On average, a European citizen produces half a ton of waste a year. This amounts to 2.5 billion tons yearly for the entire European Union.
The Joint Initiative on Circular Economy (JICE) is a partnership between the EU’s largest national promotional banks and institutions and the European Investment Bank to invest at least €10 billion in the circular economy by 2023.
It provides loans, equity investment, guarantees, innovative financing structures and technical assistance.
The initiative will support projects that prevent and eliminate waste, increase resource efficiency and promote circular business models. Eligible projects can be submitted to the respective JICE partners.
European project BIOnTop obtains promising results in development of new recyclable and compostable packaging. In its first year, BIOnTop has achieved good results in its experimental work on copolymers and compounds with customized biodegradability and multifunctional coating solutions with customized properties.
The Coordination Group decided, in autumn 2019, to create focus groups to hold in-depth discuss and deliver orientations on priority topics.
Textiles are a vast category. The ECESP leadership group on textile focused on the TGLF value chain. Their discussion focused on ways to address essential challenges from a social, environmental and economic perspective.
The Pop-Machina project is an EU-funded research project exploring the maker movement contributions to cities’ transition to the circular economy.
This 2nd deliverable 'Mapping the maker community ecosystem and the urban metabolism processes' draws a collection of definitions to characterise the circular maker movement. A set of original tools, including a decision tree, a taxonomy, indicators and maps of the circular maker movement are developed to delineate the circular maker movement, with a focus on the Pop-Machina seven pilot cities.
Eventually, pilot story-boards present the current status of the circular maker movement in the city, with the disclosure of the circular maker passports, characterising the movement in each pilot.
The CirQuality OWL plus project is funded by the EU (ERDF) and the Federal State North-Rhine Westfalia with the aim of fostering the circular economy in the area of Eastern Westfalen-Lippe (OWL).
Several regional partners from different fields (from energy to technologies to food to universities and associations) have teamed up to use the circular economy to get the region off the ground in an innovative, crisis-proof, resilient and sustainable way. Together, they organise events and strive to meet the following goals:
Qualification of future specialists and managers for the circular economy
Circular Supply Chain Management Solutions (SSCM)
Turnaround to circular thinking and economics in the building sector
Waste and circular economy of the future in the OWL region.
The aim of Poland's Roadmap towards the Transition to the Circular Economy (CE), which was adopted in 2019, is twofold: first, to identify cross-cutting measures capable of having the broadest possible impact in Poland, both socially and economically; and second, to prioritise areas that will enable Poland to take advantage of its current opportunities, and to deal with existing or future challenges.
The Roadmap focusses on 5 areas in particular:
Sustainable industrial production
Sustainable consumption
Bioeconomy
New business models
implementation, monitoring and financing of CE.
The Roadmap includes a set of tools, which are not purely legislative, to create the conditions for a new economic model in Poland.
AIMPLAS, the Plastics Technology Centre, is coordinating a project called C-SERVEES to develop more circular products like washing machines, laser printers and toner cartridges, TV sets and telecom equipment.
Greater circularity and more efficient use of materials present new opportunities for further reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A new methodology can help to identify which circular economy actions in each sector can make the most promising contributions to meeting targets to reduce emissions and to achieving climate neutrality in Europe.
In the buildings sector, selected circular economy actions can lead to reductions of up to 61 % in the materials-related greenhouse gases emitted across buildings’ life cycles.
In 2019 the European Commission set out a policy guideline to address global environmental challenges and circularity. EURATEXand its members welcome the ambition of the EU Institutions to change the old way and commit to engage with all relevant parties to deliver and implement a new Textile Strategy to boost the circular economy and be fit for the present and future generations.
This strategy by EURATEX is a starting point, with insights into solutions based on a 14-month consultation with members, involving over 100 companies and key stakeholders, focused on applied circular practices and future opportunities. It prioritises removing barriers to a large-scale uptake of circular economy in textiles, sets out 12 key points and puts forward 38 proposals.
