The COVID-19 pandemic is having an immense impact on societies across the world. It has caused millions of deaths worldwide and challenged our health systems and economies. The pandemic - and responses to it, involving lockdowns, use of personal protection equipment and stay-at-home measures - has far-reaching health and economic consequences.

This briefing deals with the less visible effects on our environment and climate originating from changed use of single-use plastics due to the pandemic.

Renewable energy technologies, such as wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels and batteries, are essential for Europe’s transition to climate neutrality. Deployment, maintenance and replacement of this infrastructure requires significant resources, including many substances included in the EU list of critical raw materials.

Waste arising from end-of-life clean energy infrastructure is projected to grow up to 30-fold over the next 10 years, presenting significant opportunities to reduce consumption of scarce raw materials by recycling metals and other valuable resources back into production systems.

Circular economy approaches such as repair and upgrading of equipment and recycling of end-of-life infrastructure can underpin the sustainability credentials of EU renewable energy.

Through fermentation, bread scraps can produce chemical compounds for the pharmaceutical and food industries, fuels and enzymes. The starters (which kickstart the fermentation process) obtained by this project confirm the huge economic and technological potential of a growing substrate obtained from low-cost matrices.

The protocol includes homogenisation of the waste bread (leavened bakery products), with the addition of enzymes and final sterilisation.

The culture medium can be liquid (broth), solid (agar) or dehydrated. The substrate can be used for cultivating lactic bacteria, yeasts and moulds (for the food industry).

About 10% of the bread waste produced monthly can be used to yield a culture medium for bacterial starters.

This report is published by the Cyprus Federation of Employers & Industrialists (OEB), the Institute of Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE) and the public policy consultancy adelphi (Germany) as part of the European project Hotels4Climate financed by EUKI.

The report aims to assess the current state of circularity in the hotel industry in Cyprus and Greece by conducting national surveys in both countries targeting hotels in order to:

• identify the priority sectors within the main services offered by hotels, the business challenges and opportunities to move to circular economy,
• create successful, flexible and resilient circular business models, and
• identify a number of internal and external barriers that raise obstacles to the transition to circular economy.

The circular economy is an alternative to the dominant economic model, which causes considerable damage to the environment as it is based on the linear use of resources.

The development of the circular economy has been hindered by a number of economic, technological and regulatory constraints.

EpE's natural resources commission has spent three years identifying what makes circular economy initiatives successful. An analysis of 27 circular economy initiatives carried out by companies shows that partnerships are one key to overcoming these constraints. A closer examination of these partnerships sheds light on various forms of governance.

18 Italian Consumer Associations sponsored by Eni have identified the challenges to be tackled and the actions to be implemented in order to empower consumers for the circular economy transition in a document titled Circular Consumption Charter.

According to the Charter, circular consumption should be:

1. Educated, conscious
2. Transparent
3. Properly informed 
4. Ongoing comparative
5. Balanced
6. Multiple lifetime
7. Shared and collaborative
8. Increasingly digital
9. Inclusive green
10. Accessible
11. Moderate, non-wasteful

 Proposed actions

1. Circular education pathways
2. Labelling handbook
3. Circular product digital data sheet
4. Circular incentives
5. Physical platforms
6. Digital platform
7. Monitoring and disseminating

For more information click here.