Circular Boost in Liège: support to bring circular projects to life

Circular Boost
One of the three pillars of the Interreg Meuse-Rhine Key 2 Circularity project is Circular Boost, a personalized support program with a concrete and practical focus for SMEs in the four regions (Province of Limburg, Province of Liège, Dutch Limburg, and North Rhine-Westphalia). Its unique feature: working directly on real company projects with the goal of creating concrete, tested solutions that are ready to be implemented.

This multi-month program combines methodological facilitation, design coaching, business development advice, and technical expertise to help SMEs move forward quickly and confidently.

At the end of the program, each company has:

- Identified and evaluated priority opportunities;
- A validated theoretical Proof of Concept (TRL 5 to 7);
- A concrete roadmap to continue implementing the POC.

Worth €17,500 per company, this support is financed by the European Union and the Walloon region.

The 5 selected companies
Five companies from the districts of Liège and Verviers were chosen from about ten applications.

The waffle producer Maison Valençon has experienced strong growth in recent years and is now getting ready to take a new step by expanding its workshops and updating its production lines. The company wants to use this strategic phase to integrate circular economy principles at the heart of its development, while keeping what makes it famous: artisanal, local, high-quality products. The challenge is to show that sustained growth can go hand in hand with more efficient use of resources and sustainable value creation.

The company Woolconcept develops insulation solutions made from sheep's wool and now wants to actively contribute to the revival of the Walloon wool industry. While this natural and renewable resource is still largely undervalued, the company aims to develop new high-value applications that can boost its competitiveness while creating more opportunities for local wool. Their goal is to show that wool can be a credible, efficient, and sustainable alternative in the construction and interior design sectors.

Terra Alter is a cooperative that processes vegetables from organic farming for collective kitchens. In a sector subject to strict health requirements and significant operational constraints, the company wants to make the circular economy a real driver of performance and growth. Its goal is to optimize its processes to reduce losses along the entire value chain, make better use of the co-products generated during processing, and explore new sources of revenue.

Levita designs and creates immersive visual experiences for product staging, especially in the luxury, event, and entertainment sectors. In these fields, where environmental impact isn’t always a top decision-making factor, the company still wants to make its circular economy goals a reality. Their challenge is to find ways to reduce resource use, promote the reuse of certain scenographic elements, and bring more circularity into their design and production processes, all without compromising creativity, user experience, or the aesthetic standards of their clients.

Samantree develops technology solutions for the medical sector, a field where regulatory requirements, safety needs, and usage constraints make circular practices particularly complex. As part of Circular Boost, the company wants to rethink the single-use packaging and accessories that go with its Histolog scanner, aiming to make them easier to use while reducing their environmental impact. The challenge is to show that circular innovation can also work in sectors with the highest demands for compliance and performance.

We will definitely come back to these journeys in the coming months.

Circular Boost shows that the circular economy isn’t just a long-term vision: it can already be a concrete driver of innovation, resilience, and value creation for local SMEs today.

Interested in Circular Boost?
A second call for applications will take place at the end of 2026. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the info first! And if you want to learn more about the project and its opportunities, contact the Key 2 Circularity team via our contact form.