On 6 November 2023, Arthur ten Wolde, ECESP Coordination Group member and Executive Director of Ecopreneur.eu, represented the Platform at a G7-B7 online meeting on Circular Economy and Resource Efficiency Principles. Mr Ten Wolde has been a member of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform since its foundation in 2017.
The meeting was organised as part of the G7 Sapporo Ministers’ Meeting on Climate, Energy and the Environment in Japan. The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the USA and the EU. TheBusiness7 group (B7) is the G7 platform for dialogue with the international business community, consisting of the industry and employers’ associations from the G7 including BusinessEurope.
Gees Recycling's "Retracking" project aims to help lay the groundwork for moving the fibreglass manufacturing sector from a linear to a circular economy by proposing a circular model able to produce a secondary raw material from fibre-reinforced composite waste.
Reliance on electronics comes with steep environmental costs, from mining minerals to disposal of end-of-life devices. As the use of electronic products has grown, their average lifespan becomes shorter. This in turn results in an increased volume of discarded and obsolete electronic devices.
Gruppo FOS in Caserta (Italy) provides a T&G (technology and groupware) Repair Centre and Swap & Repair services for electronic devices.
The transformation into a circular economy entails factoring resource flows into production, sales and consumption processes and thus massively reducing the use of materials (raw or otherwise), as well as the volume of waste and the strain on the environment.
Austria's circular economy strategy therefore aims to:
This International Labour Organization (ILO) report analyses the impact of the transition to low-carbon and resource-efficient economies, providing new insights into likely occupational skill effects in declining and growing industries by 2030 based on the global scenarios of "energy sustainability" and "circular economy". Evidence of good practices collected demonstrates how skills development can underpin the green transition.
This International Labour Organization (ILO) report examines environmental sustainability in the world of work.
It focuses on how climate change and environmental degradation will have an impact on labour markets by affecting the volume and quality of employment, and quantifies the shifts expected to take place within and between sectors. It also models employment shifts by region and sector under a circular economy scenario.
Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Europe is announcing a one-day event focusing on Circular Healthcare. Their training session to be held in Brussels on 28 November 2023 is aimed at transforming how to approach healthcare practices and implementing principles from the waste hierarchy in the sector.
Its objectives:
Learn how to reduce plastic and its impacts on health and the environment
Discover how to prevent waste and introduce reusable alternatives in healthcare settings
Explore how to eliminate harmful chemicals from healthcare products and processes
Engage in discussions on sustainable procurement and circular business models for healthcare
Network with fellow Circular Healthcare practitioners and innovators from across Europe.
The 4th International Conference on Strategies toward Green Deal Implementation – Water, Raw Materials & Energy (ICGreenDeal2023) will take place on 14-15 December. It will tackle climate change and ways to prevent it, including innovative solutions (technological, environmental, economic and social) that can be implemented under the Green Deal Strategies.
The Circular Bioeconomy Day on 24 October serves as a platform for sharing knowledge about bio-based solutions in the spirit of interdisciplinary cooperation.
The event is a part of Circular Week 2023 and brings together a diverse group of stakeholders, including policymakers from the EU, regional government representatives, local administration, businesses, NGOs, academia visionaries, thought leaders and experts, to celebrate and explore the remarkable potential of the circular bioeconomy and the pivotal role of its strategies in driving the transition towards a circular economy.
Despite growing efforts by political bodies, companies and researchers to support the transition towards a more sustainable and circular economy, we are still behind schedule.
The seminar on 17 October will address the following challenges that are slowing down this transition:
the need for quantitative but easy-to-handle methods to support decision-making in the product design phase, particularly concerning material selection for sustainability,
the potential rebound effects that undercut the expected sustainability gains of moves towards circularity.
