Germany’s construction industry, responsible for nearly 60% of total national waste generation, is under mounting pressure to transition from linear production to material circularity. Against this backdrop, Holcim Germany’s strategic partnership with the A&S Detmering Group marks a significant move toward embedding circular practices into one of the country’s most resource-intensive sectors.
Under the agreement, Holcim will acquire shares in A&S Detmering’s recycling and demolition operations, granting the cement producer long-term access to high-quality demolition materials while reinforcing its domestic recycling capacity. The partnership will focus on the metropolitan corridor spanning Hanover, Braunschweig, Göttingen, and Wolfsburg—a region experiencing rapid urban development and high demand for construction materials.
At the operational level, three existing A&S recycling hubs in Diepenau, Gilten, and Lehrte will be integrated into the Holcim Group and developed into ECOCycle® Centres, the company’s proprietary framework for closed-loop material recovery. These centers are designed to maximize the reuse of construction and demolition waste (CDW) by reintroducing recycled aggregates and other recovered materials back into new production cycles—particularly cement and concrete manufacturing.
For A&S Detmering, a family-run company with decades of experience in demolition and recycling, the deal offers both stability and scale. Managing partners Hinrich and Philipp Detmering emphasized that maintaining independent operations in demolition under Holcim’s minority shareholding allows them to retain agility, while leveraging the multinational’s technical know-how and investment power.
The integration also responds to one of the construction sector’s most persistent structural challenges: the inconsistent quality and traceability of recycled materials. By embedding the A&S network into its ECOCycle® model, Holcim aims to standardize recycling protocols—ensuring that secondary raw materials meet consistent performance criteria for use in cementitious products. This approach aligns with Holcim’s global objective to recycle 10 million tons of CDW annually by 2025, signaling an industrial-scale push toward resource efficiency.
Germany’s building sector generates roughly 230 million tons of construction waste per year, yet less than half is recycled at quality levels sufficient for reintroduction into structural materials. Partnerships like Holcim’s with A&S Detmering address this quality gap by consolidating processing, logistics, and certification under a unified framework. In practice, this could mean better sorting technologies, automated material identification, and reduced contamination—each a prerequisite for achieving true circularity rather than simple downcycling.
The Holcim–A&S collaboration also demonstrates the strategic value of regional integration in scaling circular solutions. By locating ECOCycle® Centres close to major construction markets, the partners can shorten transport distances, reduce CO₂ emissions, and increase the competitiveness of recycled aggregates relative to virgin materials—a critical economic barrier in the circular transition.
The post Holcim Partners with A&S Detmering to Boost Circular Construction in Northern Germany first appeared on www.circularbusinessreview.com.
