Piloting
As part of the Nordic Circularity Piloting Program, six pilots on circularity in technical building equipment will be selected to enjoy facilitated support and joint communications efforts. Applications are now closed.
Forming pilots (Spring 2025)
The Program is seeking pilots in real building projects, where manufacturing companies, end customers and other related stakeholders showcase a circular product or service during fall 2025. Technical building equipment provide the technical infrastructure needed to supply a building with energy, water, and other services, encompassing e.g. heating, ventilation, air conditioning, elevators, or entrance systems. The circular activities to be piloted can be e.g. dismantling, take-back schemes, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing or product-as-a-service, and pilots can take place in Finland, Sweden, Norway, or Denmark.
Pilots will be selected based on strategic fit with the Program’s goals on scaling circularity in technical building equipment, the pilot’s feasibility and readiness (including the willingness of all stakeholders to actively participate and share results from the pilots), and the pilot’s impact and scaling potential. The selection criteria for pilots is outlined in further detail at the end of the page.
The program supports companies in finding pilot partners by organizing and providing:
- Pitching sessions where companies get to pitch their piloting ideas (Feb 13th, March 6th, April 10th, May 15th)
- Speed dating between companies at the events (Feb 13th, March 6th, April 10th, May 15th)
- Open access Pilot Cards at Miro to explore and connect with potential partners
- Online Friday Fika sessions for informal networking to meet peers
The Program supports planning of the pilots by:
Encouraging the organization of meetings between piloting partner companies to plan and agree on the details of the pilots
Providing a Circular Pilot Canvas for download to help plan pilots and prepare for filling in the application form.
Application process (closed)
The deadline to apply for the Nordic Circularity Piloting Program was June 6th, 2025, at 23:59 CET.
The information you provide will help the Steering Group evaluate your project's potential, feasibility, and alignment with the program’s goals.
You can use the free Circular Pilot Canvas tool to plan your pilot and prepare for the application.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to melissa.kanerva@combient.com
Please note that the Program does not provide funding for pilot projects.
The form will ask for the following information:
Contact details a. Contact person b. Company c. Email address d. Phone number
- Project title
- Description of the piloting project (Describe your proposed initiative, including the key objectives and activities of the pilot.)
- Piloting timeline (planned start and end date)
- Which technical building equipment is involved? (product category like HVAC, elevator, etc.)
- Which companies are involved and what are their roles?
- Are all pilot partners ready to publicly share the learnings and insights from the pilot, in line with the program’s ambitions? (Learnings from the pilots will be shared in the final report & final event, and used to make policy recommendations)
- How does the pilot demonstrate and promote resource efficiency and emission reductions in the industry?
- How does the pilot contribute to improving or ensuring energy efficiency?
- What goals and KPIs are used to determine circularity performance in the pilot? (e.g., extended product life, material savings, CO2 reduction, cost savings, etc.)
- Please evaluate the likelihood of the pilot being executed by the end of 2025 (from the perspective of all stakeholders)
- What is the future potential of your pilot, and how can it be scaled for greater adoption and impact in the future? (for example, how well is the solution scalable to different sites, how do you evaluate the need in the industry for this type of solution?)
Decisions on the selected pilots will be made during week 25 and communicated directly to the contact person in each pilot team, as indicated in the Application Form.
The pilots selected for the Program’s piloting group will have:
- Joint piloting clinics & individual sparring sessions facilitated by Combient Pure
- Knowledge sharing with Nordic peers from the building value chain
- Access to supporting tools and templates for piloting
- Boosted visibility as a leader in circular economy through joint communications efforts
Please note that the Program does not provide funding for pilot projects.
Selection criteria for circular pilots
1. Strategic Fit
- The pilot should promote circularity in technical building equipment and enhance value chain-wide collaboration
- The pilot should concretely aim to explore increasing the circularity of technical building equipment, e.g. reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, intensifying product and resource usage, closing resource loops
- Improving or ensuring energy efficiency necessary
- Actors need to be willing to share results and insights from piloting publicly, in line with the program’s ambitions
2. Feasibility and Readiness
- The proposed solution should be at a stage where it can be tested in a real building
- The pilot should optimally involve at least two actors across the value chain to test collaborative dynamics and validate circular business models.
- All necessary stakeholders (e.g. product manufacturer, property owner) should be willing and able to actively participate
- The pilot team should demonstrate access to the resources (financial, technical, human) required to execute the pilot successfully
3. Impact and Scaling
- Most impactful pilots when it comes to resource efficiency improvement and emission reduction impact will be prioritized
- Pilots groups should have clearly defined goals related to circularity (e.g. lifetime extension, material savings) and optimally also ability to measure the solution’s CO2 reduction impact
- The solution should have the potential to scale commercially
Download the Circular Pilot Canvas
The Nordic Circularity Piloting Program has developed the Circular Pilot Canvas as a free tool for any piloting team to use in developing pilots. The Canvas helps plan out the pilot activities, as well as prepare answers to the Program Application Form.
The Canvas is built to address the three main questions to be validated during piloting:
- Value Proposition - Is there demand?
- Circular Business Model - Is it worth it?
- Feasibility & Readiness - Can we do it?
The Canvas also helps prepare for and anticipate common challenges in piloting circular business models.
