On October 11, the DeremCo project had the honor of being presented at Expo 2025 Osaka, inside the Italian Pavilion, thanks to Regione Lombardia, which dedicated a special space to showcase the region’s excellence in manufacturing innovation.

The event was part of the workshop “Lombard Excellence for Sustainable Development”, promoted by the General Directorate for University, Research and Innovation of Regione Lombardia and co-organized by AFIL – Associazione Fabbrica Intelligente Lombardia and LGCA – Lombardy Green Chemistry Cluster within the Italy Expo 2025 Osaka activities.

It represented a unique opportunity for international visibility: according to official data from the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, the event is expected to attract around 28 million visitors and participants from over 160 countries, making it one of the largest global gatherings dedicated to the future of society.

In line with the overall theme “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”, DeremCo’s presentation demonstrated how the circular economy of composite materials can concretely contribute to a more sustainable and competitive industrial model.

Coordinated by Politecnico di Milano and composed of 29 partners from 7 European countries, the project aims to transform post-use composites,  which are still largely destined for landfill or incineration, into new resources for high-value products, through innovative dismantling, de-manufacturing, and revalorization processes that create new materials ready to re-enter production cycles.

The contribution from Lombard partners

The event focused on illustrating the project’s value chain, highlighting the demonstration cases of the ecosystem in the Lombardy region, through the contributions of:

• NTS and Fibereuse Tech: “Automotive BMC with recycled glass fiber granulates” – an automotive application that partially replaces virgin raw materials with granulates containing post-use composites;
• Centrocot: “Recycled hybrid filament for technical textiles” – development of hybrid filaments from recycled fibers for advanced technical fabrics;
• Origoni Steiner: “Design products” – reinterpretation of recovered materials to create furniture and exhibition design elements, demonstrating how sustainability can dialogue with aesthetics and design
• AFIL – Associazione Fabbrica Intelligente Lombardia, the project's leading communications partner and a key ecosystem for Lombardy's manufacturing sector that collaborated to bring the DeremCo project to EXPO, as well as the Batmass project, which, like DeremCo, addresses circular economy topics and is co-funded under the European Union’s Interregional Innovation Investment (I3) programme. Moreover, AFIL is not only a partner in both projects but also the facilitator behind their creation, as both initiatives originated within the Strategic Community “De- and Remanufacturing for Circular Economy,” one of the working groups coordinated by AFIL within its ecosystem.

The presentations, delivered by Prof. Marcello Colledani (Politecnico di Milano and project coordinator), Giorgia Zanchin (Centrocot) and Matteo Origoni (Origoni Steiner), emphasized that the DeremCo approach is not only technological, but systemic.

DeremCo as a model for European innovation ecosystems

The project stands as a virtuous example of an innovation ecosystem, one of those collaborative platforms promoted by the European Commission through Smart Specialisation Strategies and cohesion policy instruments (such as the Interregional Innovation Investments – I3 programme, which co-funded the project), where companies, universities, clusters, public bodies, and citizens work together to accelerate industrial transition. DeremCo has effectively strengthened collaboration between advanced and transitioning regions, creating interregional value chains capable of overcoming the technological, logistical, and cultural barriers that still hinder composite material reuse.

Expo as an accelerator of political and industrial awareness

Thanks to Regione Lombardia, DeremCo brought this message to a global stage, showing that circularity is no longer merely an environmental challenge, but a tangible economic opportunity for Europe. The Osaka Exhibition thus becomes not only a showcase, but also an accelerator of relationships, capable of fostering new collaborations among continents, institutions, and industries.

In the coming months, DeremCo will continue to disseminate the project’s technical results and policy recommendations, also promoting the overcoming of legislative barriers, so that the transformation of post-use composites into resources becomes a structural practice within European value chains, for the benefit of the environment, the economy, and communities.