaking process), where we have completed the scale-up of the MCS system, by expanding the BioLink models with additional identifiers (beyond NACE). In the next period we will complete the technological development and focus especially on VCG platform scaling, validation and piloting has not yet started.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project encapsulates the development of the following core modules:
1. Discovery – identification of residual uptake pathways through value chain and BioLink models, enabling systematic exploration of alternative circular routes rather than ad hoc, one-off use cases.
2. Matchmaking – intelligent matchmaking between companies based on BioLink models, generating concrete BioLinks (viable value chain configurations) linking residual producers, circular technology providers and feedstock buyers.

Compared to existing solutions, the major added value of VCG is its holistic approach to value chain building. While current platforms typically focus either on simple waste - buyer matching (e.g. trading “waste” as a commodity) or on narrow segments of the ecosystem, VCG simultaneously integrates three stakeholder groups: residuals producers, circular technology holders (including their TRL level, IP landscape and location), and downstream feedstock buyers. This multilateral approach substantially improves matchmaking capabilities compared to ecosystem-building tools and B2B trading platforms, which do not systematically combine technical, economic and spatial constraints across the entire value chain.

The currently achieved impacts are:
• Significant acceleration of the identification and design of circular value chains, reducing time and cost for both industry and public actors.
• Better risk-informed and faster investment decisions through transparent evaluation of TRL, IP constraints, and market demand.
• Stronger ecosystem building, as residuals producers, technology providers and offtakers are matched in coherent, multi-actor value chains rather than isolated bilateral deals.
• Increased overall utilisation of industrial residuals and bio-based feedstocks, supporting EU circular economy and climate objectives.

To ensure further uptake and long-term success, several key needs have been identified (planned in the next phases of the EIC project):
• Completion of the matchmaking algorithms
• Testing, validation and verification of components
• Demonstrations and reference cases
• IP protection (in progress – 3 patents filed and positively evaluated, 7 registered designs)
• Furtner investments and finance - both to scale the platform commercially (sales, onboarding, support) and to build new features