Finnish company Pa-Ri Materia gives used office furniture a second life by refurbishing and selling it. The company purchases some of the furniture it recycles, while certain companies pay for their furniture to be recycled or reused.
The Finnish foodtech company, Solar Foods, produces natural single-cell protein using simply renewable electricity and air, called Solein®. They bring to the market an entirely new kind of food that is both natural, and not dependent on agriculture, climate or the weather. The protein can be made in tough environmental conditions, such as the desert, the Arctic, or possibly even in space.
TOMRA's Circular Economy Division was established in January 2019 to speed up the transformation to a circular economy and shape future waste and resource systems.
TOMRA’s cutting-edge sorting technologies retain valuable resources by extracting high-purity fractions from mixed waste and metal streams in the most remote parts of the world. Its technology and equipment has been used in the world’s most advanced recycling plants.
TOMRA is the world leader in reverse vending solutions. It provides an automated method for collecting, sorting and handling used beverage containers for recycling or reuse. TOMRA has approximately 80 000 reverse vending machines in more than 60 markets.
In the Latvian town of Pļaviņas, Pļaviņu Gymnasium's circular canteen will provide students with nutritious, healthy food with a focus on waste minimisation and environmentally-friendly transportation.
Curaden Slovakia, the Slovak branch of the Swiss company Curaden AG, collects used toothbrushes for recycling in Slovakia. The company has been encouraging consumers to recycle their end-of-life products since 2017 through public awareness campaigns.
The Regional Association of Solid Waste Management Agencies of Central Macedonia and the Hellenic Ministry of the Environment and Energy present the pilot project "No more Christmas trees in landfills". The project recycles discarded trees, using the wood chips as a secondary raw material to make pellets, biofuels and chipboards, and as organic waste for composting.
The main objective of the INSIGHT project is to develop a new professional profile: theindustrial symbiosis facilitator, who helps transition towards the design of a common curriculum and learning approach.
DuCoop invests in sustainable technologies for the Nieuwe Dokken, the new circular districts in Ghent. The cooperative DuCoop provides systems for decentralized water sanitation with water re-use, 4thgeneration district heating and smart energy management. The company contributes to the climate ambitions of the city of Ghent, by closing the loops on water, energy and nutrients.
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has released a report on tackling plastic waste using circular solutions, with a focus on the opportunities chemical recycling provides. After highlighting the scale of the issue, the report presents different ways of solving the plastic waste issue by comparing the impacts of different waste treatment options and technologies, such as pyrolysis. The report concludes that:
“To tackle the colossal societal and environmental issue of plastic waste, we need proportionally meaningful efforts from the private and public sectors as well as society at large that encompass behaviors and habits. The ultimate solutions will involve a combination of judicious consumption and disposal measures.
In March 2019, the Italian Circular Economy Network hosted a national conference on the circular economy, where it presented this Report on the Italian circular economy in 2019. Based on the methodology used, comparing the 5 most important European economies, Italy is the top performer in terms of circular economy implementation, ahead of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain (in this order). While Italy’s position has remained unchanged compared to the previous year, there are some small signs of a slowdown which must be taken into account.
The report makes the following 10 proposals for a circular economy in Italy:
Spread and enrich circular vision, knowledge, research and good practices
The Ecopreneur.eu landscape review of circular economy policy in the EU Member States aims to inspire these countries to accelerate their circular transition. Combining the EU's Monitoring Framework with other rankings, databases and reports, Ecopreneur presents 28 country profiles using a mix of quantitative data and qualitative information to highlight specific indicators. These range from waste generated per capita to voting behaviour on EU proposals on the circular economy.
The report also describes the current performance, initiatives, most relevant organisations, policies, challenges and examples of good practice for each Member State. The country profiles show 28 unique different trajectories towards the circular economy.
The Circular Economy Competences, Making the Case for Lifelong Learning report, published by ACR+ and Zero Waste Scotland , builds on the workshop these orgnisations hosted in the Euroepan Parliament on 19 February 2019. It gathers the experiences participants shared in that workshop, and is meant to help educators, policymakers and managers of NGOs involved in training and educational organisations to promote the development of local circular economy loops.
The three chapters of this booklet cover different areas of the lifelong learning landscape:
Circular thinking in education
Upskilling waste, repair & reuse industry
Facilitating the transition towards a circular economy.
Businesses across Europe are fully engaged to maximise the value of materials, transition to circular business models and achieve a circular economy. This can be best achieved through a functioning market for secondary raw materials (SRMs) and circular products. A real market for SRMs requires a global level-playing field with similar regulatory frameworks and standards, but within the EU several challenges and untapped opportunities still remain. Among others, BusinessEurope recommends policy-makers to put more emphasis on removing inconsistencies and filling the gaps in the current policy framework, starting with a better implementation of the existing waste acquis, including more guidance to Member States and performing ex-post impact assessments on the benefits of full compliance.
The "No time to waste: unlocking the circular potential of the Baltic Sea Region" report, prepared by Politiyka Insight for the 10th annual forum of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) attempts to review the state of circular economy in that region, while assessing the challenges and opportunities connected with a circular transition. The report also looks into the future by trying to identify key trends that will impact the BSR countries until 2030, and on that basis project the future development of the circular economy, along with alternative scenarios.
The report shows that as of 2019 only Finland and Germany have adopted a circular economy strategy, while Poland, Estonia and Sweden are drafting one.
This preliminary study stimulates public debate on the circular economy in Germany and serves as a basis for discussion within the recently launched Circular Economy Initiative Deutschland. With a sizeable industry, there is substantial opportunity for Germany to adopt circular policies, but this paradigm shift would mean no less than a reinterpretation of the "Made in Germany" model.
In the past years, both the European Union and several Member States have adopted circular economy strategies to transition to a resource-efficient economy based on keeping resources in use for longer. While countries outside Europe also follow this guiding principle in their industrial and resource policies, e.g. China, Japan or Canada, such a plan is still missing in Germany.
The paper provides an overview of the literature on Circular Economy (CE) theoretical approaches, strategies and implementation cases. After analyzing different CE approaches and the underlying principles the paper then proceeds with the main goal of developing tools for CE implementation. Two tools are presented: a CE Strategies Database, which includes 45 CE strategies that are applicable to different parts of the value chain and secondly a CE Implementation Database, which includes over 100 case studies categorized by Scope, Parts of the Value Chain that are involved, as well as by the used Strategy and Implementation Level. An analysis of the state of the art in CE implementation is also included in the paper.
Circular economy increasingly attracts the interest of business, policy makers and academia in the search for answers to sustainability challenges. While earlier studies have presented drivers that support the introduction of new business concepts for circular economy, as well as barriers that hinder the rate of innovation in the field, no systematic categorizations of such factors have been brought forward.
Drawing on current literature, a framework of drivers and barriers is introduced, including seven distinct areas: environmental, economic, social, political and institutional, technological and informational, supply chain, and organizational factors. The appearance and content of these areas in practice have been examined in four case organizations.
The transition to a more circular economy is underway. But what can be done to speed it up? This report, authored by Institut Montaigne, recommends five principles that must drive circular economy policy:
focus on innovation
adopt a comprehensive, global approach
take into account differences between sectors and enhance public / private cooperation
High-level foresight conference on positioning sustainable and circular bioeconomies in Central and Eastern Europe to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
The Making It Circular Challenge is a two-day event on circular economy for plastics in Europe. This free-of-charge event will take place online on 29-30 September 2021.
The European Union, the Canada Plastic Pact, the Circular Economy Coalition and the project Reducing Plastic Waste in Canada are hosting a WCEF21 two-hour Accelerator Session on circular economy for plastics with a focus on global supply chains on 15 September 2021.
According to the UN, in 2021 each person on the planet will produce on average 7.6 kg of e-waste, meaning that a massive 57.4 million tonnes will be generated worldwide. Only 17.4% of this electronic waste, containing a mixture of harmful substances and precious materials, will be recorded as being properly collected, processed and recycled.
Many initiatives are underway to tackle this growing concern, but none of them can be fully effective unless consumers are properly informed and really play their part. This year’s International E-Waste Day will focus on the crucial part each of us has to play in making circularity a reality for e-products.
The building and infrastructure sectors show high potential for circularity given their significant resource and energy consumptions. Despite several EU initiatives in the sector, little attention is given to sustainable and circular infrastructure. ENEA, Alchemia-Nova, Innowo, the ECESP Coordination Group on construction and infrastructure and the ECESP invite you to the twin #EUCircularTalks on 28 and 30 September at 10:00 a.m. CEST.
Join us and learn more on connections between the construction and infrastructure value chain and the other value chains, and also the strength and weaknesses of using secondary materials in the market.
This hybrid event, Mazovia Circular Congress, part of Circular Week 2021, will take place on 15 October. It is aimed at representatives of public administration, local government, enterprises, managers dealing with sustainable development and CSR, start-ups and media. We also plan to organise a panel discussion for various stakeholder groups (entrepreneurs, non-governmental organisations, representatives of state administration and local government) on how to use circular economy solutions.
The design stage will determine up to 80% of a product’s environmental impact. Designing better is key to reduce this impact. But what do these principles mean in practice for textiles? Where are the gaps in current standards and benchmarks, and how can we account for the variability of textile products when deciding on specific ecodesign criteria?
ECOS, OVAM, EMF, EuroCommerce, the Policy Hub, the Leadership Group on Textile and ECESP invite you on 9 November at 10:00 CET to this #EUCircularTalks event to discuss and expand the current Ecodesign directive to include textiles and within the upcoming EU Textile Strategy. Speakers and experts will set the scene for the forthcoming SPI and provide the theoretical framework for applying eco-design principles to textile products. Business owners will present cases of how they used these ideas in practice.
The participatory info session Circular solutions for regions and cities – how to make it work will take place on Wednesday 13 October, 11:00 a.m. (CEST). Participants will learn more about the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI), which offers possibilities for cities and regions, ranging from knowledge-sharing and technical expertise to financial opportunities, and get insights and experiences from the local perspective.
Last days to register to an online webinar on 15 September: RREUSE, the European network of social enterprises active in re-use, repair and recycling, is delighted to share with you an invitation to its second episode of the series Let's Get Talking, with Lakshmi Narayan.
The aim of this series is to address and explore social value within the circular transition, a topic RREUSE hopes to bring at the heart of discussions on circular policies and re-use/secondhand.
Encourage individuals and organizations to contribute to a more sustainable use of electronics by sharing tips and inspiring others to re-use products with the hashtag #CircularElectronicsDay!
Scientific journal Nature addresses setting up an international platform to share data and experiences, and coordinating industrial policies and trade to conserve resources and energy.
The European Commission’s Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance is inviting stakeholders to give their feedback, and is hosting a series of expert workshops. Register before 4 January 2019!
On December 6, European Commissioner for the Environment Karmenu Vella and other EU representatives met Romanian government ministers and civil society leaders including ECESP Coordination Group member Dr Elena-Simina Lakatos.
Polish Circular Hotspot builds on COP24 to sign cooperation agreement with circular networks across Europe, including ECESP Coordination Group member Circular Change.
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the initiative "Towards an EU Product Policy Framework contributing to the Circular Economy".
The 7th European Environmental Evaluators Network Forum addressed the impact of evaluating environment and climate policies, including policies enabling the circular economy.
