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.
Join the FertiCovery workshop, where participants will explore promising technologies for producing biofertilisers from secondary raw materials.
This interactive session will bring together stakeholders to share experiences, validate key case studies and shape the future of bio-based fertilisers.
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.
The Horizon Europe project INBUILT aims to bring about a shift in the European construction industry by integrating circular economy and digitalisation. It focuses on scaling up and demonstrating 10 innovative products and systems designed to make building practices more sustainable.
These innovations fall into two key categories: Reused and recycled materials which will reduce waste through the smart repurposing of materials from existing sources, and low-carbon building products developed using bio-based or geo-sourced materials to significantly lower the environmental impact of construction.
This booklet presents a series of factsheets outlining each innovation developed by INBUILT. They will be updated when the project comes to an end.
THE LIFE BIOBEST project aims to guide the mainstreaming of best bio-waste management and recycling practices, with a view to enriching depleted soil with high quality compost.
Its Comprehensive Guidance sets out key policy recommendations to strengthen the EU legal framework for bio-waste management. Drawing from extensive research and stakeholder consultation, it outlines three interconnected areas for improvement: boosting effective models for separate collection and recycling, promoting reliable markets for compost and digestate, and enhancing monitoring and enforcement of bio-waste regulations.
It provides policy measures to help close the gap between current practices and potential capture rates, addressing the fact that only 26% of kitchen waste is collected separately in the EU.
Coffee!UP has adopted a unique cascade recycling system for used coffee grounds which is in line with the zero waste concept. In this way, they support the circular economy and thus mitigate the impact on climate change.
Through this system, Coffee!UP obtains high-quality ingredients by gradually removing the valuable parts of coffee grounds. These are then used in the cosmetics industry and serve as an input material for making plastic products.
The PROMOFER project aims to use low value feedstock (straw, industrial wastewater and starch, mostly) to manufacture valuable biobased compounds. Specifically, it will improve the fermentation processes and downstream purification, solve bottlenecks upstream and downstream, and produce high-value applications.