This policy brief aims to shed light on the circular economy’s role as a systems approach to delivering the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and addressing the global biodiversity crisis.

The circular economy does not explicitly feature in the GBF. It is often narrowly associated with waste reduction, particularly in the plastics sector. This risks obscuring the broad potential of circular approaches across sectors to help achieve biodiversity objectives, including through improved resource use, sustainable land management and funding mobilisation. 

The brief underscores the circular economy’s potential to transform the whole economic system into one that values, preserves and regenerates nature – a transformation essential to the GBF’s long-term success.

Plastics are essential to modern healthcare, enabling safe, sterile, and reliable care across hospitals, clinics, and community settings. From gloves and gowns to IV bags, packaging and rigid devices, they support infection prevention and patient safety. Yet their widespread single-use has major consequences: mounting waste, rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and escalating costs. 

This report quantifies the environmental and financial impacts of single-use plastics in the European and North American healthcare sectors across seven high-volume product categories, and highlights five circular economy strategies that could, by 2040, cut single-use plastics waste by 53%, reduce GHG emissions by 55%, and deliver annual savings of $18 billion without compromising patient safety.

This report examines how materials enter the economy, whether they re-enter it and, if not, how they leave it - either as waste or emissions. 

Various sub-indicators support each of the headline indicators (Circular; Linear; Potentially circular, potentially linear, which is to say net additions of virgin materials to stocks, such as buildings, infrastructure and machinery, that can either be recycled or wasted at their end-of-life) to give a sense of where we are, where we’re heading and where targets are needed to drive action in the right direction. 

The report finds that of all materials entering the global economy in 2021, 6.9% were secondary materials - a decrease of 0.3 percentage points since 2018. Furthermore, of the total exiting the economy, only 11.2% was recycled.

This roadmap is designed to enable national governments to shift from a linear to a circular economic model.

Mislabeling of plastic packaging and value chain losses due to miscommunication between countries in Global South-South and North-South relations have been a pressing issue in mitigating plastic pollution globally. This review examines how consumer labels detailing recyclability, compostability and environmental impact can:

• Enable informed, sustainable consumption
• Prevent greenwashing
• Support trade harmonisation
• Align with circular economy imperatives

The review highlights the urgent need for a comprehensive overhaul of plastic labelling practices, particularly in developing countries. It recommends standardising and improving labelling practices, offering a road map for policymakers to enhance environmental protection and facilitate consumer education and awareness of material choices.

This study aimed to establish a Material Flow Analysis model (MFA) for the whole value chain of plastics in the EU-27 in 2022, from polymers production to end-of-life plastic management and recyclates production.

The MFA analysis focused on nine sectors (Packaging, Construction, Transport, Electronic, Agriculture, Textiles, Healthcare, Fishing and ‘Other’). Thanks to the granularity of data achieved in this study, these sectors were further detailed via polymer-specific MFAs, capturing a total of 15 different polymers.

Results indicated that packaging and construction are the most important sectors among those assessed, contributing respectively to 33.9% and 18.3% of total plastic consumption. The average end-of-life recycling rate among all sectors is 19.6%.

The transition to circularity in the EU needs support from policymakers and stakeholders at all levels – and that will require indicators and metrics. Complementary indicators need to be developed which expand the focus of traditional efforts to give greater attention to higher-value circularity activities and allow for the specificity of relevant policy focus areas, economic sectors and material streams.

This document is the final report of a 2-year project to identify and investigate opportunities for innovation in monitoring circularity across the EU. 

It provides a baseline of policy and funding frameworks and monitoring efforts across 11 priority policy themes. 60 indicators were tested as part of the project, with conclusions and recommendations for each of the individual policy areas.

A coalition of European cities has published a policy brief calling on EU institutions to strengthen the enabling framework for local circular economy implementation. The Circular Cities Frontrunner Group, consisting of cities such as Amsterdam, Milan, Malmö, Copenhagen, Turku and Porto, has developed the brief as a shared contribution to the EU’s 2024-2029 political cycle.

The policy brief builds on a joint open letter addressed to Members of the European Parliament in late 2024 and outlines how cities can help scale the circular transition - if the right policy conditions are in place.

The brief contributes to ongoing discussions around the Circular Economy Act, the EU’s competitiveness agenda and the future of multilevel governance.

Leveraging waste wood as a sustainable resource is central to meeting Europe’s rising demand for wood-based products without compromising forests, biodiversity and the climate through virgin wood harvesting. To advance the circular economy and transform waste wood valorisation to meet future demand, digital product passports (DPPs) are an important digital tool for improving waste wood flows. 

This CEPS In-Depth Analysis explores the challenges and opportunities for advancing waste wood valorisation and the circular economy using DPPs. After consulting with experts, some of the challenges and opportunities identified include data availability, access and integration, harmonised DPP content, limited stakeholder capacity and the costs of implementing DPPs.

Shifting to a circular economy, which is nature-positive by design, can build prosperity while tackling climate change and other global challenges. This study shows that a targeted set of investable and scalable actions in the built environment sector represents a significant economic opportunity for Europe, increasing resilience, competitiveness and the vibrancy of its cities. It also aims to show that circular and nature-positive strategies can be applied across sectors.

To illustrate how the benefits of a nature-positive, circular economy can be realised in a tangible, high-impact way, this study focuses on the built environment using new analysis drawn from quantitative modelling and interviews with expert practitioners.