The GO-GRASS White Paper for grassland opportunities demonstrates innovative and diverse ways of considering surplus grass and grasslands as new resources for the benefit of society, the environment and businesses. It shows the importance of a supportive business environment that encourages innovative, grass-based businesses. 

The GO-GRASS project aims to create new business opportunities in rural areas based on grassland valorisation, and to support their replication throughout rural communities in the EU. Since October 2019, the project has connected 22 partners from eight countries, which are developing small-scale demonstration sites for a circular agrifood system in four EU countries - Denmark, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.

This report summarises the essential results from reports on the biodiversity/circular economy nexus prepared by members of the ECESP's Leadership Group on Biodiversity and Climate.

Its main premise is that biodiversity loss is not only an essential problem for our societies and human well-being but also a key business risk. The report argues that while the circular economy is a key tool for advancing towards our environmental targets, its implementation must be centred around biodiversity and climate considerations.

Reducing the demand for primary resources and preventing waste and pollution at product design stage are crucial, as are policies and measures to promote biodiversity protection and restoration.

This European Environment Agency report gives a comprehensive analysis of how the EU is doing in the transition to a more circular economy.

It explores the strong policy push seen under the EU’s Green Deal and looks at ways to speed up the transition.

It also considers what could be done in the future:

• Fostering EU resource independence and lowering imports, for example by setting targets and promoting higher quality recycling
• Increasing circularity by maximising the use and lifespan of products through reuse, repair and remanufacturing
• Focusing on the economics of raw material supply
• Informing future EU policies through research on consumer demand and how to change consumer behaviour
• Embedding just transition principles into future action

Linked to the BATRAW project that develops circular approaches for electric vehicle batteries, this CEPS report delves into the new EU regulatory framework for batteries and the expanding EU digital product passport landscape. It identifies key opportunities and challenges for battery passports based on data collected from companies at different stages of the battery value chain.

The data suggest that the battery passport can help break down information silos among supply chain actors and support recycling and reuse. It also provides opportunities for increasing transparency about carbon footprint impacts across battery supply chains, while creating a level playing field with horizontal requirements for all supply chain actors.

The 2024 edition of the Global Resources Outlook, from the International Resource Panel, shows that it is both possible and profitable to decouple economic growth from environmental impacts and resource use. It sheds light on how resources are essential to the effective implementation of the Agenda 2030 and multilateral environmental agreements to tackle the triple planetary crisis.

It is to be noted that the circular models to be followed are not just about recycling, but about keeping materials in use for as long as possible, and rethinking how goods as well as services are designed and delivered, thereby creating new business models.

The report also describes the potential to turn negative trends around and put humanity on a trajectory towards sustainability.

A modern society needs access to all the critical raw materials (CRM) necessary to maintain and develop its industries, infrastructure and welfare. CRM are especially important for ongoing technology shifts like the European Green Deal and digitalisation processes.

Five milestones must be reached to establish Nordic secondary value chains for CRM:

1. A system that makes it possible to identify waste streams with CRM-recycling potential.
2. A system for cost-effective and efficient collection of waste streams with CRM-recycling potential.
3. A system for separating materials enriched with CRM from other materials in the waste stream.
4. A recycling technology that allows for recovery of all relevant CRM at acceptable rates.
5. Economically sustainable market conditions.

Used clothing exports from the Netherlands totalled more than €193 million in 2022: not an insignificant amount.

Understanding the realities of second-hand clothing markets in export destinations will be crucial to develop appropriate policy at national and supranational levels. The aim is to support the socially equitable and environmentally sustainable processing of used textiles, and ensure that this industry is in line with the EU's 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan and the European Green Deal.

To this end, the report explores what happens to textiles collected in the Netherlands in their various destination countries, and highlights the impacts and risks associated with these exports, as well as how they are addressed.

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is being discussed as a core instrument for building a circular economy, itself a key enabler of climate neutrality. Although there is not yet a standardised, cross-sectoral and cross-company product passport system, there are already individual solutions for collecting information for certain product groups.

A DPP needs to be made available digitally for all stakeholders in order to increase transparency throughout the entire product lifecycle.

This paper answers the following questions:

• Why are politicians pushing for a DPP in connection with the circular economy?
• What is a DPP?
• What already exists?
• What does a DPP need?
• How ready are companies for a DPP? How can a DPP be delivered?
• What would a prototype look like?

Municipalities are seeking to reduce waste generation and increase recycling rates in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Materials that evade recycling are typically landfilled or incinerated.

This study compares cost effectiveness between sorting of mixed waste leftover after separate collection (leftover mixed waste sorting) and the capture of CO₂ from incinerator flue gas for underground storage (carbon capture and storage, CCS).

It has found that the most cost-effective way of delivering system-wide reductions in CO₂ emissions is the sorting system. The least cost-effective means to reduce CO₂ is CCS. Combining the two would achieve the greatest overall reduction and reduce the average cost of reduction to around half the cost of achieving reduction through CCS alone.

Since 2019, Circle Economy Foundation's Circularity Gap Reports have been providing analysis and theory on the global state of circularity. According to the Circularity Gap Report 2024, the circular economy is becoming more popular but failing to deliver.

The 2024 report lays out a roadmap for ambitious change to unlock capital, roll out bold policies and close the skills gap.

The circular economy is now extremely well known: the volume of discussions, debates and articles on it has almost tripled over the past five years. Unfortunately, the rate of global circularity is falling. The share of secondary materials consumed by the global economy actually decreased from 9.1% in 2018 to 7.2% in 2023 - a 21% drop in five years.

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