Cascading Economy – Our consulting approach

The Cascading Economy is a new way of doing business, a meta-business model.

In the Cascading Economy, the value chains do not stand side by side, but interlock in cascading fashion. In this way, resources that in conventional business models degenerate into waste in a value-added dead end are turned into new potentials with which new profits can be made. Cascading economy means making something useful out of everything: Supposed problems become solutions, waste becomes a resource, and previously isolated business models combine to form cascades that form a new holistic overall system.

The Cascading Economy philosophy is about optimizing systems that generate added value. Cascading Economy projects are based on a systemic approach that looks for unused potentials and undiscovered interfaces. Thus, the Cascading Economy is an open-ended process that involves the local context and, above all, the people involved – in search of ways to increase the cake. Through feedback and feedback with the local people, more potential can be discovered from more perspectives. Citizens, employees, suppliers, customers or administrative staff are at the centre of the discovery journey.

This voyage of discovery is characterised by three elements:

• All available data, from energy balances to population figures, are statistically evaluated.
• The system is analysed in the context of local history and culture: What already existed, was forgotten, but now has potential again? Who is familiar with what here? Which traditions are to be observed?
• The local material flows are analysed. Which wastes exist in which quantities? What consumes how much energy? How does water management work? What are the environmental problems?

Multidimensional perspectives in fields of innovation from the perspective of the Cascading Economy

If one looks at the funding structures of the federal government, the states and the municipalities, one can impression that it was finally understood at all levels that a future Economic growth and the accompanying social, infrastructural and cultural development The attractiveness of a region can only be achieved if new impulses can be generated through innovation initiated. However, there is no overarching strategy that all measures follow and their support each other in such a way that in the end a real economic and social change is visible.

We therefore do not see innovations as individual measures or cluster support, but rather create multidimensional and interdisciplinary fields of innovation in a defined regional context. In doing so, we integrate innovations from all fundamental areas of life: nutrition, energy, water, mobility, digitality and building.

In the spirit of the Cascading Economy, these 6 areas repeatedly build up their cascading value-added chains on various levels.