Bottrop

Bottrop, Germany

Bottrop is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia and is part of the Ruhr region. With around 120,000 inhabitants, it is one of the smaller cities in Germany. Characterized by a long mining tradition, Bottrop has undergone major changes in recent decades and today focuses on economic and urban transition, innovation and sustainable development.

Circular City Bottrop 2045

The city of Bottrop's participation in the joint study ‘Circular City - Opportunities for Resilience and Value Creation’ by the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) in Berlin led to the creation of the strategic positioning paper ‘Circular City Bottrop 2045’. The paper defines clear goals, concretises measures and central sectors of action, which serve as guidelines for the future development of the circular economy. This will enable Bottrop to act on a sound strategic basis in the long term in order to create a sustainable and climate-neutral city. The paper is the result of a participatory process within the administration and with stakeholders from business, science and urban society.

The action sectors on which the focus is to be placed are

  • Planning, building + renovation,
  • Consumer (goods) + packaging,
  • Administration / Procurement and
  • Water, food + nutrition.

The objectives in the sectors of action are the reduction of land consumption, the reduction of (primary) material consumption and the efficient use of resources, innovation and rethinking, networking and awareness-raising, the extension of the service life of materials and goods and the reduction of waste. The creation of the strategic positioning paper ‘Circular City Bottrop 2045’ marks an important step towards implementation. The guideline will serve as a forward-looking basis for the further development of the city through innovative, resilient and sustainable measures.

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Circular Economy Hotspot 2022

A highlight of the city's circular economy efforts was the organisation of the Circular Economy Hotspot 2022 in cooperation with the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs and with content support from the Prosperkolleg. The three-day summit attracted 400 visitors and offered excursions, learning labs, a conference day and a company exhibition that showcased the circular transformation and its implementation possibilities in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Prosperkolleg - Circular value creation

The ‘Prosperkolleg - Circular Value Creation’ research project funded by the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs aims to promote circular value creation in the region. From 2019 to 2024, Bottrop worked together with Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences (HRW), Effizienz-Agentur NRW, WIN Emscher-Lippe GmbH and Prosperkolleg e.V. on the transformation to circular value creation in companies, industries and value chains. Over 800 companies from Bottrop and the Emscher-Lippe region were involved and worked on specific implementation measures. The Circular Digital Economy Lab (CDEL) contributed to research into technical and economic solutions as a development and demonstration laboratory. Numerous Bottrop companies were sensitised to circular processes and motivated to take further steps.