new obligations with the creation of new producer responsibility sectors to include new product families in the circular economy (toys, sports and do-it-yourself equipment, building materials, cigarette butts, sanitary textiles);
new prohibitions on single-use plastics and to fight waste of food and non-food unsold products;
new tools to better control and sanction offences against the environment (greater power for mayors to combat littering and illegal dumping), to support companies in their eco-design initiatives (bonus/malus-type incentives) and to assist citizens in new consumption practices (repairability index, information on environment and health impacts of products, harmonisation of info on sorting, etc.).
The Circularity Dataset Initiative by the Ministry of the Economy of Luxembourg develops an industry standard providing a regulated framework for circular data on products throughout value chains, from raw materials to finished products, from the use phase to re-usage and recycling.
The project addresses the difficulty for stakeholders to access reliable data on the circular properties of a product. Trade secrets are hindering transparency and reporting standards are lacking, forcing manufacturers to send out different data sets in diverse formats to customers and product platforms.
The objective is to save costs, increase value and enable circularity by developing a process and an internationally accepted dataset template, and data is verified through an auditing process.
The Italian Phosphorus Platform was set up to mirror the European Sustainable Phosphorus Platform. It aims to make Italy self-sufficient in terms of phosphorus and to ensure coordination with European policies.
The Platform is made up of stakeholders active in the phosphorus chain, with an emphasis on conservation and recovery. It includes research centres, public and private institutions, businesses and environmental associations.
Phosphorus is a critical raw material for Europe: hardly any products containing it are recycled and the EU is almost entirely dependent on imports from third countries. The Platform aims to close this loop.
The Platform has four working groups: Management and coordination, Technologies and good practices, Legislation, and Market.
Estonian leather goods maker Stella Soomlais has come up with an innovative bag design that enables old or damaged leather bags to be turned into new leather goods, with little leftover material.
WRAP is a global environmental action NGO transforming our broken product and food systems to create circular living for the benefit of climate, nature and people. It aims to embed circular living in every boardroom and every home.
For over twenty years, WRAP has delivered programmes to benefit the environment, from reducing CO2 emissions and waste to restoring nature and enhancing people’s lives. It began in the UK in 2000 but is now global in scale.
Its goal is to drive the transition to a circular economy by keeping products and materials in use for longer, supporting innovation, adopting new business models and increasing the amount of material that is reused or recycled, as well as minimising waste and reducing the reliance on virgin materials.
Vlaanderen Circulairis the hub and inspiration for the Flemish circular economy. It is a partnership of policy makers, companies, civil society and the knowledge community taking action together. Its six core activities are:
Bringing together partners to tackle circular economy challenges
Creating knowledge to streamline policy-related research into policy measures for the circular economy in Flanders
Speeding up innovation and entrepreneurship
Assisting pioneers
Connecting local, Flemish, federal and European policy making
Embedding circular principles across Flemish civil society.
Cradlenet aims to accelerate Sweden's transition to a circular economy and is Sweden's platform for circular knowledge and networking.
It supports companies and organisations as they go circular by offering members advisory services, market intelligence, studies, visibility, education, seminars and networking opportunities locally and nationally, as well as at Nordic level.
It participates in national projects aiming to increase knowledge and develop tools or networking opportunities on the circular economy. It has produced a report and toolbox helping companies transition to a Product-as-a-Service (PaaS) business model and works with political institutions to speed up the transition to circular economy.
IEEFC was established in 2014 and aims to promote a community of stakeholders (including public authorities and businesses) committed to the environmental, economic and social transition.
Its focus is the functional economy: encouraging people to buy the use of an item rather than the item itself. This approach limits the amount of resources needed to meet people's needs.
The Institute fosters cooperation between public and private stakeholders. It is active in knowledge sharing and awareness raising, organising workshops and visual aids. It encourages networking and acts as a discussion forum, with a network of clubs in France and two in Brazil.
It also has a library of publications on the functional economy.
With funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Circular Economy Initiative Deutschland (CEID) was initiated in 2019.
In three working groups on Circular Business Models, Traction Batteries and Packaging, 130 experts from more than 50 institutions from science, industry, politics and civil society discussed how to enable and establish circular economic systems.
Recommendations were summarised in the Circular Economy Roadmap for Germany. The roadmap was published on 11 May 2021 and officially handed over to the BMBF.
Given the growing demand for electric vehicles, CEID is currently engaged in the Battery Pass project. This focuses on the sustainable production, use and recycling of lithium-ion batteries and the digital battery passport.
