Delivering a just and successful circular economy transition requires engaging a multitude of stakeholders at the nexus of several areas of expertise, including digitalisation, agriculture, business management, governance and policy, innovation and finance.
This autumn, on 18 and 19 October, UNECE, in collaboration with the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the Republic of Serbia, will organise the first in-person Regional Policy Dialogue under the Stakeholder Engagement Platform - Circular STEP.
This Sitra memorandum focuses on providing building blocks to help the next European Commission address the ecological crisis while maintaining Europe's competitiveness and resilience.
The renewed European Commission will take office in 2024 and must keep up the European Green Deal, ensuring that it centres on nature and mainstreams the circular economy across the EU single market.
The key recommendations include:
ecosystem accounting
biodiversity offsets
circular single market
leveraging nature as a business opportunity
using data for the green transition
addressing Europe's global biodiversity footprint, and
reforming the common agricultural policy.
Stakeholders are encouraged to contribute to the ongoing debate, ensuring the strategy's success.
This online meeting on 18 September 2023 will discuss which further recycled nutrient products might be appropriate for certified Organic Farming, based on practical examples, and under what conditions they might be considered.
Questions considered: solubility and plant availability of nutrients, origin of raw materials, chemicals used in recovery process and life cycle assessment, contaminants and safety.
Examples will be: calcined phosphates, biochars, phosphate fertilisers from ashes, recovered ammonium sulphate, recovered nutrients from aquaculture and other marine wastes.
Wood is becoming increasingly important: it is key to energy, construction and decarbonisation, as well as raw material security. In addition, a raft of legislative and non-legislative measures are being prepared by the Czech Republic and the EU on the issue of wood processing and forestry.
Analysising the sector is therefore paramount. After eight months of work, the research team (Think Tank) of the Institute of Circular Economy has published a study on Closing the Loop on Wood: Circular Bioeconomy Opportunities in the Value Chain for Forest Products and Wood in Czechia. It explores the material flow of wood in the Czech Republic and the challenges, weaknesses and opportunities for cross-sectoral use.
The ELLIPSE project seeks to optimise the use of two heterogeneous waste streams of which plentiful amounts are generated across Europe: slaughterhouse waste (bellygrass) and paper and pulp sludge. The project will produce cost-efficient polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) for the agricultural and packaging sectors by co-processing these waste streams with other organic ones such as glycerol from the biodiesel industry and sludge from the dairy industry.
The first episode of the Biocircularcities Trilogy unveils the story behind the success of the BBI-JU Biocircularcities project or how partners supported a transition of the pilot territories toward circular bioeconomy through a collaborative approach.
GO CHAMPLAST is a circular economy project that will produce advanced char from the waste substrate of mushroom cultivation and compostable films to replace current fossil products.
ASOCHAMP, AIMPLAS and the companies Ingelia and SAV are developing this project to increase farm profitability by using advanced materials and reducing costs associated with treating agricultural waste.
This webinar on 7 June aims to take stock of the current EU instruments which may be mobilised by insect producers in order to stimulate the EU bioeconomy, and thereby foster the creation of ‘innovative supply chains’ and ‘green jobs’ in European rural areas.
Furthermore, the event explores avenues for developing new EU measures to unleash the potential of the insect sector in stimulating the bioeconomy as well as in diversifying and boosting the domestic production of proteins in Europe.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a UK charity which aims to speed up the transition to the circular economy. Since it was set up, the charity has emerged as a global thought leader, putting the circular economy on the agenda of decision makers across business, government and academia.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a UK charity which aims to speed up the transition to the circular economy. Since it was set up, the charity has emerged as a global thought leader, putting the circular economy on the agenda of decision makers across business, government and academia.
Carsten Wachholz joined the Foundation in 2020 after spending two years working for the European Investment Bank on Corporate Responsibility and another four years working for the European Environmental Bureau on the first EU Circular Economy Action Plan. Carsten leads the Foundation's newly established Brussels-based team supporting the development of circular economy policies at EU and international level (e.g. G20, OECD), in close collaboration with the Foundation's systemic initiatives on plastics, fashion and food.
