Circular Economy Initiative Deutschland (CEID) is a German multi-stakeholder initiative focused on building a roadmap for a sustainable circular economy. It brings together actors from science, industry and civil society to examine how production and consumption can move away from the linear “extract, produce, consume, dispose” model. The initiative’s starting point is practical: it looks at changes needed across the full value chain, from product design and use to reuse, remanufacturing and material recovery.
The initiative is based in Germany and is closely associated with acatech, the German Academy of Science and Engineering, in Munich. Its work is explicitly national in scope, but it connects to broader European policy debates, including the EU Green Deal and the goal of climate neutrality by 2050. CEID presents circularity not only as an environmental strategy, but also as an industrial and policy issue tied to competitiveness, raw material independence, job creation and local value added.
A central output of the initiative has been the development of a roadmap for Germany’s circular transition. CEID also publishes studies and tools on specific aspects of the transition, including circular business models and regulatory frameworks. One of its current projects is “BatteryPass-Ready,” described as a test environment to support the implementation of the EU battery passport. Another visible output is “Make it circular!”, a card-deck-based workshop tool for introducing circular business models in companies.
The initiative’s public messaging emphasizes that circularity must be embedded in practice, not limited to pilot projects. Under the leadership of figures such as Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Weber, president of acatech, it positions itself as a bridge between research, industry and policy-making in Germany’s shift toward resource-efficient production.