Stop Food Waste: learn how to buy, store and cook better in Ireland
Stop Food Waste is an Irish initiative which aims to prevent food waste through better buying, storage and cooking, as well as through home composting.
Stop Food Waste is an Irish initiative which aims to prevent food waste through better buying, storage and cooking, as well as through home composting.
Sopköket is a Swedish restaurant and catering company founded in 20215. It prepares meals which partly incorporate rescued and surplus food from supermarkets and other companies. Their goal is to reduce food waste.
ZĪLE is a Latvian fashion brand which develops its clothing while looking at a sustainable future, through the concept of upcycling. The label’s main resource materials are denim trousers, men’s shirts and imagination.
ZIKOM is one of the largest distributors of professionally reconditioned computer equipment in Poland.
Music business can be circular, too! MWfono makes vinyl records from the waste that remains after cutting other records. Kayax label then packs the discs in recycled paper and employs a protection film made from maize.
The Baltic TRAM (Transnational Research Access in the Macroregion) project strengthened the relationship between analytical research institutions and businesses by fostering cooperation between companies and researchers, linking expertise to industrial needs.
RUCONBAR, developed in a project which ran from 2011 to 2014, is a highly absorptive, environmentally-friendly concrete noise barrier. It is an innovative mixture of recycled waste tyres and concrete which forms a porous, lightweight, sound absorbing panel.
Zona Urbana is a fashion company based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Since 2004, it designs and manufactures products with recycled materials, mainly bags or wallets.
In Venturis HoReCa a group of professionals has joined forces, knowledge, expertise and ideas to tackle the problem of food waste. They have developed IT systems (KuMin.Sys and KuMin.App) to monitor and reduce food waste in kitchens and canteens. Monitoring of food waste is the first important step in the process of reduction. Venturis HoReCa also advises companies on how to limit food waste.
RECOSI is a social franchise focusing on the reuse and refurbishment of ICT and WEEE.
The European Policy Centre’s (EPC) Task Force called Digital Roadmap to Circular Economy has explored the linkages between digitalisation and circular economy, the opportunities created by data and digitally-enabled solutions, and the challenges associated with harnessing their full potential for the transition to a circular economy.
The project represents a pioneering endeavour in exploring the interconnections between the digital and green transformations and considers the implications for EU policymaking.
The final publication The circular economy: Going digital and its executive summary show that digitalisation can offer enormous possibilities for the transition to a more sustainable, circular economy but it is essential to steer it in the right direction.
The Circular Economy Action Group, the business initiative promoted by Forética in Spain to lead the transition of companies towards a circular economy model, has produced a report entitled "The reality of plastics: myths and truths" [La realidad de los plásticos: Mitos y verdades].
The aim of the report is to ensure a better understanding of plastic waste pollution, thus promoting the foundations of the new plastics economy. It also outlines the actions to be taken in order to improve plastic circularity.
Forética's mission is to promote the integration of social, environmental and good governance aspects in the strategy and management of companies and organisations with one objective: to achieve a sustainable future.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) has always been a meeting place for Sweden’s future. It builds bridges between the business community, the public sector, academia and the political sphere.
Its two-year project "Resource Effectiveness and the Circular Economy" was aimed at making Sweden more competitive in a future with finite resources, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, by economising on resources and developing new technologies, services and business models in five areas:
Read the synthesis report, marking the completion of the project, which presents the most important conclusions, recommendations and action plans from the five subprojects.
The Dutch economy is 24.5% circular. Measures in four key sectors can triple the national circularity rate and help the government achieve its ambitions for a fully circular economy by 2050.
On 3 June, Circle Economy launched the Circularity Gap Report for the Netherlands. The report shows that the Netherlands is a circular frontrunner: the country's circularity rate is three times higher than the global rate of 8.6%. Consuming 221 million tonnes of materials each year, the Netherlands retrieves one quarter from non-virgin, secondary sources. However, if the government is to achieve its ambitions of full circularity by 2050, a major overhaul of the national economy, including jobs, will still be necessary.
Holland Circular Hotspot is a private-public platform in which companies, knowledge institutes and local authorities collaborate to promote and support international collaboration and knowledge exchange on Dutch circular economy, and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, a government agency for sustainable, agricultural, innovative and international business development and growth, have come together to share insights, networks and resources to help kickstart circular developments that will boost the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Circular examples from various market segments closely linked to SDGs such as agri-food, manufacturing and the built environment are included in the brochure next to cross-sectoral topics such as consumer goods or plastics.
The European Manufacturers of Expanded Polystyrene (EUMEPS) is the voice of the Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) industry. It has published an op-ed welcoming the European Commission’s commitment to a Renovation Wave and the outline of its strategy shared in the roadmap published in May 2020. It believes that this initiative is a great opportunity for scaling-up current renovation rates and EU’s climate and energy efficiency goals.
EUMEPS agrees that increased renovation can be a key contributor to creating jobs and stimulating economic recovery in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It embraces the Commission’s finding that buildings are also critical for making circularity work and its objective to implement the Renovation Wave in line with circular economy principles.
Textiles and clothing play an important role in our everyday life. But the global fashion industry model is unsustainable. It uses large amounts of resources and has negative impacts on the environment and people. The global fashion industry, therefore, has to make a transition towards a circular model. In a ‘circular’ fashion economy, clothes, textiles, and fibres are kept at their highest value during use and re-enter the economy to avoid becoming waste.
This research note produced by Ecopreneur.eu is a first inventory of the potential impacts of future EU circular fashion on non-European textile producing countries. It uses existing literature and input from four circular economy experts to analyse the economic, social and environmental impacts.
Plastics represent a serious waste-handling problem with only 10% of the plastic waste generated worldwide being recycled. Plastics recycling is instrumental to close the loop of the circular economy by re-introducing into the economy high-quality plastic recyclates incorporated into new products.
The brochure highlights the importance of moving towards a circular economy for plastics in Europe. It identifies the most commonly used types of plastics and describes the current state-of-play, challenges faced by the European mechanical plastics recycling industry and key recommendations for overcoming them. Plastics recycling’s environmental benefits and economic importance are also touched upon.
A broad coalition of social and environmental NGOs has developed a Civil Society European Strategy for Sustainable Textiles, Garments, Leather and Footwear, looking at the social, environmental and governance implications of the textile sector in one forward-looking document ahead of the comprehensive EU Strategy for Textiles, expected in 2021.
The document aims to contribute to the upcoming comprehensive EU Strategy for Textiles, by providing recommendations on what such a Strategy should encompass in order to maintain a high level of ambition. It includes forward-looking proposals on due diligence, product policy framework, waste, unfair trading practices, international trade, support to producing countries, alternative business models and a multi-stakeholder platform.
Syctom is a French local public authority and a leading European operator in domestic waste management. It processes 2,3 million tonnes of domestic and related waste from around six million inhabitants of the Île-de-France region, including Paris, i.e. almost 9% of the French population.
Syctom strongly welcomes the New Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) published by the European Commission.
In its position paper, Syctom highlights some elements in order to contribute to future discussions about the development of the new CEAP, in particular:
The conference on "Young Researchers’ Innovative Ideas: Science - Start-Ups - Industry" will be held on 27-28 May 2021. The organisers are inviting young researchers and PhD students to prepare presentations about innovative solutions (social, organisational, marketing, product and process-related) relevant to businesses.
Save the Date for FEAD's online event which is a registered EU Green Week 2021 Partner Event:
Waste management: combining the circular economy with the zero-pollution ambition
Tuesday 1 June 2021 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. CEST
This is the registration for a general training on Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method. The webinar will take place on 27 May 2021, from 14:00 to 16:00 CEST.
How do data and data-based solutions support the success of circular businesses?
Join SITRA to find it out on 12 May at 9:30-11:30 CEST.
The Recycling Expo and Conference “eREC” on 3-8 May 2021 is a virtual platform for the recycling industry that facilitates the national and international exchange between companies and customers. Companies can use this platform to present themselves, their newest products, and innovations, and enjoy the advantages of online networking.
As the Horizon 2020 research programme becomes Horizon Europe, what better time to witness how great ideas turned into real projects? LOOPS will be the opportunity to show the resulting cutting-edge research, and the change it can bring to our communities. The 22 April episode will focus on smart and circular composite materials.
For the occasion of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU, from January to June 2021, CECOLAB (Portuguese COLAB for the CIRCULAR ECONOMY) was invited by the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education to organize an International Conference on circular economy on 20-21 April 2021.
Join Recyclers’ Talks #2 on 4 May to discuss what is needed to achieve a true circularity in textiles while lowering the impacts on the environment & climate and find out how different players in the textiles chain can contribute to this goal.
The "Circular Cities Program Poland", funded by the MAVA Foundation, aims to help prepare an analysis of the current waste flow in partner cities and to devise a strategy enabling them to move towards the circular economy. The official launch of the reports will take place on 19 April 2021.
This event on 15 April is organised under the umbrella of the weBuildBackSmart Initiative, which focuses on sustainable and circular solutions for economic boost in Southeastern and Eastern Europe.
The European Commission today released the plan that sets the course of EU initiatives on the circular economy for the coming years.
In preparation for the Annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in January 2020, PBL Netherlands and Utrecht University, in consultation with PACE, organised an international workshop on targets for a circular economy on 17 January 2020.
The first edition of the Circular Rethinking Academy - a winter school on Circular Economy - took place in Rovereto (Italy) from 3rd February to 5th March 2020.
The Beyond Growth -conference was held in Helsinki in October 2019. The conference report has been published.
Une centaine d’acteurs (décideurs, entreprises, collectivités, associations etc.) se sont réunis le lundi 27 janvier 2020 pour la conférence de l’Institut National de l’Économie Circulaire Loi anti-gaspillage pour une économie circulaire: quels changements pour les entreprises?
Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) is offering a 100 % online course on Sustainable Packaging in a Circular Economy.
A new web-portal to help cities become circular: the Circular City Funding Guide was launched 31 January 2020 at the Cities Forum in Porto, Portugal.
Due to the current Corona virus crisis, this year's annual Circular Economy Stakeholder Conference in Brussels has been postponed to a later date.
On the initiative of the ECESP coordination group Members Arthur ten Wolde (Ecopreneur.eu), Jean-Pierre Schweitzer (European Environment Bureau) and Chair Ladeja Godina Košir (Circular Change), an ECESP Breakfast meeting was organized on 29 January 2020 to introduce the Platform to MEPs working on the circular economy: achieving a circular economy through active stakeholder involvement.
Applications to the European Social Innovation Competition 2020 are now open! Under the theme Reimagine Fashion: Changing behaviours for sustainable fashion, the 2020 competition is looking for projects and ideas that will change the ways we produce, buy, use and recycle fashion, moving towards increased global sustainability and changing consumer behaviour at local, national and European levels.