Alberto Arroyo Schnell is responsible for policy and programmes at the European Regional Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He has held leading positions on EU environmental policy for the past 15 years. His current focus is working together with the key sectors related to / impacted by / benefiting from biodiversity and nature, aiming to find ways to achieve the environmental targets jointly and to ensure ownership of these targets by all stakeholders. He is Spanish, with a background in Forestry Engineering.

Circul’R was established in 2017 and is now a leading voice on the circular economy in France and internationally thanks to the close links it has established with all stakeholders: large companies, VSEs/SMEs, producer responsibility organisations (PROs), public institutions and local governments. Circul’R is firmly committed to supporting organisations - whether public or private - in their transition to circular models and modes of operation.

To achieve this mission, Circul’R works at three levels: 
1. Training - Raising awareness of the circular economy among managers and employees and enhancing their skills in this area.
2. Leading coalitions - Creating and leading coalitions of committed players to set new standards in circularity.
3. Consulting - Support private and public organisations in setting up circular economy projects, from roadmap to operations.

Circul'R has a team of 40 circular economy experts.

With over 10 years of experience in sustainability and the circular economy, Jean has worked across NGOs, public institutions and consulting. He started at the NGO GERES, supporting access to energy  projects, then joined ReLondon to coordinate circular economy initiatives for the Municipality of London, including the “London’s Food Footprint” study. At Circul’R, he now leads projects with private companies and public authorities in France and internationally, supporting the design and implementation of circular strategies. He actively facilitates dialogue between sectors to overcome barriers to circularity, notably through coalitions and collaborative projects. As part of the ECESP Coordination Group, he aims to foster cross-sectoral cooperation and share field insights to advance Europe’s circular transition.

The EEB is the largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations in Europe. It currently consists of over 190 member organisations in 41 countries, including a growing number of networks, and represents some 30 million individual members and supporters.

At the EEB, Eva Bille leads the Circular Economy team, which is active in cross-cutting policy areas which influence the transition towards a truly circular economy. 

At the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Eva leads the Circular Economy team, which is active in cross-cutting policy areas which influence the transition towards a truly circular economy. The EEB is Europe’s largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations with over 180 members in more than 40 countries. 

Prior to working at the EEB, Eva spent over 10 years as an EU policy consultant, working with major companies and trade associations in the Brussels bubble. She has also worked for the European Commission and the UN in Lebanon and spent four years working in China.

She studied economics and graduated with a Master’s Degree in resources, development and growth from Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation works to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Backed by evidence and powered by partnerships across sectors and regions, it is a systems change organisation aiming to reshape markets.

For circular economy solutions to scale, they need innovation, infrastructure and investment. The Foundation identifies where those solutions are ready to take hold and what conditions are needed to unlock their impact at regional and global levels. The Foundation is moving beyond pilots to accelerate global implementation and drive long-term value.

As an independent charity, it mobilises business and policy leaders and helps them to drive the most effective solutions faster and at scale.

Jocelyn Blériot has been with the Foundation since it was set up in 2010, having spent 15 years in the media and publishing industry. Initially in charge of editorial matters, overseeing content development and messaging, he lead the organisation’s institutional engagement and the work with national governments across the Foundation's offices (Europe, Latin America, China, North America). He manages the relationship with supra-national bodies such as the European Commission, the United Nations, the G7/20 Resource Alliance, the OECD and the World Economic Forum. He currently holds the role of Deputy Lead for the China Council for International Cooperation on Development (CCICED) Special Policy Study on Circular Economy, and sits on the international advisory network of the Forum on Trade, Environment and the SDGs (TESS).

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a UK charity which aims to speed up the transition to the circular economy. Since it was set up, the charity has emerged as a global thought leader, putting the circular economy on the agenda of decision makers across business, government and academia.

FEAD is the European Federation representing the European waste management industry. FEAD’s members are national waste management associations covering 19 Member States, Norway and Serbia. They have an approximate 60% share in the household waste market and handle more than 75% of industrial and commercial waste in Europe. Their combined annual turnover is approximately €75 billion. FEAD represents about 3000 companies with activities in all forms of waste management. These companies employ over 320 000 people who operate around 2400 recycling and sorting centres, 1100 composting sites, 260 waste-to-energy plants and 900 controlled landfills. They play an important role in determining the best environmental option for waste management problems.

Sofie works as a policy advisor for the international policy unit at OVAM, the Public Waste Agency of Flanders, which ensures that Flanders deals with waste, materials and soil in a well thought out and environmentally sound manner. Since 1981, OVAM has been developing a balanced mix of economic and regulatory instruments on waste, materials and soil that has made the Region of Flanders one of the frontrunners in Europe in this field.

We are joining forces with our partners in business, civil society, research and government to develop a circular economy, taking a multi-stakeholder participatory approach. Circular Flanders, which was initiated by OVAM, serves as hub, inspiration and matchmaker for the transition to a circular economy in Flanders. We implement measures that go beyond sorting and recycling waste to make a systemic shift from take-make-waste to a new economic model that factors in the scarcity of raw materials and the ecological limits of our planet.

Mercè Boy Roura is a senior researcher and EU project coordinator at the Governance for Sustainability Unit at the BETA Technological Center, based at the University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia (Spain). She is an environmental scientist with a PhD in Experimental Sciences and Sustainability. She has more than 10 years of international experience in research and knowledge transfer projects in the field of sustainability and circular economy, and in particular focusing on the agri-food systems.

She is currently coordinating the Innovative Sustainable Economy (ISE) Mission of the Interreg Euro-MED programme, enhancing the legacy of the previous Interreg MED Green Growth community. The current ISE mission has a broader scope embracing innovation capacities – technological, social, institutional – and practices conducive to more sustainable production and consumption in the region, in line with the European Green Deal and European Cohesion Policy priorities and specific objectives. The ISE Mission is a multi-stakeholder network of projects connecting 155 partners from 18 countries in the Mediterranean region, with a well representation of the 4-ple helix stakeholders. It structures its work around four focus areas: Marine resources, Agri-food systems, Industrial Transition, and Resource Valorisation. Also, it supports projects by increasing their impact at policy level and fostering potential transfer and replication of their results in other regions and by other stakeholders. The ISE Mission is labelled by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), acknowledging its potential to advance cooperation in the transition to a green and circular economy in the Mediterranean region.

SMEunited represents crafts and SMEs in Europe, with around 65 member organisations from over 30 European countries. It is a recognised cross-sectoral European social partner and speaks on behalf of the 26.1 million SMEs in Europe which employ more than 89 million people. SMEunited's work promotes the integration of circular principles into SME business models. It advocates for enabling policies and frameworks at all levels. It translates complex EU frameworks into actionable guidance for SMEs and provides decision makers with reality checks on boosters and blockers for SMEs' circular business models.

Andreas Brieger is Director for Climate, Energy and Environment Policy at SMEunited, representing European SMEs in the green transition. With extensive experience in EU and national public affairs, he previously worked for German and European social partners on climate, energy and economic policy. He is a member of the European Commission’s Ecodesign Forum and the Expert Group on Circular Economy / Sustainable Production and Consumption. A strong advocate for a fair and effective green transition, Andreas is passionate about making circularity a success story for people, SMEs and the planet.