Reconomy launches circularity innovation hub in Bucharest
Sustainability research facility receives £1 million initial investment to develop new use cases, propositions, and ways of working in the circular economy.
Reconomy has announced the launch of CircuLab, a new sustainability research innovation hub in Bucharest, Romania, with an initial investment of £1 million.
The facility will focus on developing new use cases, propositions and ways of working based on sharing best practice, leveraging data analytics, exploration of new technologies and regulatory foresight.
CircuLab aims to help build specialist capabilities in circularity, serving as a hub for the company’s work in sustainability, environmental science, resource management and chemistry.
The hub is also designed to enhance the overall circularity of Reconomy’s operations, and look for opportunities to improve the circular potential of the eight million tonnes of material the company manages each year.
CircuLab is being developed by Reconomy’s sustainability leads, Diane Crowe and Biance Ifrim, and will be led operationally by Torben Kristiansen, Chief Development Officer of Reconomy brand Combineering, which is based in Denmark, where CircuLab teams will also be posted.
"CircuLab is a powerful collaboration between our sustainability function and our science-based business in Denmark," said Diane Crowe, Group Sustainability Director at Reconomy. "We are proud to be playing a leading role in addressing one of the most pressing challenges of our time by closing circularity gaps, lowering carbon emissions and helping businesses achieve economic growth through sustainable circular means."
The facility will operate alongside RecoTek, Reconomy's internal delivery engine and technology scaling centre, which launched last year.
Academics and diplomatic officials open circularity hub
The official opening of the hub welcomed figures from Romania’s business and academic communities. Ambassador Uffe A. Balslev and Razvan Stroe from the Royal Danish Embassy in Romania attended the launch event.
Academic attendees included Professor Augustin Semenescu and Professor Dr. Constantin Cazacu from the National University of Science and Technology in Bucharest and the Head of Systems Ecology and Sustainability at the University of Bucharest respectively. Magdalena Caramilea, Sustainability Director at Autonom and an award-winning leader in the field, also attended.
The launch builds on the momentum of Reconomy's 'Close the Gap' campaign, which seeks to make the circular economy more accessible to businesses and help them decouple growth from resource use. According to the Circularity Gap Report 2025, just 6.9 per cent of resources make their way back into the economy, placing unsustainable pressure on the earth's ecosystems and accelerating carbon emissions.
Guy Wakeley, Chief Executive of Reconomy, added: “With the global economy consuming natural resources faster than the planet can regenerate them and businesses facing significant market volatility, this couldn't come at a more important time.
“Not only will this help our customers lower their carbon footprint, identify material cost savings and improve profitability, but it also supports our mission to create a waste free world and shift the Earth Overshoot Day – the point when humanity's resource use exceeds the Earth's annual capacity – to later in the year."
