European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform

The FURN360 training course is a set of online modules offering 80 hours of training to understand the shift needed in the furniture industry to move to a circular economy.

The course allows to acquire the knowledge needed to transform an organisation into a circular furniture company, with a comprehensive approach across 8 learning modules:

1. Circular economy: an introduction

2. Circular economy in the furniture industry

3. Circular business model innovation in the furniture industry

4. Business management in the circular furniture industry

5. Sustainability in the circular furniture industry

6. Marketing the circular furniture

7. Supporting through advanced Key Enabling Technologies

8. Mini-case challenge

This review paper of Mark Anthony Camilleri examines relevant regulatory guidelines, policies, and recommendations on sustainable development, where it traces the origins of circular economy (CE). It goes on to shed light on key theoretical underpinnings of CE's closed loop and product service systems.

The findings suggest that the CE's regenerative systems minimise the environmental impact as practitioners reduce their externalities, including waste, emissions, and energy leakages through the use and reuse of resources. Therefore, this contribution offers a critique on CE's inherent limitations and discusses about the implications of having regulatory interventions that are intended to encourage responsible consumption and production behaviours.

Le secteur de l’événementiel est plus que jamais concerné par les enjeux de durabilité et de préservation des ressources. Conscients de la nécessité de concilier l’organisation d’événements et l’économie circulaire, les acteurs du secteur doivent se mobiliser davantage afin de mettre en œuvre les leviers d’action existants.

Dans le cadre de la nouvelle loi française, de nombreuses mesures sont pertinentes:

• Des objectifs de réduction des emballages plastiques et la fin du plastique jetable en 2040
• La lutte contre le gaspillage (alimentaire)
• Les mesures favorisant le réemploi et la réutilisation
• La gestion et la valorisation des déchets
• Les dispositions relatives aux filières à responsabilité élargie des producteurs (REP) engageant une réflexion sur la filière événementielle

Today, only 8.6% of the resources and materials in the global economy are reused or recycled.
A crucial transition to a circular economy is required to reach the environmental goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to achieve countries’ climate targets as set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In this context, it is essential to ensure that the transition to a resource-efficient and circular economic model also delivers on social objectives.

This paper introduces the relevance of the circular economy in the international development SDG context. It also explores how a just transition approach can be successfully applied in the circular economy context.

Despite continuous advances in municipal waste management, there are still several waste streams that offer limited opportunities for material recovery and thus end up in landfills and incineration plants.

One challenging stream is the “bulky waste”, defined by the URBANREC project as “(mixed) waste from households and similar waste from companies that does not fit (because of its size, shape or weight) in the regular receptacles used for household waste collection".

In this context, the URBANREC project aims to develop and implement a comprehensive eco-innovative bulky waste management system (to enhance prevention and reuse, improve logistics and develop new waste treatment methods to obtain high added-value recycled products) and show its effectiveness in different regions.

Research on Remelting and Purification of Si-kerf for PV wafers is part of CABRISS, a European collaboration aimed to develop a circular economy mainly for the photovoltaic but also other industries such as electronics or metallurgy.

During production of silicon wafers out of silicon (Si) ingots and wafers, about 40–50% of the material is lost due to the cutting technique. The research had kerf from slurry based wafer cuttings undergoing several refining steps and being remelted into ingots for PV-application.

Conclusion: With 10%  refined material, ingots were still directionally solidified, whereas with 100% refined material, they were not. The presented refining method does not allow for ingots with 100% refined material to be used as PV-material.

The project Recycling of broken Si based structures and solar cells is part of CABRISS, a European collaboration aimed to develop a circular economy mainly for the photovoltaic (PV), but also for other industries such as electronics or metallurgy.

The paper presents some tests in which broken solar cell structures coming from an early stage in the PV production process chain as well as broken finished solar cells have been recycled into new silicon (Si) feedstock through demetallisation, purification and directional solidification.

The paper explores two different routes to remove diffusion layers and anti-reflection coating (ARC) on broken cells. It also presents the characteristics of ingots produced with the Si-feedstock from the two routes by directional solidification.

In a resource-constrained world the future economy will need to be circular.

From a policy perspective, the question is whether averting catastrophic environmental impacts through an accelerated transition to a global circular economy can also deliver sustained growth and jobs.

Multiregional input−output (MRIO) analysis models the interdependencies between industries and within/between countries as well as between intermediate and final goods producers and consumers, thus providing a useful toolbox for assessing social, environmental, and economy-wide impacts of the adoption of the circular economy.

This research paper resorts to this toolbox to compare the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario to an alternative circular economy scenario.

The EU is currently engaged in two transformations that could change our economy and society for the better: circular economy and digital transformation. If managed well, and in unison, they could help the EU address one of its greatest challenges: to build a sustainable, green economy that is competitive on the global stage.

The publication by the European Policy Centre (EPC) builds on the EPC Task Force on the Digital Roadmap for Circular Economy findings to make recommendations for the EU institutions for the next five years.

The TF explored the linkages between digitalisation and the circular economy, the opportunities created by data and digitally-enabled solutions, and the challenges associated with harnessing their full potential for the transition to a circular economy.

Packaging plastics can offer an almost infinite range of options for manufacturers, both in terms of function and design. Their durability and resistance to degradation means that if they ‘leak’ into the environment, they stay there. Leakage has been increasing rapidly and its detrimental impact, especially on the marine environment, has attracted wide public and political concern.

EASAC established in 2018 an Expert Group to look at scientific aspects of plastics packaging and the circular economy. This report is the result of an 18-month investigation and reviews the negative consequences of the current linear economy for plastic packaging, the scope for improvement towards a more circular pattern and options for increasing recycling rates and reducing leakage into the environment.