Today we interview Paula Sánchez, Founder and CEO of CoCircular, a cleantech company specialising in circular waste management.
What problem does your startup tackle, and what solution does it offer?
At CoCircular, we have developed the SaaS technology “360º Advisor”, which enables a fully digital and traceable circular waste management process for our clients (construction firms, renewable energy companies, industrial, retail, textile companies, and more). Our platform ensures compliance with the new Waste Law, which requires the recovery of over 70% of waste—our clients currently reach up to 92%.
Our technology maps thousands of waste recovery operators across the country, assessing them based on quality, sustainability, and proximity criteria. At the same time, we propose waste segregation protocols for each site (or plant) and oversee the entire process, advising and certifying the percentage of waste that is converted into secondary raw materials.
In addition to significantly reducing time and costs associated with waste management, and markedly increasing our clients’ waste recovery rates, the tool generates a wide range of environmental impact metrics. This adds considerable value to our clients in terms of meeting their sustainability and circular economy goals, or obtaining the most demanding international environmental certifications.
How do you expect the sector to evolve?
The circular waste management sector is undergoing major transformation. Regulatory pressure—both at European and national level—is growing, driving the shift towards circular economy models that prioritise prevention, traceability, and waste recovery. Alongside this, there is increasing environmental awareness among companies, public administrations, and citizens, all of whom are demanding more sustainable and transparent solutions.
Over the coming years, we expect to see deeper digitalisation of the sector, with the vast majority of companies monitoring their environmental impact in real time, ensuring regulatory compliance, and generating meaningful data to support sustainable decision-making. This is already standard practice for our clients, but it is far from the norm across the sector. We also foresee greater public–private collaboration and professionalisation of the waste value chain. What’s clear is that circularity will cease to be optional and will become a key factor in competitiveness.
What are your expectations for your startup?
At CoCircular, we are confident that we will play a key role in this transition. Our aim is to continue leading the digital and sustainable transformation of waste management by providing traceability, data, and real-world solutions.
We are currently scaling our model across various sectors beyond construction, and we expect this trend to continue. We aspire to become a European benchmark in circular waste management. Most importantly, every new client, every tonne of waste recovered, every impact report generated brings us closer to a fairer, more transparent system aligned with the planet’s boundaries. That’s what drives us every day.
In which areas would you like to collaborate with other startups, companies, or organisations?
We’re currently focused on adapting our tool beyond the construction sector, running pilots with leading companies in their respective industries—businesses that may have nothing to do with construction but are nonetheless major waste producers: industrial firms, retail (e.g. cosmetics brands generating large volumes of point-of-sale materials), aviation, renewables (solar farms), or those involved in reverse logistics (e.g. rock wool).
We are also studying a challenge proposed by Madrid City Council for managing waste at Mercamadrid. In short, we’re actively seeking to test our tool across a variety of sectors and business types. Our technology is now highly robust, and we have thoroughly mapped the entire waste value chain, enabling us to take on these types of projects with confidence.