SAUBERMACHER DIENSTLEISTUNGS AG

Their core work

Saubermacher is one of Austria's leading waste management and recycling companies, operating at industrial scale across Central Europe. In H2020, they contributed hands-on expertise in materials recovery — from recycling end-of-life fiber-reinforced composites to recovering critical raw materials like cobalt from spent batteries. They bring real-world waste processing infrastructure and circular economy know-how to research consortia, serving as the industrial validation partner that turns lab-scale recycling concepts into commercially viable operations.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Saubermacher's H2020 journey shows a clear shift from mechanical recycling toward advanced chemical recovery and digitization. Their earlier projects (FiberEUse, 2017) focused on physical reuse and remanufacturing of composite materials with new business models. By 2018-2020, their focus moved to sophisticated metallurgical and electrochemical processes for recovering critical raw materials from batteries (CROCODILE), and then to digital platforms for managing circular economy networks (DigiPrime).

Saubermacher is moving from traditional waste management toward high-value critical materials recovery and digital circular economy platforms — expect them to pursue projects at the intersection of battery recycling, raw materials security, and Industry 4.0.

How they like to work

Saubermacher operates exclusively as a consortium partner or third party — they have never coordinated an H2020 project. With 101 unique partners across 20 countries, they integrate into large, diverse consortia (typical of Innovation Actions) where they provide industrial-scale waste processing and recycling expertise. This makes them a reliable, low-friction partner: they contribute domain knowledge and infrastructure without seeking to steer the project direction.

Saubermacher has built a broad European network of 101 partners across 20 countries through just 4 projects, reflecting their participation in large Innovation Action consortia. Their reach extends well beyond the DACH region despite being an Austrian company.

What sets them apart

Saubermacher brings something rare to research consortia: they are a large, established waste management company with real processing facilities, not a lab or consultancy. This means they can validate recycling and recovery technologies at near-commercial scale within a project's timeline. For consortium builders, they fill the critical "industrial end-user" slot that reviewers look for, especially in circular economy and raw materials recovery proposals.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CROCODILE
  Their largest H2020 investment (EUR 429K) targeting cobalt recovery from batteries — directly aligned with Europe's strategic push for critical raw materials independence.
• FiberEUse
  Large-scale demonstration project for circular economy value chains in composite materials, showing Saubermacher's capacity to participate in industrial-scale pilots.
• DigiPrime
  Represents their strategic pivot toward digital platforms for circular economy, connecting their physical recycling expertise with data-driven resource management.