Scaling up bio-based industries can strengthen the EU’s strategic autonomy and competitiveness, foster innovation and create growth and jobs.

The study focuses on three product classes within the bio-based industry that demonstrate significant potential for scaling up: (i) bio-based materials and chemicals, (ii) innovative food and feed ingredients and (iii) bio-based soil nutrients and enhancers.

Key recommendations include leveraging Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking flagship grant applications to build a pipeline of promising projects, expanding the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund model to enable high-risk investment in early-stage bio-based ventures, and creating an eligibility checker for bioeconomy and circular economy projects.

Drawing on cross-sector case studies from construction and food to finance and retail, this white paper illustrates how circularity is being translated into business models, procurement systems and design strategies.

It looks at systems thinking, industrial ecology, design innovation, business models, enabling mechanisms and behavioural change – all of which are key to understanding and implementing circularity across business and policy contexts.

The paper finds that organisational culture, leadership and behavioural change are as critical as technical solutions; EU policy momentum is accelerating uptake through regulation, finance and public procurement; and businesses that embed circularity across functions and align it with broader sustainability goals are best positioned for the future.

In a changing political landscape, the implementation of circular economy strategies presents significant potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing fossil fuel use and altering trade dynamics. Circular economy strategies related to material reduction, reuse and recovery complement industrial decarbonisation measures and have the potential to double GHG savings by 2050.

Through a multi-method analysis, this study shows that an ambitious circular economy scenario can yield substantial annual GHG savings across selected energy-intensive sectors and decrease EU imports, reducing trade dependency and increasing the trade balance by over EUR 30 billion compared to the decarbonised baseline.

This report addresses the question of whether Flanders, with its limited space, will be able to produce enough biomass in the future to supply the bioeconomy and continue to feed the increasing population.

Four scenarios were used, providing insight into the demand development for biobased raw materials for feed, food, fuel and fibre.

It found that:

• An open economy, with international imports/exports of bio-based raw materials, is crucial for a small, densely populated and prosperous region like Flanders.
• Long-term collaboration with other regions and countries is a strategic necessity. The energy transition, protein shift and circular transition must be streamlined to run synergistically. This can reduce the pressure on raw bio-materials.

The summary is in English.

Every five years, the European Environment Agency publishes a state of the environment report.

The 2025 report stresses that climate change and environmental degradation pose a direct threat to Europe’s competitiveness, which depends on natural resources. Protecting natural resources, mitigating and adapting to climate change, and reducing pollution will build the resilience of vital societal functions that depend on nature, such as food security, drinking water and flood defences.

We need to rethink the links between our economy and the natural environment, land, water and natural resources. The circular economy is part of this dynamic, and is addressed in chapter 4 on Managing the dynamic between our economy and our natural resources.

This policy brief aims to shed light on the circular economy’s role as a systems approach to delivering the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and addressing the global biodiversity crisis.

The circular economy does not explicitly feature in the GBF. It is often narrowly associated with waste reduction, particularly in the plastics sector. This risks obscuring the broad potential of circular approaches across sectors to help achieve biodiversity objectives, including through improved resource use, sustainable land management and funding mobilisation. 

The brief underscores the circular economy’s potential to transform the whole economic system into one that values, preserves and regenerates nature – a transformation essential to the GBF’s long-term success.

Plastics are essential to modern healthcare, enabling safe, sterile, and reliable care across hospitals, clinics, and community settings. From gloves and gowns to IV bags, packaging and rigid devices, they support infection prevention and patient safety. Yet their widespread single-use has major consequences: mounting waste, rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and escalating costs. 

This report quantifies the environmental and financial impacts of single-use plastics in the European and North American healthcare sectors across seven high-volume product categories, and highlights five circular economy strategies that could, by 2040, cut single-use plastics waste by 53%, reduce GHG emissions by 55%, and deliver annual savings of $18 billion without compromising patient safety.

This report examines how materials enter the economy, whether they re-enter it and, if not, how they leave it - either as waste or emissions. 

Various sub-indicators support each of the headline indicators (Circular; Linear; Potentially circular, potentially linear, which is to say net additions of virgin materials to stocks, such as buildings, infrastructure and machinery, that can either be recycled or wasted at their end-of-life) to give a sense of where we are, where we’re heading and where targets are needed to drive action in the right direction. 

The report finds that of all materials entering the global economy in 2021, 6.9% were secondary materials - a decrease of 0.3 percentage points since 2018. Furthermore, of the total exiting the economy, only 11.2% was recycled.

This roadmap is designed to enable national governments to shift from a linear to a circular economic model.

Mislabeling of plastic packaging and value chain losses due to miscommunication between countries in Global South-South and North-South relations have been a pressing issue in mitigating plastic pollution globally. This review examines how consumer labels detailing recyclability, compostability and environmental impact can:

• Enable informed, sustainable consumption
• Prevent greenwashing
• Support trade harmonisation
• Align with circular economy imperatives

The review highlights the urgent need for a comprehensive overhaul of plastic labelling practices, particularly in developing countries. It recommends standardising and improving labelling practices, offering a road map for policymakers to enhance environmental protection and facilitate consumer education and awareness of material choices.