Circular flooring partnership by Tarkett & IKEA
Tarkett is pioneering post-use flooring recycling in Europe. It is working with IKEA to transform used Tarkett flooring from the IKEA Kungens Kurva store into new flooring.
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31 Aug 2022 to 02 Sep 2022
From 31 August to 2 September, the national student conference 'Circular Insights 2022' will take place in Wuppertal, North-Rhine Westphalia. Students and graduates from all fields of study will meet with companies to focus on the joint development of possible solutions paving the way for a sustainable and circular future. You can still register for this event.
Licence to Greenwash
Report: Greenwashing in the Fashion Industry
The fashion sector is awash with certification schemes, sustainability labels and multi-stakeholder initiatives all seeking to steer the industry onto a greener course. Such schemes serve a dual purpose for the brands. As the fashion industry is one of the least regulated sectors in the world, they partially exist as a genuine attempt to move towards sustainability but they also enable ‘greenwashing’.
This report has sought to assess whether certification schemes, labels and multi-stakeholder initiatives are fit for purpose and what role they play in addressing the damage done by the fashion industry. The findings show that the majority of schemes offer a false promise of certification for textiles and a highly sophisticated form of greenwashing.
remesh: social economy gives a second life to mesh banners and a better life for employees
remesh is a socio-professional business workshop with an environmental impact. Most of its employees are women from disadvantaged background. The workshop is also providing a circular economy business model as they reuse advertising banners and meshes to make new products that are fashionable but sustainable.
03 Oct 2022 to 09 Oct 2022
The Circular Week is an international series of events and initiatives dedicated to circular economy and sustainable development all over Europe. It aims to promote the idea of circular economy, support sustainable business models and establish cooperation between stakeholders.
Its 5th edition, from 3 to 9 October 2022, will include workshops, debates, meetings, expert panels and matchmaking sessions for business. Its culminating event is the Mazovia Circular Congress on 7 October.
Retailers, Consumers and Skills: Enabling Circular Electronics: Skills for cities, businesses and consumers
Abstract:
While digital networking is of great advantage for everyday life, the incredible amounts of electrical devices bring with it some particularly ecological risks, especially with regard to the use of resources. This is why the European Commission in the New Circular Economy Action Plan announced a Circular Electronics Initiative. There are still many challenges to be discussed during this workshop.
Outcome document of the Leadership Group on Retailers, Consumers and Skills
Abstract:
In 2021, the Leadership Group on Retailers, Consumers and Skills considered issues such as how to made the electronics sector more circular, how to boost public awareness of the need to become more circular and how to step up training with a view to reskilling and upskilling.
Yuman Village: a circular economy shopping centre in Brussels
Yuman Village is a temple of the circular economy located in Brussels. It offers a unique 'one stop shopping' experience that encourages the emergence of new circular economy models, creates local jobs and reduces the number of trips needed to buy sustainable and local products.
Kaspar
Schijvens: Circular corporate fashion
Schijvens has been producing corporate uniforms for more than 150 years now. In 2017, they began collecting customers' old clothing, shredding it and mixing the textile fibres with shredded PET-polyester ones from sportswear, fishing nets and bottles. This led to 100% recycled yarn, which is used to make new fabrics and ultimately new uniforms.
Varusteleka or how to extend product lifecycle
Varusteleka, a webshop selling military surplus and outdoor gear in Finland, buys back products it has sold to customers and resells them as second-hand products.
Carrefour: reusable and recyclable carrier bags made from marine waste
In 2019, Carrefour Belgium introduced a range of reusable and recyclable carrier bags made from marine waste. The retailer collaborated with Seaqual, an organisation that cleans up the oceans and seabed, to source the plastics needed.
Splosh: Household products in reusable, refillable containers
Splosh sells its range of products – from detergents and fabric softeners to shower gel and hand wash – in bottles that can be refilled from their concentrated refill pouches. Buying refills in these pouches cuts plastic waste by 95%.
Rewarding recycling: Learnings from the world’s highest-performing deposit return systems
An increasing number of countries consider implementing a deposit return system for single-use beverage containers to address today’s challenges, i.e.:
- meeting new waste recovery targets,
- ending littering and
- moving towards a circular economy.
TOMRA shares lessons learnt from its 45+ years’ experience of innovating and managing deposit return systems globally in a new white paper including:
- outcomes of effective deposit return systems
- 4 key principles and 12 elements of high-performing deposit return systems
- dozens of case studies on real-world implementation of deposit return policy.
The white paper seeks to contribute to an educated discussion on recycling best practice – including what can be learnt from the past and what the future may look like.
ShopC - online marketplace for verified circular products from the fashion and lifestyle sectors
ShopC, is the first-ever online marketplace for verified circular products from the fashion and lifestyle sectors. Created at the heart of the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship at the Copenhagen Business School, it came as an answer to the problem of conscious consumers wanting truly sustainable products but being bombarded with green-washing campaigns and untrustworthy sustainability claims.
ShopC as a circular marketplace for sustainable, circular products, focuses on transparency, upholding the values of sustainability and circular economy to the highest standard. It focuses on brands that make products that last and if their life comes to an end, they are re-looped back into the system in some way.
End-of-life seat belts get a new chance in Benefício's backpacks
Portuguese startup Benefício devels limited edition products, with particular attention to the use of materials local knowledge. By adopting artisanal production methods and respecting fair trade and the environment, the company mostly applies the principles of circular economy, in particular upcycling.
Accelerating transition to circularity with Circular Berlin
Circular Berlin is an NGO that focuses on making Berlin circular. Berlin is envisioned as a resilient, citizen-oriented region. Resources are sourced locally and their value is maintained as part of a continuous loop. Circular Berlin operates across areas such as community-building, education, as well as developing knowledge on industries with a high potential for circularity: the built environment, food and biomass, textile and fashion, and materials and products.
Circular Berlin hosts events in which the community meets, debates and exchanges. Topics range from sharing knowledge to collaborative planning sessions, and has built open-source digital tools allowing information to be exchanged more quickly.
For more information on specific projects, consult their website.
Good After - an online supermarket for discounted products
GoodAfter.com is an online supermarket focused on products near their recommended consumption date or, in certain cases, even after their "best-before" date.
The Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production
The Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) is an international, non-profit think-and-do tank. Together with companies, political organisations and civil society actors, the CSCP pursues its mission to mainstream sustainability towards the good life for all.
From H2020 projects (R2Pi, Scalibur, Refresh and Spread), to CE Missions to Japan and Mexico, to launching the Consumer Insight Action Panel with the European Economic and Social Committee, co-developing the European Circular Cities Declaration or designing and running the Academy of Change – a unique capacity building programme that can be replicated across various topics - the CSCP integrates multiple stakeholders and various perspectives to help implement a systemic transition towards circularity.
Ecopreneur.eu - the European Sustainable Business Federation
The European Sustainable Business Federation Ecopreneur.eu features six national associations with 3000 sustainable companies - mostly SMEs.
A member of the ECESP Coordination Group, Ecopreneur.eu is the international business organisation in Brussels committed to ambitious measures, rules and regulations for a low-carbon circular economy. Ecopreneur.eu advocates a new economic framework by bringing concrete experience from pioneering companies into the political debate, showing best practice examples and advocating the needs of green SMEs in a credible way.
The Ecopreneur.eu Low-Carbon Circular Economy Advocacy Group is a sounding board of circular economy pioneers, including Tarkett, Werner & Mertz, Interface, REMONDIS and HUMANA Kleidersammlung.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, or how to accelerate the transition to a circular economy
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation develops and promotes the idea of a circular economy. It works with, and inspires, business, academia, policymakers, and institutions to mobilise systems solutions at scale, globally.
Its vision is a new economic system that delivers better outcomes for people and the environment. Business models, products, and materials are designed to increase use and reuse, replicating the balance of the natural world, where nothing becomes waste and everything has value.
A circular economy, increasingly built on renewable energy and materials, is distributed, diverse, and inclusive. The Foundation’s work focuses on six interlinking areas:
- Learning
- Business
- Institutions, Governments and Cities
- Insight and Analysis
- Systemic Initiatives
- Communications.
Arthur ten Wolde
Michael Laermann
EuroCommerce
EuroCommerce is the principal European organisation representing the retail and wholesale sector. It embraces national associations in 31 countries and 5.4 million companies, both leading global players such as Carrefour, Ikea, Metro and Tesco, and many small businesses.
The circular economy is an opportunity for retail and wholesale as it allows the sector to rethink business models, offer alternative products and support a more sustainable lifestyle. It is a two-way approach both responding and leading to societal change. Indeed, beyond the increasing demand by consumers and regulators to offer more sustainable alternatives, the circular economy is an opportunity to rethink the way we produce, manufacture, sell, use and discard our products
22 Jan 2021
EuroCommerce invites you to a webinar with Virginijus Sinkevičius on 22 January 2021 from 14.00 to 15.00 (CET).