Wallonie Design is one of the partners of the interdisciplinary and Euregional project Wanderful.stream which focuses on the recovery of waste from companies in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine through support in technology, design and business. Since 2020, nearly thirty companies have joined this project, including ten in the province of Liège!
A circular economy support method: innovation pathways
For the province of Liège, Wallonie Design in partnership with Eklo has developed a support method based on interdisciplinarity, called the innovation path. Project teams combining expertise in design, business and technology are put together by us. The complementarity of these expertises makes it possible to analyze in depth the problem of the waste deposit in order to then propose concrete and viable solutions that the company can implement.
For two years, Wallonie Design and Eklo have been supporting companies from all sectors in these reflections. For each case, we select external expertise, form teams and ensure the progress of projects. The project teams collaborate for 10 to 12 months.
10 Liège companies benefit from this support
From coffee grounds to scraps of technical textiles, non-woven paper, fiberglass or even residues of bran, a co-product of wheat… the challenges are varied and affect actions such as the optimization of materials, industrial symbioses, foresight… The deliverables of the project teams therefore adapt to the challenge: proof of concept, usage scenario, prospective scenario, reduced-scale prototype, etc. They constitute a concrete roadmap for better management of the company’s waste flows.
Would you like to know more? The results of the courses will be presented during the closing event of the project in May 2023 in Liège!
A follow-up to this project…
The innovation pathway methodology developed for the Wanderful.Stream project has proven its worth and aroused the interest of the Region. In 2022, Wallonie Design was mandated to oversee 10 new innovation paths as part of the Circular Wallonia strategy and the Wallonia Recovery Plan. The focus will no longer be solely on waste, but on all types of challenges in the circular economy.
Discover this in the article on the Wallonie Design website: “Innovation path: engage your company in a circular economy project!”
