European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform

CECIMO has published a report underlining how the shift towards a circular economy calls for a prominent role of manufacturing. Within it, the machine tool sector plays a crucial role. Machine tools already have multiple lifetimes and embrace some key principles of the circular economy. But there is always room for improvement.

The sector can invest in advanced manufacturing technologies, but also build upon the existing good practices. This would lead to improved productivity and resource efficiency, and consumers enjoying products that last longer and use less energy.

The report also makes recommendations to the industry and policy makers.

Waste and pollution from the production of textiles and clothing have become critical global issues. This report launched by Ecopreneur.eu and the European Sustainable Business Federation calls for decisive policy measures based on 5 pillars:

• Innovation policies: funding research programmes, investment tax deduction, support for technological development and SMEs.
• Economic incentives: procurement, extended producer responsibility, VAT, tax shift.
• Regulation: common regulatory framework for transparency and traceability, circular design, improved end-of-waste status.
• Trade policies: facilitating export of reusable textile waste and avoiding negative social impacts in producing countries.
• Voluntary actions: covenants, commitments and standards to engage stakeholders.

The Circular Prague report is a visual roadmap that identifies the strategies that are best positioned to kick-start the Czech capital’s transition towards a circular economy.

The report marks the culmination of Prague’s Circle City Scan; a 12-month collaborative innovation process involving local government, research organisations and businesses. The collaborative Circle City Scan process has highlighted the potential to promote circular lifestyles in ReUse Hubs using public procurement, to boost the construction through circular procurement, and  to use the city’s food waste as biomethane to power the city’s waste collection fleet.
 

The concept of circular economy is becoming increasingly important in the textile industry. This study examines options for establishing closed fibre cycles in the clothing and fashion industry. It provides a detailed background analysis on fibre cycles in Europe and Germany, describes the biggest drivers and obstacles and evaluates selected technologies for textile fibre recycling.

The analysis is based on an in-depth literature review, paired with findings from a focus group session conducted as part of the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) International Congress 2018. In addition, more than 20 experts working in the textile sector shared their candid views for the analysis.

The study was commissioned by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

The policy brief discusses Circular Economy Business Models (CBM), gives several examples and considers the challenges and solutions facing policymakers. It makes a number of recommendations to regions to speed up the development of CBMs ‒ something this brief argues regions are in a good position to do ‒ and shares several good practices from Interreg Europe projects. It should be read in conjunction with the Interreg webinar on CBMs webinar on Circular Economy Business Models. It also briefly sketches EU policies in this area and offers some practical funding and networking tips.

In a circular economy, assets are no longer sold. Rather, the assets are collectively maintained by a network of stakeholders involved in the ongoing functioning of the assets - the circular service (CISE) network.

A CISE network however requires unprecedented levels of cooperation and coordination between participants, leading to high administrative costs and the need for trust and transparency in the network. CISE networks are a totally different way of doing business, requiring different financial, legal and governance structures. Would it be possible for assets to be owned and procured by a network that creates value from them? Could this, simultaneously, reduce administrative costs?

Explore how city governments around the world are taking action to enable circular economy opportunities that deliver on a range of mayoral priorities, Sustainable Development Goals, and climate objectives. The EMF has launched Circular Economy in Cities with a global reference on the topic.

1. Vision: What will the implementation of circular economy principles in cities look like?
2. Factsheets: What benefits can a circular economy transition in key urban systems bring to cities?
3. Policy levers: What can urban policymakers do to accelerate this transition?
4. Case studies: What examples are there of urban policymakers already putting this into action?
5. Other networks & resources: What are other organisations doing on the topic of circular economy and cities?

The garden, outdoor power and power tools industries have developed a joint position paper on the different principles of the circular economy the industries are already applying.

Given the proximity to nature and to the natural environment, these industries are committed towards protecting the environment and are already taking measures to minimise the life-cycle impact of products in the environment addressing the following issues:

• Design of durable and reliable products
• Application of material efficiency and hazardous substances substitution
• Limiting noise and exhaust emissions
• Reparability and extending product lifetime
• Integrating recyclability and safe waste management aspects at the design stage
• Limiting packaging and its impacts
• New business models.

Circular economy strategies have been under development in European cities, regions, and countries in the last few years. 33 strategies have been adopted since 2014, and at least 29 more are under development. Existing strategies were reviewed for this study, to identify similarities and differences, and to assess the involvement of civil society organisations, and potential for collaboration.

The study argues that documents developed in the future should put more focus on including broader sections of value chains, and on ensuring inclusive partnership approaches in all phases of the strategy’s cycle. To date, circular economy strategies show different degrees of inclusiveness in terms of value chains and partner involvement.

The opportunities in the reuse and service-life extension of manufactured objects are fairly well documented. But a huge innovation potential lies dormant in the Circular Industrial Economy: the reuse and service-life extension of manufactured molecules. The latter is under-researched and under-exploited: reusing atoms and molecules in loops of highest purity, instead of recycling mixed wastes, is a challenge which involves chemistry on several levels, including the design of new molecules and mini-mill technologies to de-link existing materials. Innovative non-destructive and non-mixing collection and sorting processes will also need to be developed. Policy Innovation could close the invisible liability loop, by legislating an Extended Producer Liability.