Europe generates considerable post-consumer textile waste (around 25kg per person in 2025), but the system captures and qualifies only a fraction for recycling.

This report, prepared by the Boston Consulting Group, finds that: 

• A viable European textile-to-textile system requires major investment but is not deemed to be profitable.
• Enabling mechanisms coordinating the chain and sharing risk are needed to bridge the economics gap. 
• Textile-to-textile recycled fibres are a new product category answering a planetary need for circularity, but with structurally higher prcessing costs. Under current conditions, they will not be cost-competitive with existing recycled routes.

Electric vehicles are rapidly transforming the transportation landscape. Circularity solutions, namely recycling and second-life applications, are central to addressing environmental impacts and securing access to valuable materials in electric vehicle batteries (EVBs).

Consolidating lessons learnt from the BATRAW project, this report identifies three key enabling conditions for scaling up circularity applications for EVBs in the EU: (i) effective implementation of the EU policy framework underpinned by the Batteries Regulation; (ii) strengthened financial support for scaling up battery circularity applications; and (iii) further harmonisation of the standardisation landscape impacting EVB circularity. 

This study explores how social ties and social impact can be accounted for in circular economy initiatives. 

It examines how a local project managing organic waste and unsold goods fosters social ties in a priority urban neighborhood in France, and how these dynamics can be grasped using an alternative qualitative accounting approach. 

It identifies key creators of social ties within local initiatives, proposes a social balance sheet highlighting factors that stimulate or undermine these ties and introduces a methodological approach for counting or recounting social impact in circular economy projects.

Businesses are key drivers of regional transformation. Support from public authorities and cooperation with research institutions, local administrations and networks is key to overcoming barriers and unlocking the potential of the circular economy.

This publication shows how companies in rural regions can drive the transition towards a circular economy. Drawing on examples from German and European model regions, it highlights how local enterprises implement circular business models, what opportunities arise for regional value creation and resilience, and which policy and governance frameworks can foster this transformation.

The findings show that the circular economy is not only an ecological necessity but also a strategic pathway towards sustainable and resilient regional development.

Bio-based plastics are wholly or partly derived from biomass and so help reduce reliance on fossil fuel-based plastics.

Feedstocks include primary and secondary sources. Agricultural and forestry residues and post-consumption organic waste have lower environmental impacts than primary feedstock but collection and transportation issues make scaling up a challenge.

As a whole, the sector is struggling to achieve real scale: bio-based plastics account for only 0.5% of global plastics production and are projected to reach 1% by 2030. 

Scaling is hampered by feedstock sustainability, competitiveness, technological maturity and cost: currently, producing bio-plastic is generally 1.5 to 2 times more expensive than conventional plastics.

This briefing presents key air pollutant trends and projections for energy-intensive industries in Europe. 

It looks at how greenhouse gas emissions have fallen over the past two decades, but improvements in this area have stalled in the last ten years. Further progress will require the implementation of environmental legislation and transformative change in emission-intensive processes.

The briefing also looks at decarbonisation and circularity. Both approaches, particularly electrification, offer significant co-benefits for pollution prevention. A clear understanding of these co-benefits and risks should be used to guide investments and maximise environmental, health and competitiveness gains.

This report proposes a bold new idea for EU waste policy: an EU-wide cap-and-trade system to cut residual municipal waste – the waste that remains after prevention, reuse and recycling. 

Instead of pushing waste from landfill to incineration, the proposed scheme would put a binding limit on total residuals, creating a strong incentive for waste prevention, reuse, refill and high-quality recycling. 

The report also explains why major mineral and combustion wastes should be treated separately, and outlines how a fair, per-capita system could work in practice across the Member States, supported by robust monitoring and verification.

This white paper provides one of the first action frameworks for the circular transition of the hospitality industry. It shows how circular strategies are both essential for the long-term wellbeing of the destinations, ecosystems and communities on which hospitality depends and a clear business imperative.

It identifies 10 key systemic barriers hindering progress, including the absence of a shared industry framework. In response, it focuses on 5 strategic opportunities through which circularity can help overcome these challenges: procurement, operations, built environment, business and guest culture, and destinations. To support wider adoption and scale impact, the paper also identifies 6 key enablers that can help unlock circularity across the whole value chain.

This report aims to provide a diagnostic to underpin the Clean Industrial Deal and the Single Market Strategy. It responds to calls from businesses to prioritise competitiveness.

The circular economy is identified as one of the keys to making the EU more competitive. The report looks at the barriers to this transition, such the higher cost of secondary raw materials, the difficulty of scaling up and replicating solutions in a fragmented market and diverging national regulatory frameworks which hinder the development of enhanced supply chains and discourage upscaling innovative recycling facilities.

The Critical Raw Materials Act and Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will enhance conditions for circular business models and the circular transition needs to pick up the pace.

From a circular economy perspective, maintaining most of a building's structure is preferable to building a new one.

Repurposing offices into housing can expand affordable supply in high-demand areas while supporting inclusion and climate objectives.

This report aims to inform policymaking by exploring examples from various EU regions and identifying regulatory, technical, financial and social aspects that enable successful conversions of offices to affordable housing. It also highlights the multiple benefits of repurposing non-residential buildings into housing and provides insights into essential measures for scaling up such initiatives.