It is a collection of contributions by different authors focusing on a proposal for indicators to monitor circular economy in Poland. A large part of the work consists in explaining that circular economy is more than just waste management.
The publication is in Polish, but abstracts of the different contributions are available in English at the end of the book (from page 203 onwards).
This European Environmental Agency Report presents an analysis of approaches and identifies trends, similarities and new directions taken by countries in resource efficiency and circular economy (CE). It is based exclusively on data provided by 32 Eionet members.
Its main objective is to stimulate exchange of information and good practice between countries and to support capacity building within Eionet.
Another objective is to contribute to various policy processes, including work carried out by European Commission, European Parliament and International Resource Panel.
The report addresses 6 elements:
material resource efficiency and CE in the EU
policy framework
monitoring and targets
examples of innovative approaches and good practice
The electrical and electronics industry has been contributing to Europe socially and economically for almost 100 years. However, its production, use and disposal are resource- intensive activities resulting in significant environmental and climate impacts.
This European Environmental Agency (EEA) briefing describes how increasing product lifetime and improving ‘circularity’ are essential steps towards reducing impacts from electronics.
Case studies of 4 different electronic product groups show there is potential for significant increases in their actual lifetime use. Extending the lifetime and delaying the obsolescence of electronics can significantly reduce impacts and contribute to meeting EU environment, climate and circularity objectives.
Many European countries still lack a national strategic roadmap for transposing the European directives at national level.
Some outstanding issues include the need to have clearer operational guidelines for the adoption of circular models and metrics for monitoring the transition towards circular models.
This study has been prepared in collaboration with Enel and with the scientific contribution of Enel Foundation. It unfolds in three main parts:
State-of-the-art of Circular Economy in the European Union
An innovative assessment model for socio-economic and environmental benefits of Circular Economy in the EU, with a focus on Italy, Romania, and Spain
Policy proposals for successfully managing the transition from a linear to a circular world.
The first of 4 Thematic Working Groups created by the Interreg MED's Green Growth communityfocused on Sustainable Consumption and Production by enhancing Resource Efficiency in the Mediterranean agrofood sector, as well as in urban areas through the implementation of the Smart City Concept.
The White Paper zooms in on the difficulties that companies face in:
measuring their environmental footprint and resource efficiency;
the use of low-cost, low-tech, labour-intensive and rudimentarily-equipped greenhouses;
the lack of energy efficiency and renovation of EU buildings.
It then presents the projects' solutions and the benefits of resource efficiency for the environment and the economy. The projects were monitored according to the EU CEAP's indicator framework.
The Circularity Gap Report Norway is an in-depth analysis of how Norway consumes raw materials to fuel its societal needs. Currently, 97.6% of materials consumed each year never make it back into the economy.
Norway also has one of the highest per capita consumption rates in the world (44.3 tonnes per person). At 2.4%, its circularity rate is below the global average (8.6%). Each year Norway consumes 235 million tonnes of materials - metals, fossil fuels, biomass and minerals - to meet its internal needs.
However, the report reveals how Norway could see a 20-fold increase in its circularity by restructuring its businesses and industry through 6 key actions in the following fields:
LIPOR, the Intermunicipal Waste Management Service of Greater Porto, specialises in the treatment and recovery of municipal waste. Their digital platform, the Waste management Datacenter, optimises the monitoring waste flows and the recovery of materials, which contributes to the reduction of biodegradable urban waste landfill disposal and the preparation of materials for reuse and recycling.
The Pop-Machina project is an EU-funded research project exploring the maker movement contributions to cities’ transition to the circular economy.
This 2nd deliverable 'Mapping the maker community ecosystem and the urban metabolism processes' draws a collection of definitions to characterise the circular maker movement. A set of original tools, including a decision tree, a taxonomy, indicators and maps of the circular maker movement are developed to delineate the circular maker movement, with a focus on the Pop-Machina seven pilot cities.
Eventually, pilot story-boards present the current status of the circular maker movement in the city, with the disclosure of the circular maker passports, characterising the movement in each pilot.
The aim of Poland's Roadmap towards the Transition to the Circular Economy (CE), which was adopted in 2019, is twofold: first, to identify cross-cutting measures capable of having the broadest possible impact in Poland, both socially and economically; and second, to prioritise areas that will enable Poland to take advantage of its current opportunities, and to deal with existing or future challenges.
The Roadmap focusses on 5 areas in particular:
Sustainable industrial production
Sustainable consumption
Bioeconomy
New business models
implementation, monitoring and financing of CE.
The Roadmap includes a set of tools, which are not purely legislative, to create the conditions for a new economic model in Poland.
