High-level Dutch-European Roundtables in the CLOSER project
March 27, 2025
In March 2025, Holland Circular Hotspot, in collaboration with the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, hosted a series of high-level roundtables under the European CLOSER project. These sessions convened policymakers, industry leaders, researchers, and financiers to explore strategies for enhancing the circularity and resilience of critical raw materials (CRMs) within strategic sectors. The discussions focused on three pivotal areas: general CRM policy and strategy, semiconductors, and solar photovoltaics (PV).
Roundtable: Circular critical raw materials for strategic autonomy
The roundtable on CRM focused on the momentum created by the EU Critical Raw Materials Act and how the Netherlands is aligning its strategy accordingly. Participants discussed the growing urgency to ensure a resilient, circular supply of critical materials by enhancing transparency across value chains, improving recovery, and coordinating policy and industrial efforts across the EU.
Key insights:
- There’s a strong push to create EU-level secondary material markets.
- Tracking systems and reverse logistics are essential to enable effective material recovery.
- A call was made for a European CRM representative and better coordination at the EU level.
- Policy alignment is progressing, but market incentives and shared urgency are still lacking.
- Collaboration is critical—no EU country can establish a closed-loop CRM value chain alone.
- Current recovery rates are low due to the lack of economic incentives—policy enforcement is essential to drive change.
Roundtable: Circular semi-conductors driving innovation in EU production
The semiconductor roundtable emphasized the challenges and opportunities in building a resilient and circular value chain for critical raw materials in this highly strategic sector. While technical know-how exists, the economic viability of circular strategies remains limited, and a lack of transparency across the value chain hinders progress.
Key insights:
- Recovery strategies need to be tailored per product group and supported by sector-specific roadmaps.
- Value chain visibility is poor; many actors are unaware of who else is involved.
- High standards and purity requirements for semiconductors limit the use of secondary materials.
- The economic case for refining and recovery in Europe remains weak without state intervention.
- Advanced design-for-circularity and investment in reuse/repair logistics are necessary but not yet mainstream.
- A major challenge is the current lack of willingness among players and operators across the value chain to share essential information.
- Reverse logistics and data transparency tools like digital passports are seen as critical enablers.
Roundtable : Circular solar panels: enabling the sustainability energy transition
The solar roundtable explored the challenges of making PV systems more circular, from material extraction to end-of-life recycling. While innovation is underway, including techniques like laser-based separation, recycling and reuse of PV modules still lack economic and regulatory support, posing a risk to Europe’s sustainability ambitions.
Key insights:
- Material passports and traceability are central to closing the loop in the PV sector.
- Most PV recycling is not economically viable due to high labor and processing costs.
- Second-life PV modules face legal, safety, and performance standardization challenges.
- The Netherlands is developing a dedicated roadmap for PV circularity.
- Legislative gaps, smuggling of used PV modules, and lack of reverse logistics are major barriers.
- Design for recyclability must be prioritized during production rather than post-use.
- Circularity in PV systems requires EU-wide coordination and robust EPR policies.