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Fagor Ederlan, Somos Oreka, Gamesa Gearbox and Fuelium, winners for their circular solutions and products at the Basque Circular Summit 2025
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- The Basque Circular BEST 2025 awards recognise the best circular products, services, business models and startups of the Basque Country
- The Basque Government’s Deputy Minister for the Energy Transition, Irantzu Allende, and the Ihobe General Manager, Alexander Boto, presented the awards
- In total, there were four award winners and three runners up selected from among the 65 entries from 49 Basque companies
This morning, the Basque Government’s Deputy Minister for the Energy Transition, Irantzu Allende, and the Ihobe General manager, Alexander Boto, have presented the Basque Circular BEST awards to Fagor Ederlan, Somos Oreka, Gamesa Gearbox and Fuelium during the Basque Circular Summit 2025. The awards, organised by Ihobe, recognise the best circular product, service, business model and startup of the Basque Country for the first time ever.
The awards have been very popular with the companies at the EXPO area of the Basque Circular Summit, as there were 65 entries by 49 companies from out of the more than 150 products and services on display.
During the award ceremony, Deputy Minister Allende explained that the prizes had been set up in response to a need that the Basque Government had noticed for some time now. ‘The Basque circular economy ecosystem has matured, is generating scalable, tangible and real solutions… and deserves its own recognition space’, she stressed.
The Basque Circular BEST awards are an essential recognition for Basque companies that are leading the transition towards a circular economy. By rewarding both large companies and SMEs, these prizes highlight the importance of innovation and sustainability in the industrial fabric of the Basque Country.
‘These awards are a catalyst to encourage more companies to adopt sustainable practices, creating a multiplier effect that can transform the territory’s economy. They not only celebrate the current achievements, but they also inspire a future where the circular economy is the norm and not the exception’, Boto explained.
Alongside the Basque Deputy Minister for the Energy Transition and the Ihobe Manager, the members of the jury for the awards were made up of experts in the field, of the ilk of Aitor Cobanera, the Business Promotion Director at the Spri group; Xabier Caño, Chair of Aclima; Carlos García, Director of the Mondragón Polytechnic School; María García de la Fuenter, Chair of the Environmental Journalism Association; Olaia Irulegi, former Chair of EIDE-Basque Design Association; Marcelo Leslabay, professor and researcher in Design at Deusto University; Rikardo Minguez, Director of the Master’s Degree in the Circular Economy at the University of the Basque Country; and Tamara Yagüe, Chair of CONFEBASK.
When assessing the more than 65 circular solutions, the jury took criteria into account such as the degree of circularity, feasibility, capacity, scalability, environmental contribution, and the transformation potential of the entries.
The most circular product
The Basque Circular BEST award for the most circular project has gone to Fagor Ederlan for its STA Knuckle product, a key component in vehicle safety that combines three different systems: steering, suspension and braking. The knuckle represents an important reduction in the carbon footprint, as high standards of recyclability have been applied, along with a lighter design, meaning a significant reduction in emissions. The jury took into account its innovative design in aluminium using 80% of secondary raw materials and 51% lighter in weight.
In turn, there were two runners-up in this category; Asfaltia, for incorporating secondary raw materials in its asphalt mixes for highways (both rubber waste and steel aggregate from electric arc steelmaking); and Koopera, for its work from the field of social inclusion by providing solutions to reuse textile waste as new recycled thread and thermal and acoustic insulation panels for interior partitioning in housing; panels that are obtained from treated polyester and cotton fibres from textile waste that the general public puts in the reuse bins.
The most circular service
The award for the most circular service has gone to Somos Oreka for its service provision platform (Software as a Service) to donate and use food waste; it has managed to avoid up to 50 tonnes a month of food ending up as waste, by collecting it from the canteens of organisations, supermarkets and other companies for the surplus to be donated safely. The application also allows recurring donations to be programme, thus reducing the delivery time and food waste.
The Jury also named RECIRCULAR as the runner-up for its recovery and reuse platform (in other words, giving a second life) for material, surplus and industrial waste, along with used equipment, so that other companies can recycle and reuse them. Furthermore, the platform calculates the social and environmental benefits generated from harnessing that waste.
Business model award
The winner of the circular business model category was Gamesa Gearbox, which has developed from simply manufacturing products to a new business model based on remanufacturing air turbine parts, giving them a second life; one such case is the wind turbine gearboxes, whose life has been lengthened by 125%. The Jury assessed the business consolidation of a model based on remanufacturing components.
The best solution by a start up
Fuelium was the winner in the most circular startup category for its ecodesigned paper batteries to be used in single-user portable devices for in vitro diagnosis and personal care, such as pregnancy tests, blood and saliva screening. It has thus developed a competitive solution in manufacturing and raw materials costs, as well as reducing the waste generated. The battery consists of non-toxic sustainable materials, which allows it to be recycled with paper and cardboard, along with being biodegradable and compostable.
The first BEST awards have been held as part of the Basque Circular Summit 2025, which is the largest conference on the circular economy in southern Europe. Organised by Ihobe, the Basque Government’s Environmental Management Agency, it is being held at Euskalduna Bilbao from 2 and 4 April, where 1,300 experts and over 150 speakers have gathered to thresh out the ramifications that the new European legislation and planning will have on Basque companies.
