Re-food is an independent, citizen driven, fully volunteer, eco-humanitarian community charity, working to eliminate food waste and hunger on a neighbourhood basis. This Portuguese movement targets at ending food waste and hunger by saving food which was going to waste at local venues.
The City of Amsterdam’s Sharing Economy Action Plan (2015) is a strategy by the city to provide solutions for a sharing and circular economy (CE) that works for all.
It provides five key points on which action should be taken:
The intention is to widen the available tools and materials to enable the spreading of a CE, thus encouraging collaborative initiatives taking place in the city. Therefore, the plan facilitates the creation and spreading of more circular projects, such as the "fashion libraries" or the promotion of various digital platforms like the ones existing in the transport and accommodation sectors.
Last Minute Market is a social enterprise, founded in 1998 as a research initiative and now a spin-off from the University of Bologna. Today, it is an entrepreneurial society working at the national level in Italy, developing local projects to recover unsold goods and benefit non-profit organisations. Its objective is zero waste.
In Slovakia and Czechia, an initiative set by three recent graduates has been positively impacting the sector of waste management in both countries. The Elwis Waste Registration System has the objective to increase efficiency in the cities’ waste management systems by helping reducing the amount of mixed waste.
Madaster is a platform to register and document a range of materials or products. It offers its services to individuals, companies or public sector institutions that wish to collect and store data about their materials. Madaster stores the data in a secure and efficient way.
Most importantly, the platform offers updated information about the circular values and potentials of the owned materials, thus expanding opportunities for more efficient green management of resources. With the data, Madaster provides the clients with a “material passport” that enables them to use it for moving towards a circular economy.
Madaster has a global focus and operates in several countries (e.g. The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and China).
The Third Circular Economy Report (2021) by the Circular Economy Network and ENEA, besides providing the updated analysis on circular economy in Italy as compared to the main EU countries, includes a focus on the role of circular economy in the transition towards climate neutrality, as well as an update on the most important measures implemented at the national and European levels.
This report updates the analysis on the state of circular economy in Italy, assessing the results achieved in the areas of production, consumption, circular waste management, as well as investments and employment in recycling, repairing and reuse, with a comparison among the main economies in the EU: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland.
To read the report in full (in Italian), please click here.
In this report, nudging is explored as a complement to traditional policies (regulation, economic incentives and information campaigns) to reduce the use of single-use plastics. Behavioural insights are used to develop different options to nudge consumer preferences from single-use cups to more sustainable alternatives.
Based on careful reviews and analysis of previous nudging projects, three green nudges are proposed to catalyze this shift.
The Digital Platform for Circular Economy (CE HUB) recently created by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia showcases circular economy-related information for the business community on:
The interactive part of the platform aims to:
The aim is for CE businesses to join the Alliance for Green Transition of Serbia.
Forest Sharing is a platform/marketplace for the shared and innovative management of unmanaged or underutilized privately-owned forests according to PEFC standards, a network where exchanges between owners and economic operators within the supply chain are facilitated and organized, thus creating the economies of scale needed for forest activities (sale of wood or derived products, recreational areas, adventure parks, thematic routes, management of Rural Development Plans etc.) to become economically viable.
The platform, online since September 2020, has around 300 registered users for 2 500 hectares of woods in various regions, with a potential of another 2 000 hectares. In 2019 it was selected as best practice/new business idea within Rosewood.
Circular Innovation Lab invites you to the launch event for ShopC - the first ever marketplace for circular fashion & lifestyle. Circular Innovation Lab has invited an exciting panel of participants – representatives of international organisations and fashion brands and circular economy experts – exploring topics such as sustainability, innovation and circular fashion & lifestyle.
On 26 March, the Dutch provinces of Overijssel, Drenthe and Northern Netherlands organise a webinar on the greening of Europe’s transport system and the contribution of inland ports to the transition to a sustainable and circular mobility sector.
Industry faces major challenges with regard to handling the transition to an economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Whilst there is a growing body of literature seeking to understand how this transition will unfold, there is currently limited understanding of what the wider environmental impacts could be from the transformation.
Industry faces major challenges with regard to handling the transition to an economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As yet, we are far from fully understanding the potential wider environmental impacts of this transformation. Furthermore, we are largely unaware of the untapped potential of industrial facilities in sectors covered by the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) to contribute to the circular economy.
The study aimed to provide an initial overview of the potential wider environmental impacts of industry's transition within the scope of the IED to a low carbon economy, and to gain a better understanding of how IED facilities could contribute to a circular economy.
Tondo – an international non-profit organisation working in the field of circular economy – is pleased to announce its first hackathon, realised in collaboration with the Circular Economy Lab of Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center and Cariplo Factory and under the patronage of the Cariplo Foundation. The hackathon on 23-24 April will be held entirely in Italian.
The Circular Economy and Society Hub of Utrecht University has prepared a white paper analysing the key strengths and weaknesses of the way in which Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is organised in the Netherlands. Based on this analysis, it then sets out three pathways for improving EPR with a view to enabling it to contribute to the circular economy goals:
Fairmittlerei works as a connection hub between NGOs and industries for the purchasing of excess non-food products in industries.
CIRCLES is a platform dedicated to disseminating circular economy solutions in the Eastern Netherlands. It encourages entrepreneurs to participate in the green transition, promoting their sense of ownership in the transition process. It offers a space for stakeholders to interact and exchange views on circular economy – digitally or physically - or simply a space to establish partnerships.
Several organisations – public, private and NGOs – interact in a range of ways, including workshops, publications, opportunities to access finance. One of the initiatives, for instance, consists of a space to submit ideas. If viable, cooperation with regional universities can be established, and entrepreneurs can collaborate to reach solutions.
BauKarussell is a consortium supported and co-run by industrial actors and the City of Vienna. It seeks to establish circular loops in the city's construction sector, with an emphasis on large-scale demolition. The platform focuses on compliance with new regulations and ensuring that reusable components are dismantled and made available for reuse through partnerships with large property developers.
Green practices are becoming standard practice in the construction sector in Austria, and this initiative is in line with that trend. Workers from social enterprises actually prepare material for reuse. It is estimated that the consortium could create around 9 000 jobs in Austria.
Fibracat has developed cellulose-based absorbents from paper for use in the cleaning and industrial hygiene sectors.
Bio2Materials is a company which makes a 100% biodegradable 'leather' from apples – the main type of fruit grown in Poland.
Beewraps by Malu is a food packaging material designed and produced by a Polish family company to replace food foil, aluminum foil or disposable plastic containers with a biodegradable and reusable alternative.
Vanheede Biomass Solutions processes packaged or unpackaged food items that, for various reasons, are no longer fit for human or animal consumption. Fermentable residue is gathered and processed at a bio-methanisation plant in order to generate green energy.
Veolia has developed expertise and built specific facilities to tackle the complex process of treating, depolluting and dismantling Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). This is a valuable source of recyclable raw materials: ferrous metals, plastics and precious metals can all be recovered and reused.
SOUJI is a liquid based on minerals and vegetables that, when mixed in the correct proportions with used cooking oil, and after shaking the mixture for 1 minute, becomes a cleaning agent/detergent which is 96% less polluting than a common detergent.
SIGUREC was the most advanced household waste collection service operating in Romania until March 2020. It was a broad initiative, implemented following an official agreement between private companies and public authorities.
