MATR - An award-winning circular economy mattress solution for hotels
30 million mattresses end up as waste in Europe every year. At MATR, we decided it is time to put this huge waste problem to bed and make sleep matter. We have created the first circular economy mattress solution for hotels, featuring a premium mattress made from just 2 high quality materials, a unique service model and flexible financing. MATR mattresses never end up as waste and always go back into the material cycle, resulting in a carbon footprint 50% less than conventional mattresses.
Cross-border/international
Austria
Netherlands
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It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
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As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Verena Last name: Judmayer Gender: Female Age: 28 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Austria Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Leystrasse 50/23 Town: Vienna Postal code: 1200 Country: Austria Direct Tel:+43 6645339081 E-mail:verena@matr.eco Website:https://matr.eco/
First name: Michaela Last name: Stephen Gender: Female Age: 29 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: United Kingdom Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Leystrasse 50/23 Town: Vienna Postal code: 1200 Country: Austria Direct Tel:+43 660 6332374 E-mail:michaela@matr.eco Website:https://matr.eco/
MATЯ is a startup project from Vienna. Their mission is to enable hotels to provide a premium sleep experience for their guests, and improve their environmental footprint in an accessible, effortless way. MATR was founded in 2022 by Verena and Michaela, two impact-driven female entrepreneurs passionate about designing out waste from the mattress industry. It started when they came across the shocking statistic that 30 million mattresses end up as waste in Europe every year, equivalent to 20,000 stacked Eiffel Towers. The problem? Mattresses are designed to end up as waste after being used once. Verena and Michaela decided it was time to put this problem to bed. That’s why MATR was born: The first all-in-one mattress solution that embeds circular economy design, featuring a premium mattress made from just 2 high quality materials and an innovative business and service model for hotels. MATR mattresses never end up as waste and always go back into the material cycle thanks to their 100% reusability and recyclability, resulting in a carbon footprint 50% less than conventional mattresses, a first on the market. Our mattress also features a product passport for material tracking and a patented glue for easy refurb and recycling. As a result of our solution we save hotels time, money and CO2.
As an early stage startup, we have already secured our first 4 test hotel customers in Vienna. Feedback to date is 4.9 stars out of 5 for our prototype, and we have a strong sales pipeline in place. Our main target group are innovative, eco-friendly hotels and accommodation providers in the 4 and 5 star segment. We focus first on Austria and primarily smaller hotel chains, then DACH and Europe, and larger hotel chains. In the future, we potentially also address the care sector and B2C sector with our solution. MATR’s vision is to make sleep matter in the hospitality industry and beyond, and to wake up in a world where waste is no longer a problem.
Circular economy
Sustainable tourism and European hotel industry
Mattress waste
Recycling technology
Circular economy product design
Our sustainability objectives are threefold:
1. To put an end to mattress waste through our innovative circular economy solution, and ensure our materials always remain in the material cycle for full refurbishment, reuse and recycling.
2. To educate and raise awareness on the importance of the circular economy
3. To create premium sleep experiences that are good for people and planet
Our progress to date:
With our fully circular solution, we save 50% CO2 emissions per mattress and save 33m³ of landfill space per tonne of our circular economy mattresses, a true first on the mattress market. We have also created a solution that ends mattress waste, eliminating the burden of waste disposal for local municipalities whereby in our home market of Austria alone, over 1.4 million mattresses are incinerated every year, with no mattress refurbishing & recycling processes existing to date in Austria. And, in the rest of Europe, the progress being made is too slow to align with the upcoming climate regulations, including the EU Green Deal. We measure our impact here by implementing our circular economy mattresses into the market and thus, counting the number of mattresses that never need to end up as waste and be incinerated/landfilled any longer. To date, as an early stage startup who is only a few months old, we have 36 mattress prototypes in the loop, with many more to come.
Our solution also enables the hospitality sector (9% of Austria's GDP) to become more sustainable, benefiting local communities by enabling businesses to transition to circular economy approaches (green purchasing) and align with changing consumer demands. We measure our impact here through the number of hotels we work with. To date, we have 4 hotels benefitting from our circular economy approach. We also place importance on raising awareness of the circular economy to our network through education: we have reached over 500+ people through speaking at educational events and via webinars.
In terms of our key objectives for aesthetics and quality of experience for people, they are as follows:
1. To create and produce mattresses that are designed with high quality and ultimate circularity
2. To provide a premium sleep experience for our customers
3. To evoke a position emotion in our users through the sustainable impact we can create together by working towards ending the global mattress waste problem
In terms of objective 1, we have already been able to produce first prototypes of our mattress. It is is proudly handmade in the EU and designed with just 2 fully recyclable materials (steel & polyester). It features a patented adhesive and a modular design for easy refurbishment and recycling at the end of its useful life. It was designed with ultimate circularity in mind and we selected a producer in the Netherlands which is B-corp accredited and already uses energy efficient production processes. As a result, we are able to produce a high quality, pioneering product that does not compromise when it comes to being as sustainable as possible.
For objective 2, we aim to excel when it comes to providing a great night of sleep for our customers. We have already received an average rating from MATR sleepers of 4.9 stars out of 5. Our customers highlight that they love to know they are doing good for the planet when they go to sleep each night.
For objective 3, we have worked hard to bring the story of MATR to life for our test customers. With our first hotel customers, we provide innovative interactive guest marketing for their guests via QR codes in the hotel room and through the check-in/out process at reception. This enables the hotel to bring the impact they are creating to life, and evoke position emotions in the guests who are sleeping in the hotel. We have received numerous positive reviews for this approach which enables us to educate and raise awareness on the issue of mattress waste.
Our key objectives for inclusion are as follows:
1. To make our mattress accessible to other income groups through our refurbishing channel
2. To encourage rental of our mattresses to enable flexible financing options for our customers
3. To use our product passport for material tracking, ensuring our mattresses are always kept in the material cycle and thus, we can credibly and transparently show our circularity and adapt this to new societal models
In terms of objective 1, we are in the process of testing our refurbishing channel. Our mattresses have a lifespan of 10 years and we designed our mattress in a modular way which means the layers of the mattress can 'click' and ''unclick' from each other. As a result, when a mattress is returned to us we can replace layers that require replacement and then sell the mattress on for 'another life' before it goes for recycling. In this context, we want to resell our refurbished mattresses to lower income groups and also donate mattresses to social institutions in need. In this way, we can provide premium sleep experiences to beneficiaries who would otherwise not be able to afford or access our product. This would also be a first on the market. As we are still in the prototype phase, our mattress refurbishment testing is due to take place later this year.
For objective 2, we are testing a rental model with our current customers. We see this as an inclusive way to help our customers to pay for our product and service, and thus help them transition into more greener purchasing decisions. We have some financial partners locked in who will support us with this model since it requires some upfront financial investment from our side.
For objective 3, we have our product passport in place and are continually innovating and exploring new ways to use this to help increase our circularity and adapt our innovative approach to other industries and beneficiaries.
As outlined, our customers are hotels. They are benefitting from our circular economy mattress solution in various ways. It saves them time, money and CO2 whilst enabling them to put an end to mattress waste being produced by their hotel and beyond. As we develop our idea, we aim to involve our customers in our next stages of development to ensure we are building our idea around their needs. Therefore, the impact for hotels is that they can reflect the impact being created through our partnership in their own ESG and sustainability reporting criteria, and to their own customers. As a result, we help the travel and tourism industry to transition to more circular economy approaches which creates a long-term impact and encourages greener purchasing decisions across the industry.
In addition, we also benefit the guests who sleep on our mattresses in hotels. As outlined, we engage guests in the MATR message through various guest marketing initiatives. As a result, we help to spread awareness of the huge mattress waste problem and educate the general public on the actions they can take to help end this. We also provide guests with the option to stay in touch via our marketing channels and buy their own MATR mattress if they would like to join us on our mission. We also aim to involve the wider public in our mission through newsletters, blogs and raising awareness externally of our work. That way, we can create a movement towards ending mattress waste together. In this regard, by 2025, we aim to have 8,000 of our circular economy mattresses in the loop which means 8,000 mattresses saved from becoming waste.
The key stakeholders engaged in the design and development of our solution included: our producer, suppliers, logistics partner, recycling partners, finance partners, the Austrian Climate Ministry and our customers. Below is an overview of their engagement and the added value they provided.
Our producer (European stakeholder): is a family owned mattress company with 100+ years of experience in the premium mattress market. They supported us with the design and production of our mattress. Their added value was their openness to our innovative approach, their sustainable approach to production, their large network of EU suppliers, their ability to scale-up production quickly and flexibility in our mattress production.
Our suppliers (European stakeholders): are based in the EU. Their added value was their willingness to be transparent about where our materials are sourced and to be featured in our product passport for material tracing and tracking.
Logistics partner (National stakeholder): supported us with easy transport from our producer to our customers in Austria. Their added value was their expertise in finding the most CO2 friendly approaches to our logistics design.
Recycling partners (European stakeholders): supported us with knowledge, expertise and testing for the requirements for easy and sustainable mattress recycling.
Finance partners (National stakeholders): provided added value by outlining the different financing options they can provide us to enable our rental model to be offered to our customers.
The Austrian Climate Ministry (National and European stakeholders): supported us with insight into the incoming regulation and EU Green Deal impacts expected on the market in regards to textiles. This enabled us to focus on ensuring our solution will excel in relation to regulatory demands.
Our customers (National stakeholders): enabled us to test our first prototypes and generate feedback to further refine and perfect our solution.
We developed our concept using design thinking methodology which included continuous ideating, prototyping and testing. In total, we validated our solution with 50+ hotel managers and industry experts across Austria and beyond via interviews and meetings. We also developed a partner network with 20+ cross-industry companies and conducted in-depth market and material research for 6+ months which enabled us to finally arrive at our first product prototype. There were various disciplines and knowledge fields involved in this process.
To start the process, we looked at the problem which was that mattresses are not designed to be recyclable or reusable in any way. They always end up as waste. Therefore, we posed the question, "How can we create a mattress that never ends up as waste, and is made from materials that create value?" We spoke first with mattress recycling experts who provided the knowledge for understanding the current problems with mattresses and their lack of recyclability. Through this process, we could identify the materials which were not able to be recycled. In total, we spoke to over 5 mattress recyclers across Europe and we even visited a recycling factory in the Netherlands to see the process first-hand and understand the complexity involved.
This then enabled us to approach circular economy material experts with more knowledge and insights to share on the current recycling issues caused by mattresses. As a result, these experts could guide us in the latest material innovations on the market and the most sustainable and scalable materials which would enable circularity. From there, we spoke with mattress design experts from various large companies across Europe. These experts were able to provide us with their insights into the problem of mattress waste and what they would do to fix it.
With all of the gained knowledge and insights, we were able to continually refine our concept and get it to a prototype stage.
We are different from other mattress solutions across 3 key pillars: our circular design, customer centric approach and technology focus.
Our Circular Design: our mattress is proudly made in the EU and made with just 2 high quality materials: steel & polyester, both of which are fully recyclable. It features a patented adhesive, a modular design for easy refurbishing and recycling to extend its life, and 50% less CO2 than conventional mattresses (validated via our life cycle analysis). This is a first on the market. We have validated our recyclability and are now testing with recycled polyester to move a step even further and enable mattress to mattress recycling as we progress with our project.
Our customer centric approach: we built our solution around the pains a hotel faces when it comes to mattress management. For hotels, mattresses are bulky, expensive and annoying to take care of and dispose of at the end of their life. We take these pains away: our an all-in-one solution features an innovative rental model to enable hotels to benefit from flexible financing. We also provide service model package options which enables us to manage mattresses for hotels across cleaning, transport and return services. As a result, we save hotels time, money and CO2 with their mattress management through our easy to use, innovative solution.
Our Technology focus: our mattress features a digital product passport for material tracking and digital monitoring. That means we know exactly what our mattress is made from, when it was made, where it should go when it's finished with and when it needs cleaned or exchanged. As a result, our mattresses never end up as waste: they are made from valuable materials that are always entered back into the material cycle. As we finish testing our first prototype, we will also be focusing on integrating additional recycling and SensorTech to further improve our climate impact and improve our offering for hotels.
Various elements of our solution can be transferred to other places, groups of beneficiaries and contexts.
Our circular economy mattress solution: can be applied to new markets and beneficiaries. We now target hotels but in future, we could expand into new markets such as the B2C market, or even license our solution to other mattress retailers. As a result, we can enable other markets to adapt to a more circular mattress buying approach. We also recently got a trademark for our brand name 'MATR,' which provides us with some IP protection and the ability to branch out into new circular economy markets.
Our circular economy mattress design approach: can be applied to all textile industry problems currently being faced in terms of sustainability. As a result, we can branch into other product areas using our circular economy design and innovation expertise.
Our mattress recyclability: can also be applied to other use cases, particularly in the textile industry. We have proven it is possible to make a large bulky mattress fully recyclable and circular, and we have implemented traceability processes to ensure our materials are never lost or end up as waste. This approach can be applied to other industries that require similar outcomes. We see immense value in our innovative approach and even the possibility to license out our material tracking to other mattress retailers and producers. That way, we can help the mattress industry to transition into circular economy approaches which leads to greater impact and less mattress waste.
The lean startup and design thinking approach used to build our circular economy project: can also be replicated in other areas. For example, we could share our learnings and approach with others via educational workshops to inspire wider transition to circular economy approaches in other industries, or use the knowledge and learnings we have gathered thus far to build new ideas in the circular economy space.
1. We provide the tourism and travel sector, 10% of global GDP (WTTC), with a circular economy solution that enables them to transition to better sustainability practices through something as simple as mattress purchasing. As a result, we change the status quo on 'business as usual' and show the industry that they have the power to make positive impact through their purchasing decisions.
2. Our solution can put an end to mattress waste. This is a global problem that needs to be addressed for a more sustainable future. Today, millions upon millions of mattresses end up in landfill or being incinerated every year. This huge waste has to stop, and it can stop through simply changing the way mattresses are designed and used. At MATR, we are on a mission to end this waste problem.
3. We lead the way in mattress recyclability: providing local municipalities and governments with new approaches to mattress refurbishment and recycling that enables them to become more sustainable, whilst building policy and regulation around the mattress recycling requirements needed to make a positive change in the industry and beyond.
4. We provide premium, healthy sleep experiences: sleep is the pillar of health for everyone. Our mattresses are made from the highest quality materials, provide ultimate comfort and breathability and are allergy friendly and vegan. We take pride in the positive reviews we receive from test customers and the fact we can provide healthy sleep. We have an average rating of 4.9 stars out of 5 stars from our first 4 hotel test customers.
5. We prove that it is possible to disrupt large, traditional industries and implement circular economy solutions. As a young, female founded company, we have overcome many hurdles to prove that a circular economy mattress is in fact possible. Now, we are ready to share our learnings and help other industries to adapt, and to support EU-wide regulations being implemented that help this transition.
