Karma is a Swedish startup founded in Stockholm, November 2016. Their app connects surplus food from restaurants, cafes and grocery stores to consumers for a lower price. As a result, users eat great food for less and businesses receive an additional revenue stream — all while reducing food waste.
The BlueCity business park is one of Rotterdam's unique landmarks: formerly a water park resort, the complex is now a circular incubator housing over 30 startups experimenting towards a sustainable future.
INCIEN is Slovakia’s circular economy network, a team of experts who have carried out various projects for businesses, public authorities and the general public.
The network has worked with partners at national and international level. They aim to make the circular economy an effective tool in the fight against climate change, the biodiversity crisis and pollution.
It has a number of priorities:
Helping reduce the amount of waste generated
Proposing and carrying out change
Connecting people and raising awareness
Its work with authorities focuses largely on waste management, whereas it helps businesses adopt circular principles. It also conducts educational activities (Green Circular Academy), and prepares studies.
The Circular Economy Academy is a free mentoring and support programme, set up by the Rediscovery Centre, which is the National Centre for the Circular Economy in Ireland. The programme assists social enterprises and community organisations in Ireland to move their activities towards sustainability and embrace the circular economy.
The aim of the Circular Economy Academy is to facilitate Ireland’s transition to the circular economy through demonstration, education and collaboration. The support provided is based on the Rediscovery Centre’s vast knowledge of social enterprise development and design thinking concepts, from advice for start ups to business planning, funding, diversification, training and more.
Each service is tailor-made to suit the needs of the participating organisation.
The African Circular Economy Network (ACEN) aims to build a restorative African economy that generates well-being and prosperity for all its people.
It carries out research relevant to the African context and its needs, raises awareness and promotes training on the concept, benefits, principles and practice of the circular economy, and fosters networking.
The network is active in 43 countries. In 2017 it co-organised the first Circular Economy Conference in Africa with the European Union and the South African Government (World Economic Forum Africa, Durban) and it was present in WCEF2022 and WCEF2023. It engages with the EU to discuss ways to be inspired by the African continent.
Transforming the linear economy, which has remained the dominant model since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, into a circular one is by no means an easy task. Such a radical change entails a major transformation of our current production and consumption patterns, which in turn will have a significant impact on the economy, the environment and society. Understanding these impacts is crucial for researchers as well as for policy-makers engaged in designing future policies in the field. This requires developing an in-depth knowledge of the concept of the circular economy, its processes and their expected effects on sectors and value chains.
This paper reviews the growing literature on the circular economy with the aim of improving our understanding of the concept.
Laura Cutaia, researcher at ENEA, is an Environmental Engineer (1996) with a PhD in raw materials engineering (2002). Her main research topics are:
Industrial ecology and symbiosis,
Technology for raw and secondary materials treatment,
Resources management,
Life Cycle Assessment,
Environmental certification,
End of life management.
Laura Cutaia is responsible for making the most of resources at ENEA , where she is working on the circular economy and resource efficiency, industrial ecology and symbiosis, LCA, environmental certification schemes, the REACH regulation and sustainable industrial areas (more information).
Laura Cutaia is also president of SUN - Symbiosis Users Network (Italian network for industrial symbiosis) and president of UNI CT 057 on the circular economy that works with ISO TC 323 on the circular economy. UNI is the Italian body responsible for standardisation.
