The claim, made independently by a commercial bank, a think tank and a multilateral development bank in the same report: circular business models are not under-financed because they are bad investments, but because the instruments that decide financing cannot see what they are worth.
“Zirkularität passt nicht in die Excel-Tabelle” is the report’s own headline
for it (sources/roechling/2026-08-01-polyproblem-08-wechsel-geld.md, p. 32).
The three mechanisms
1. Residual value exists but is unbookable. Andreas Gruber, CSO of Deutsche Kreditbank: “In einem zirkulären Bau haben Bauteile einen langfristigen Wert, den wir als Bank anders bilanzieren müssten, aber noch nicht können” (p. 32). Classical lending rests on short-term demonstrable collateral and known market values; circularity rests on long-term value retention. “Die Folge: Viele der Vorteile zirkulärer Modelle erscheinen in keiner Bilanz und damit auch in keiner Kreditentscheidung” (p. 32).
2. The timing mismatch. “Ein zirkuläres Geschäftsmodell trägt oft erst nach zehn Jahren am meisten Früchte, während die Bank die Risiken am Anfang trägt” (Gruber, p. 32). On the equity side the same mismatch appears as a return-horizon mismatch: “Die Kapitalrendite muss innerhalb von fünf Jahren erreicht werden und nicht erst nach 15 Jahren … Es ist nicht das Hockey-Stick-Wachstum, das Venture-Capital-Investoren sehen wollen” (Marvin Nusseck, Circle Economy, p. 28). Between grant-funded early stage and debt-funded maturity sits the valley of death: “zu risikoreich für klassische Kreditgeber, zu kapitalintensiv für Venture Capital und zugleich noch nicht reif genug für großvolumige institutionelle Finanzierung” (p. 27).
3. The risk models are built for the wrong value sources. “Die Risikomodelle der Finanzierer sind für zirkuläre Geschäftsmodelle schlicht nicht ausgelegt” (Nusseck, p. 28). Models evaluate established ownership structures, predictable supply chains and historical performance data; circular firms create value through resource efficiency, material recovery, resilience and reduced exposure to volatile commodity markets — “Diese Vorteile spiegeln sich in herkömmlichen Bewertungsmodellen kaum wider.”
The self-reinforcing form: no financing → no examples → no empirical base for risk assessment → no financing. Gruber calls it “ein klassisches Henne-Ei-Problem” (p. 32).
Why it is an information problem, not a preference problem
The financiers quoted are not hostile. The DKB reports “ein Riesenpotenzial” and describes itself as still learning: “Wir haben keine Circularity-Strategie und kein genuines Circularity-Produkt. Wir sind noch in der Phase des Aufschlauens und des konzeptionellen Fassens, was wir eigentlich unter Zirkularität verstehen” (p. 33). Silke Stremlau adds the empirical counterweight: green investments show no higher default risk and often a better risk-return ratio (p. 10).
What the bank says it is missing is specifically informational: “bessere Datengrundlagen und Standards”, with “digitale Gebäuderessourcenpässe” named as the instrument — they would make visible which materials sit in a building and what they are worth long-term, and “Erst dann könnten diese Werte auch in Finanzierungsentscheidungen berücksichtigt werden” (p. 33).
⟨Inference: this is a demand statement from the lender side for exactly the artefact the wiki already describes from the product side — a verifiable, asset-level record of material composition and residual value. The DKB is not asking for more capital, a subsidy or a label; it is asking for a data structure it can put into a credit model. That makes the valuation gap the clearest financial-sector use case for the DPP/residual-value stack recorded in this wiki.⟩
The agency-side confirmation (EEA, 2026)
The three mechanisms above were, until 2026-11-05, attested only by the actors who suffer from them. The EEA’s financing report states mechanism 1 and mechanism 3 as official findings (§3.1.2, titled “High risk perception and unsuited risk assessment tools that limits access to credit”):
“Investment in some circular ventures is challenging due to high upfront costs, long payback periods, non-linear returns and intangible assets … as traditional credit assessments remain anchored in solvency metrics and physical collateral.”
“finance teams can be unfamiliar with circular economy models and risk drivers. They also often rely on tools unsuited to integrating circular business models into credit assessment, investment analysis and risk management.”
“Anchored in solvency metrics and physical collateral” is Gruber’s unbookable residual value stated as a structural property of credit assessment. The second quote is Nusseck’s “Risikomodelle … schlicht nicht ausgelegt” without the practitioner’s hedge.
§3.1.1 supplies the consequence in one sentence, about disclosure rather than credit: SFDR standards “do not fully allow the benefits of circular businesses to be quantified. Consequently, the benefits cannot be factored into financing decisions.” That is the valuation gap in an EU agency’s own words.
The scale it attaches. Closing the gap requires +68 % annual circular investment = +EUR 82 bn/year, a EUR 1,229 bn shortfall 2025–2040 (EIB-EC, 2026, via EEA §2), while private circular investment has been flat at ≈0.8 % of GDP since 2019 and the circular material use rate rose 1.5 percentage points between 2010 and 2024. The EUR 1,229 bn figure is the same one the Wechselgeld report carries; both derive from EIB-EC (2026).
Where the EEA stops. It diagnoses that circular benefits cannot enter financing decisions, and then prescribes price and capital instruments — taxes, EPR fee modulation, blended finance, broader taxonomy coverage, upskilling of finance teams. In 32 pages there is no digital product passport, no materials or building resource passport, no ISO 59000, no data space. The only place where data appears as a viability condition is a case-study box: the ReCiPSS pay-per-use pilot depends on “efficient reverse logistics, customer retention and access to usage data” (Box 3.1).
⟨Inference: the EEA and the DKB diagnose the same gap and reach for different instruments. Gruber names the data structure (“digitale Gebäuderessourcenpässe”, “Erst dann könnten diese Werte auch in Finanzierungsentscheidungen berücksichtigt werden”); the agency names money and tax. Gruber’s sentence is therefore still the sharpest statement of the SINE case available in any source here — not because it is better evidenced, but because it is the only one that names the missing artefact rather than the missing euros.⟩
The precedent the bankers themselves reach for
Both Gruber and Stremlau use renewables as the template, and they describe the same mechanism: policy removed the cashflow risk, after which the asset class became bankable without further argument. “Durch die Einspeisevergütung hat der Gesetzgeber das Risiko beim Cashflow rausgenommen, und damit war das Thema für die Banken leicht zu beherrschen” (Gruber, p. 33). Stremlau: “Am Anfang stand Risikokapital, dann kam politische Unterstützung in Form des EEG mit festen Einspeisevergütungen. Und jetzt trägt es sich nahezu selbst” (p. 9).
⟨Inference: the analogy has a limit worth stating at the camp. A feed-in tariff removes price risk from a known physical output (a kWh, measured by a meter nobody disputes). Circularity has no equivalent measured unit — see the definition problem. So the renewables path is not available until the measurement question is settled first; the metering came before the tariff, not after it. This reverses the usual sequencing claim that standards follow markets.⟩
Contradiction to hold open
Wolfgang Hafenmayer (Sagana, Circulate Capital) rejects the framing that better visibility of circular value unlocks capital: “Der Glaube an den grünen Bonus ist naiv”; “Nicht Nachhaltigkeit macht ein Unternehmen investierbar, sondern ein funktionierendes Geschäftsmodell”; “Ohne Regulierung hast du keine Chance” (pp. 30–31). On his account the binding constraint is relative price (virgin material is cheaper than recyclate, p. 31) and business-model quality, not the lender’s information set.
Both readings are in the same report and are not reconciled there. They are also not strictly incompatible: better data could be necessary but not sufficient. ⟨Inference: the test that would separate them — does a lender with a complete, verified residual-value record actually price the loan differently? — is answerable empirically and is not answered by any source in this wiki.⟩
The 2023 instance, from the operating side ⟨2026-11-06⟩
Source: POLYPROBLEM 06 — Der Circularity Code, p. 13. Markus Helftewes (Der Grüne Punkt) states the gap in its crudest form, three years before the bankers do:
„Zirkularität gibt es nicht zum Nulltarif“ […] Selbst, wenn die digitale Technologie im Recycling funktioniert, gibt es dafür noch lange kein funktionierendes Geschäftsmodell – zumindest nicht, solange Rezyklate teurer sind als Neuware.
⟨Inference: this is the same gap seen from the other end, and the difference is instructive. Gruber and Nusseck describe an unbookable value — circularity produces a residual worth that no instrument records, so no price reflects it. Helftewes describes a negative spread that is fully visible and correctly priced: recyclate costs more than virgin. Those are not the same claim, and collapsing them would be an error. But they compose: the recyclate premium is only an obstacle because the offsetting value — the avoided disposal, the retained material, the compliance asset — sits in the unbookable column. If the residual value were bookable, the premium would be a transfer rather than a loss. The report does not make this connection; it treats the price gap as a brute fact requiring subsidy.⟩
The report’s own instrument for it is not better data but a demand-side guarantee — “langfristige Abnahmegarantien der Industrie” alongside state funding — recorded on ecosystem financing. ⟨Inference: an offtake guarantee is what you reach for when you have given up on the valuation problem and decided to contract around it. That it comes from the operator of Germany’s largest packaging-recovery system, rather than from a financier, is some evidence that the practitioners expect the measurement answer to be slower than the contractual one.⟩
A second item from the same source belongs here as a scope note. Jochen Moesslein (Polysecure, pp. 14–15) prices the sorting market at 400 Mt of plastic processed per year, about half of it sorted, at €100–200/t — “ein Volumen von 20 Milliarden und mehr. Der Markt ist also vorhanden.” ⟨Inference: a willingness-to-pay estimate for sorting, not for circularity, and so not a counterexample to the gap on this page. It is useful as the floor: the part of circular value that is already bookable, because someone buys the sorted output.⟩
Open questions
- Is there a documented case of a bank changing a credit decision because of asset-level circularity data? Nothing in the wiki’s sources shows one. ⟨2026-11-05: a targeted search of EMF, EIB, EEA, ECB/EBA and bank disclosures found no such case either, and no institution naming a passport or conformity record as a credit input. The question stays open with stronger evidence that the answer is “no”.⟩
- Does the valuation gap bind harder on debt or on equity? The report shows both but never compares them.
- Hitachi/AIST derive economic performance from CE indicators (CVP). Is that derivation accepted by any financier, or is it an internal management metric? Martin’s question 5, open.
Cross-references
- Residual-value grading — the product-side mechanism this gap demands.
- Digital product passport — the Gebäuderessourcenpass is a building-sector instance.
- Circularity definition problem
- Ecosystem financing
- Circular ecosystem maturity stages — why the gap is a mismatch between financier valuation patterns and chain maturity rather than a capital shortage ⟨2026-11-06⟩.
- Circular Value-added Productivity
- ESG reporting in the financial sector
- Decision-grade carbon data criteria — the analogous “good enough to decide on” threshold, stated for carbon.
- Unlocking the circular economy (EEA, 2026) — §3.1.2 and the EUR 82 bn/year gap.
Sources
sources/roechling/2026-08-01-polyproblem-08-wechsel-geld.md, pp. 27–28 (Nusseck), pp. 30–31 (Hafenmayer), pp. 32–33 (Gruber), pp. 9–10 (Stremlau). Summary: Wechsel-Geld.sources/circular-finance/2026-11-05-eea-unlocking-the-circular-economy/2026-11-05-eea-unlocking-the-circular-economy.md, §2, §3.1.1, §3.1.2, Box 3.1. EEA Report 02/2026, doi:10.2800/5422329. Summary: Unlocking the circular economy.