A free service for Berlin companies

How can companies conserve natural resources and protect the climate? Why is this necessary and what are the advantages for companies? How does the circular economy work and how does a product have to be designed to be environmentally friendly? The expanded “Coordination Office for Circular Economy, Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection in Business”, CEC for short, which has now been relaunched, provides support with questions like these.

Every company can contribute to the ecological transformation through its own measures. In addition to the energy transition and increasing energy efficiency, it is essential to operate in a circular rather than linear manner (as was previously the case): The circular economy refers to a model of production and consumption in which existing materials and products are shared, leased, reused, repaired, refurbished and recycled for as long as possible. This extends the life cycle of the products and minimises waste. This counteracts the global overexploitation of natural resources and saves a lot of additional greenhouse gas emissions.

With the European Green Deal, the EU Commission is paving the way for a circular and climate-neutral economy. This is a joint task that cannot be implemented without the cooperation of companies. However, small and medium-sized companies in particular often lack the know-how and resources to get the ecological transformation process off the ground. Companies can use this to develop innovative business models, for example product-as-a-service, take-back systems or even recyclable and climate-neutral products that generate higher demand with a lower environmental impact. After all, it is not just about making a contribution to reducing CO2 emissions or other negative environmental impacts, but also about being able to profit from them economically.

The CEC provides comprehensive support to companies in their ecological transformation. In addition to the previous consulting, networking and information offers on energy efficiency and climate protection, it now offers some new services for better orientation towards the circular economy.

The following services are offered free of charge:

Franziska Giffey, Senator for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises: “Our goal is clear: Berlin should become climate-neutral before 2045. An important factor here is the sustainable transformation of our economy. To support our companies on this path, we established the Coordination Office for Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection in Business (CEC) in 2022. In the past two years, the CEC was able to hold a total of 275 management consultancies as well as 13 workshops and information events in Berlin. We are now expanding this successful work. This creates a One-Stop Agency that groups together expertise on the topics of circular economy, energy efficiency and climate protection and provides our companies with broad-based advice. To this end, the Environmental administration and the Economic administration are pulling together to strengthen the competitiveness of our business location.”

Manja Schreiner, Senator for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment: “The circular economy will play a key role in preserving our natural bases for life – it conserves resources and protects the climate. However, the concept is still not very tangible for many companies, which we want to change with the CEC. Dear companies, I would like to encourage you to position yourselves for the future and utilise the opportunities presented by the ecological transformation. We support you in this.”

Dr. Stefan Franzke, CEO of Berlin Partner: “With our sustainability service that we offer at Berlin Partner, we support companies with collaborations, funding programs and solutions.  That is why the new project fits perfectly into daily business and we look forward to being able to provide manufacturing companies with offers for resource protection, networking and circular design in the future. I am convinced that the circular economy is the future and it is all the more important that we start now.”

The publicly funded CEC is the result of a co-operation between the Senate Departments for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment (Sen MVKU) and for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises (SenWEB).

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