Europe's Circular Plastics Ambitions Need an Innovation-Friendly Framework
Plastics Europe Deutschland brought together industry leaders, researchers, and policymakers in Berlin on 11 September 2026 for its Innovation Press Conference, "Innovative Plastics for Germany as a High-Tech Location."
The event put a spotlight on how plastics innovation underpins Germany's High-Tech Agenda. Topics included everything from sustainable mobility and climate-neutral energy to medical technology, robotics, and the circular economy.
Christine Bunte, Managing Director of Plastics Europe Deutschland, stressed that Germany's challenge isn't a lack of research or talent, but the difficulty of turning ideas into market-ready industrial solutions. "Innovation Made in Germany must not get stuck in labs or pilot plants — it has to become industrial-scale reality here," she said, calling for a new innovation debate and reliable regulatory conditions to unlock investment.
In his keynote, Thorsten Dreier, CTO of Covestro, underlined that all of Germany's key High-Tech Agenda fields depend on strong material expertise — without high-performance plastics, many of these technologies simply won't work. Alongside Covestro, companies including BASF, Borouge, Dow, Evonik, LyondellBasell, Matterr, Polymaterials, Röhm, and VinylPlus presented materials, technologies, and solutions spanning energy, mobility, infrastructure, energy-efficient buildings, Industry 4.0, new recycling processes, and alternative feedstocks.
A panel discussion featuring Carsten Gerhardt (EY) and Manfred Renner (Fraunhofer CCPE/UMSICHT) addressed the urgency of scaling innovation in Germany before other regions move faster. Renner warned that the biggest risk lies in other regions industrializing new technologies more quickly; whoever masters pilot plants, demonstration projects, and industrial scale-up will ultimately determine where value creation and jobs emerge.
To mark the occasion, Plastic.Climate.Future launched a new English-language podcast series, featuring conversations with innovators from Germany's polymer industry on new materials, circular technologies, and industrial scale-up.
Podcast
Listen to recent episodes featuring Christina Bunte from Plastics Europe Germany and Michael Reubold, Editor-in-Chief of CHEManager
Listen here!Two Recent Whitepapers For Plastics Innovation
A European whitepaper, Europe Cannot Deliver a Circular Plastics Economy Without Enabling Innovation, argues that outdated, technology-specific regulation is holding back Europe's recycling transformation and calls for a technology-neutral, outcome-based framework. A German whitepaper, meanwhile, sets out three pillars for a circular and competitive plastics industry:
- a competitive industrial location
- stronger circular-economy incentives
- adequate financing for the transformation
It also cautions against a national plastics tax, warning that it would create unmanageable administrative burdens, disadvantage domestic producers relative to imports, and risk undermining recycling targets by favoring non-recyclable composite packaging.
