About me 

I like to describe myself as a circular economy enthusiast or a “circular economy evangelist”. I have been working on the circular economy for almost ten years and the more I learn about it, the greater becomes my passion and desire to make the circular economy a reality. I am committed to this, not only with my company Circu:Culture, but also by giving a voice to other people who have the same goal and are advancing the circular economy with their work. In this way, I carry the knowledge and narratives about Ciricular Economy into the world with the aim to enrourage and inspire others to join this mission. 

A short description of my career 

Laura Scherer is the founder and owner of Circu:Culture, an educational service provider in the field of circular economy, and lecturer for circular economy at Furtwangen University.  

Before founding Circu:Culture, she worked for several years as a consultant for international waste and recyclables management, most recently for over three years at the Schwarz Group as a recycling consultant for Lidl France and before that at GlobalFlow GmbH. 

She is a certified process manager and holds an M. Sc. in “Operations Management” from the ESB Business School and a double bachelor’s degree in “International Business Management” from the HFU Business School at Furtwangen University and Novancia Business School Paris. 

As a culturally interested globetrotter and polyglot, she lived in France for over two years, a year in the USA and half a year in China. 

high-resolution photos

Read more about my professional motivation in this newspaper article.

My Values

Interdisciplinary cooperation

Collaboration is essential to the circular economy because circular solutions and business models are often complex and require multiple companies to work together instead of just one to close the loop.  

The traditional business model typically focuses on a single company creating value, providing products and profiting from them. In circular business models, however, the value creation is distributed across all participating companies, not just one. These solutions are often system innovations and require the collaboration of multiple companies to be successfully implemented. 

With this in mind, I see interdisciplinary cooperation, sharing and learning from each other as an essential cornerstone for realizing the circular economy and my work on it. 

Creativity

The waste problem on our planet is a symptom of the overconsumption of our society. On an abstract level, this is a feeding of content of a material (e.g. food) or immaterial nature (e.g. information), i.e. a movement from the outside to the inside.  

This is contrasted with creativity, which is a movement from the inside out: because through creativity we create new ideas, concepts, solutions, which, through their transfer to the outside – from our heads to reality – can have a decisive role in various aspects of life, including art, science, technology and business, and hopefully ultimately counteract the consequences of overconsumption.  

Developing and harnessing the creative abilities of one and all are indispensable to finding solutions to our contemporaneous problems, which is why I pay close attention to fostering these abilities in my work. 

Appreciation

Appreciation is the equivalent of value creation in an interpersonal context, quasi in terms of human resources.  

In this sense, I apply the concept of maximizing resource potential that we know from the circular economy to my relationships with the people around me. For example through kindness, friendlyness and appreciation.

Flexibility

We live in a dynamic world in transition. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances and to abandon what is outdated is critical to succeed in this changing environment.  

Be it regulatory requirements or ways of working in a socio-cultural context, being able to quickly grasp, process and apply changes allows you to capitalize on the opportunities of the circular economy.  

In my work, I attach great importance to flexibility in terms of content, methodology and location and can therefore adapt ideally to the requirements of my clients.