The emerging bioeconomy is moving from a research niche to market norm and Europe needs to maintain its current global leadership. The update of the EU Bioeconomy Strategy is a major European Commission wide policy initiative which will be presented and discussed during the Bioeconomy Conference on October 22, in Brussels.
8 millions of cigarette stubs are generated each minute in the world, and 66% of them currently end up in the environment, where they take up to 15 years to decompose. In addition, chemical components in cigarette filters generate residual pollution.
MéGO! offers a pragmatic answer with a service for collecting, sorting and recycling cigarette stubs.
CelluTex is a Swedish advocacy platform that promotes needed actions to ensure production of cellulose-based textiles in Europe, utilizing forest resources and recycled cellulosic textiles, including cotton, as raw materials.
Renewcell's technology dissolves used cotton and other natural fibres into a new, biodegradable raw material: renewcell pulp. It can be turned into textile fibre, be fed into the textile production cycle and meet industry specifications. This is the link that has been missing from the cycle, and will enable the way fashion is produced and consumed to be transformed into a never-ending loop.
CommUnity Eindhoven invites you to be part of the first Entrepreneurship and Energy to Innovation Talks (E2I Talks) organised in Eindhoven. We will have five insightful speakers and discussion on the topic of Circular Economy in Energy.
Zippers and buttons make garment recycling complicated as the removal of such details calls for manual assistance, making the process both costly and time consuming. Resortecs® solves this problem by supplying a thread that simply dissolves at a high temperature.
Join leading and learning cities, policy-makers from European and national governments, businesses, research and finance institutions for the 9th edition of the Local Renewables Series in Freiburg and Basel from 24 to 26 October 2018. This ICLEI conference will showcase practical and innovative examples of how to reduce energy and resource use, and make ideal use of energy sources and other resources in the region.
"Circular Futures - Plattform Kreislaufwirtschaft Österreich" is a solution-oriented multistakeholder platform that brings together professionals across relevant industries, the administration, politics, science and civil society in Austria. Circular Futures acts as a think-tank, incubator, and catalyst for projects and initiatives necessary for a successful transition to a circular economy in Austria.
Circular Futures offers:
Circular Futures AT is a collaboration between the Umweltdachverband and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the Reuse and Repair Network Austria (RepaNet), and the Verband Abfallberatung Österreich (VABÖ).
RREUSE, the European network of social enterprises in re-use, repair and recycling will hold its second annual conference in the city of Nijmegen, Europe’s Green Capital for 2018. High profile speakers and thinkers ranging from European institutions, public authorities, private industry and social enterprises will present their views in order to stimulate this timely debate on how to reach out to citizens in order to support the circular economy and explore the role that social enterprises have in this transition.
SAVE THE DATE: The EEB 2018 Annual Conference will take place on Monday 5 November in Brussels. The website and online registration will be launched later this year. In the meantime, check out the documentation from our 2017 Annual Conference!
The Buildings as Material Banks project and One Planet Network invite you to join them in learning from exemplary initiatives in construction and debating how innovative tools are supporting a systemic shift towards circularity in the built environment through digitalisation, assessment and procurement.
ECOALF is a Spanish fashion company with a sustainable profile. ECOALF makes swimwear from 100 % recycled fabrics made from PET and recycled polyester.
Eurocommerce is organising a high-level conference on scaling up market solutions in retail & wholesale. Conference participants include senior policy-makers and retail executives who will discuss topics ranging from curbing food wate, chemical leasing & recycling and garment fashion.
The National Congress on the Environment (Conama) which will be held for the 114th time in the Palacio Municipal de Congresos de Madrid from 26-29 November. This conference is the benchmark for dialogue on environmental policy and innovation in Spain. The 4-day event expects to host a whole series of activities, conferences, financing workshops, stands and networking spaces for thousands of attendees ranging from company representatives, civil society organisations, scientists, ecologists, politicians, institutions to entrepreneurs.
ECOVATION 2018 is a two-day conference on innovation and Sustainability in Public Procurement organised by the Austrian Service Center for Public Procurement Promoting Innovation on behalf of the Federal Ministries for Digital and Economic Affairs; Transport, Innovation and Technology.
Scotland has been selected as this year's host nation for Circular Economy Hotspot. Zero Waste Scotland plans to host #CEHotspotScot as a major international event and trade mission to showcase Scotland's progressive approach to developing a circular economy and the best of our burgeoning circular businesses to a global audience.
The unmissable programme will include visits to pioneering Scottish businesses, sessions led by the country's foremost names in circular economy policy and innovation, and extensive networking opportunities.
On the 22nd of October, the European Resource Efficiency Knowledge Centre will hold a workshop in Vienna, Austria, on the topic of SMEs, circularity and Cluster organisations .
With more than 1.000 participants over two days, the Congress for resource efficiency and the circular economy is one of the leading conferences on the topic in Germany. In 19 hours 90 different speakers provide input in keynotes and around 15 workshops. Additionally, there is an exhibition part with stands of involved stakeholders.
The Umweltbundesamt will host the 4th European Resources Forum in Berlin from 27 to 28 November 2018. The ERF is a platform for discussion on the issue of sustainable resource use by focusing on the political and scientific debate on this subject and seeks to contribute to the development and implementation of common positions for policy-making in Europe and internationally.
Raubersachen (robbers' loot in German) applies the concept of product-as-a-service to baby clothes, providing parents with a ecological woollen alternatives by refurbishing disposed baby and toddler clothes and renting these out, thus reducing the amount of cheap, low-quality products being bought and keeping baby clothes in circulation far longer.
The European Bioeconomy Congress Lodz 2018 will be held on September 24th, 2018, in Lodz, Poland to support the development of a bioeconomy in the Central and Eastern European Bioregions.
The Estonian Ministry of Environment is organising its first conference on the circular economy for entrepreneurs in retail, mining and manufacturing 17-18 September in Tallinn. This conference will showcase innovative activities and circular business models to entrepreneurs, who can also benefit from one-on-one counselling and specialised workshops for free.
The climate conference in Paris has produced a landmark agreement. The emission reduction commitments made by 195 countries are a leap forward, but not yet sufficient to stay on a 2 °C trajectory, let alone a 1.5 °C pathway. Current commitments address only half the gap between business as usual and the 1.5 °C pathway. There is still a reduction of about 15 billion tonnes CO2e needed to reach the 1.5 °C target. Further solutions are therefore needed; solutions that go beyond decarbonising our energy system. This white paper by Ecofys and Circle Economy looks into the contribution a global circular economy could presumably make to bridging the emissions gap.
Since over half of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions are associated with producing basic materials, there is a clear role for circular economy strategies in reducing this gap. To do this, the circular economy describes a practical and scalable landscape of opportunities by moving towards business models for an economy that is by design regenerative and as waste free as possible. Strategies at the heart of the circular economy include measures to reduce the input of virgin materials, improve the use of existing assets and reduce the output of waste. Circular economy strategies related to materials are: recovery and reuse, lifetime extension, sharing and service models, circular design and digital platforms.
Circular Economy and Employment first summarizes the main definitions and conceptualisations of a circular economy, then clarifies the relationship to related concepts such as green growth and eco-innovation. This report is the outcome of a project estimating the employment effects of a circular economy.
The Circular Economy mainly focuses on savings on the shares of material, labour, energy, and capital embedded in the product. In finite systems it is intended to “design out waste”. An important difference is made between consumables (one or few time usage) and durables (years of usage) products. Material savings can be achieved by already established recycling and remanufacturing activities finally aiming at a “zero waste economy”. More recently, the contribution of green ICT leading to less material inputs (“digital revolution”, e.g. photos are no longer printed but distributed by e-mail or social media), a general greater importance of services, the evolution of the sharing economy (e. g. car sharing) or a higher utilisation rate for products for the circular economy are discussed.
Detailed concepts of green growth from OECD, UNEP, EEA and the Global Green Growth Institute are also considered. Green growth means fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies. Investment and (eco-) innovation activities shall give rise to new, more sustainable sources of growth and development. Moving towards a circular economy may be understood as a tool to achieve a green economy, a circular economy is one of the main elements helping to achieve the greening of an economy.
Britain faces huge economic challenges in its use of labour and scarce natural resources. Although unemployment is now falling, the risk of being out of work is higher in some regions and for some types of occupations. While Britain has significantly increased its resource efficiency in recent years, supply risks in an increasingly competitive global economy mean that we need to get better at using natural resources. A new research study, undertaken jointly by WRAP and the Green Alliance, shows that these challenges are linked: improving our resource efficiency can make a valuable contribution to improving Britain’s labour market situation.
One route to improving resource efficiency is to develop a circular economy. This involves keeping products and resources in use for as long as possible through recovery, reuse, repair, remanufacturing and recycling. In addition to protecting the environment, this potentially offers substantial economic benefits. These include greater economic stability through increased resource security and new business and employment opportunities from an expanding industrial sector. This study focuses on the second aspect and identifies the scope for the growth of the circular economy to offer new jobs.
The study finds that regions where unemployment is higher, such as the North East and the West Midlands, could see the greatest impact on job creation, especially among low to mid-skilled occupations where job losses are projected for the future.
The study finds that if we stay on the current development path for the circular economy in Britain, then by 2030 the sector could:
Alternatively, under a transformational scenario where there was a more extensive expansion of circular economy activities, by 2030 the sector could create over half a million jobs, reduce unemployment by over 100,000 and potentially offset around 18% of the expected future losses in skilled employment.
Aimed at defining, identifying and quantifying employment opportunities that are needed in the circular economy, Circle Economy and the Erasmus Research Institute for Happiness Economics (Ehero) have developed a standardised and replicable methodology that measures circular employment in cities around the world.
Once identified, the circular jobs were categorised according to the seven key elements of the circular economy, showing that a large majority are focused on ‘incorporating digital technology’ and ‘preserving and extending what’s already made’. In the past fifteen years, activities that involve ‘repair & maintenance‘ have remained stable in numbers, with the ‘incorporation of digital technologies’ becoming an up and coming job provider.
In Ghent, Belgium, the circular economy brings together companies, institutions, governments and citizens on the way to sustainability. The Old Dockyards is a waterfront housing project where closing loops at the district level is key. Approximately 1,500 housing units will be constructed through public-private partnerships (PPPs).
