NEO GROUP

Their core work

NEO GROUP is a Lithuanian private company operating in industrial waste management and circular economy solutions, based in Klaipeda — Lithuania's main industrial port city. Their work spans two connected domains: optimizing resource flows between industrial facilities (industrial symbiosis) and developing chemical recycling processes for plastic waste, specifically PET depolymerization using microwave technology. In SYMBIOPTIMA, they contributed to cross-sectorial monitoring and optimization of industrial symbiosis clusters, where waste from one industry becomes feedstock for another. In DEMETO, they joined a consortium developing a modular, scalable process to chemically break down PET plastics back into reusable monomers — a key technology for closing the plastics loop.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their early H2020 work (2015–2019), NEO GROUP focused on the systems level — monitoring, managing, and optimizing how industrial clusters exchange waste and resources across sectors, with interoperability between different industrial processes as a key challenge. By their second project (2017–2021), the focus had narrowed and deepened into a specific material technology: using microwave energy to chemically depolymerize PET plastics back to their building blocks, enabling true circular reuse of polyester. The trajectory is a clear move from broad industrial symbiosis thinking toward a concrete chemical recycling technology, signaling a shift from system orchestration toward process-level intervention in the plastics value chain.

NEO GROUP appears to be moving toward specialized plastic recycling technology, particularly chemical depolymerization — a sector attracting significant investment as EU plastic packaging regulations tighten through 2030.

How they like to work

NEO GROUP has participated exclusively as a consortium partner in both projects, never taking the coordinator role — suggesting they contribute specialized industrial or operational expertise rather than driving research agendas. Their participation in two large multi-partner consortia (SYMBIOPTIMA and DEMETO each had substantial international consortia) indicates comfort operating in complex, multi-country collaboration structures. They are a reliable specialist contributor rather than a network hub, which makes them attractive to coordinators who need an industrial implementation partner from the Baltic region.

NEO GROUP has built connections with 27 unique consortium partners across 9 countries through just two projects — a relatively broad reach for a two-project portfolio, reflecting the large international consortia they joined. Their geographic footprint extends well beyond Lithuania across Europe, though no dominant bilateral partner pattern is visible from the available data.

What sets them apart

NEO GROUP occupies an unusual niche as a private, non-SME Lithuanian industrial company with hands-on experience in both industrial symbiosis networks and advanced plastic chemical recycling — two areas that are increasingly converging under EU circular economy policy. Based in Klaipeda, Lithuania's industrial port hub, they bring a Baltic industrial perspective that is underrepresented in most Western European-dominated H2020 consortia. For a consortium building around plastics recycling, bio-based materials, or industrial waste valorization, they offer both regional grounding and cross-sectorial waste optimization know-how.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SYMBIOPTIMA
  Their largest funded project (€354,375) tackled the algorithmically complex challenge of optimizing cross-sectorial resource flows in industrial symbiosis clusters — an area directly relevant to EU industrial decarbonization strategies.
• DEMETO
  Focused on microwave-driven depolymerization of PET — a technology with direct commercial application in chemical recycling of plastic bottles and polyester textiles, now one of the most active areas of EU green investment.