The city of Ludwigsburg in Germany has a sustainable development strategy that includes the use of procurement to achieve its sustainability goals, instructing all public procurement departments to follow “Cradle to Cradle” principles in their procurement and awarding criteria.
In 2018, the Croatian city of Koprivnica needed to replace a prefabricated kindergarten. Instead of demolishing the building entirely, Koprivnica opted for Green Public Procurement (GPP) and aimed to maintain as much of the physical structure as possible, while refurbishing and improving it.
FOREWEAR is a project based in the Czech Republic. It collects unwanted clothing from company employees and donates them to charity organisations. Part of the material is recycled and, together with surpluses from textile industrial productions, is then used to produce recycled products printed with companies' branding.
EcoProtech has developed the EPAD (EcoProtech Advanced Digestion) technology. EPAD is based on a continuous, industrial scale, anaerobic digestion process.
eChiller is a refrigerator system developed and manufactured by the German company Efficient Energy which uses only water.
Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM) of historic (and future) landfills is a key part of the solution for closing material loops. It addresses major societal challenges by recovering materials, energy and land. Machiels' ‘Closing the Circle’ project will be the first to put ELFM into practice.
As part of the Circular Public Procurement project, the City of Aalborg (Denmark) has established a new innovative approach to buying playgrounds, based on the principles of a circular economy, as well as grounded in a pedagogical understanding of creative play as an important part of a child’s development.
The Woody Group, a company which manufactures pyjamas, wants to use raw materials more efficiently and responsibly in the future. It also wants to take more responsibility for its products once they are put on the market.
BPost's project aims to replace all water fountains and vending machines for hot and cold drinks and snacks. The company would like to install new machines that are energy-efficient and produce less waste.
The Facility Services Agency drew up an inventory of all the surplus office furniture from the various departments of the Flemish government. This made it much easier to give the chairs, desks and cupboards etc. a second life.
With textiles rightly rising as a key priority under the new European Commission, this document outlines RREUSE’s vision on how to achieve a more inclusive and circular textile sector that prioritises re-use and emphasises the role of social enterprises in the value chain as part of the solution.
This paper also provides a number of key recommendations as to what specific actions the Commission should address when developing policy initiatives for the sector.
Berlin has the potential to become the first Circular City in Germany, due to its growing variety of initiatives, grass-roots and research work in the area of circular economy (CE).
This report provides information on the development of the project Circular Berlin, which started in 2018 and is financed by the EIT, under Horizon 2020.
The project consists of 4 phases:
Cities can play a pivotal role in creating an enabling environment through regulations and incentives, but the private sector needs to collaborate and explore the cross-sectoral synergies required to achieve a circular model. There are immense opportunities for public-private collaboration in achieving goals that might not otherwise be possible for cities to accomplish alone.
Cities are embedding circular thinking in their utility processes, placing the onus on the private sector to come up with new business models that are both economically viable and ecologically sustainable. This could potentially result in a situation whereby circular products and services become the new market standard.
Cultural heritage buildings hold a unique niche in the urban landscape, as they embody the local cultural and historic characteristics that define communities. Extending their useful lifespan has multiple benefits that go beyond the project itself to the surrounding area, contributing to sustainable development, but decision-makers lack knowledge of the environmental benefits and tools for adaptive reuse of cultural heritage buildings.
To this end, this article provides a circular economy framework for the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage buildings to reduce environmental impacts. The framework integrates methods and techniques from building and construction literature that aim to reduce lifecycle environmental impact of buildings through a circular product supply chain approach.
This report provides a cross-country review of waste, materials management and circular economy policies in selected OECD countries, drawing on OECD’s Environmental Performance Reviews for 11 countries during the period 2010-17. It presents the main achievements in the countries reviewed, along with common trends and policy challenges, and provides insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of waste, materials management and circular economy policy frameworks.
As the selected reviews were published over a seven-year period, information for some countries may be more recent than for others. Nevertheless, the policy recommendations emerging from the reviews may provide useful lessons for other OECD countries and partner economies.
Infrastructure has a major influence on whether resources can be preserved to use again or whether they are lost forever. For the most part, it has been designed for, and has perpetuated, the linear economy, the system of ‘take, make, use, throw’.
Working with academics from Resource Recovery from Waste at the University of Leeds, this report outlines three scenarios for England’s future with varying degrees of circularity. Green Alliance has analysed what infrastructure would be required under each of these scenarios for three common, high impact material streams from household waste: plastic, textiles and electrical equipment.
In 2012, the United Nations Environment Programme launched the Global Initiative for Resource-Efficient Cities (GI-REC) with the goal of applying integrated approaches and analyses such as urban metabolism in city planning and management (building on the work of the International Resource Panel).
After seven years, the first phase of the Initiative has brought together professionals from different disciplines, scientists, and policy makers. It has also brought together separate work streams of climate and resource efficiency, and how they are connected at the city level.
“Growing in Circles” summarises the GI-REC experience, and provides guidance on the transition of cities from a linear to a circular economy, and on alternatives to the way our cities are being planned and built.
The Plastic Atlas contains more than 49 detailed infographics covering a broad range of topics regarding the plastic pollution crisis looking along the entire value chain of plastic. The atlas highlights the scale of the crisis, and the global impacts of plastic production, consumption and disposal on other key global challenges such as human health and climate change. It also outlines the role of plastic for key industrial sectors such as agriculture and tourism and describes the corporate interests and drivers behind the plastic crisis. Finally, the Plastic Atlas presents an overview of key plastic-free regulations, zero waste solutions and a snapshot of the growing global movement working towards a future free from plastic pollution.
The previous Commission policy on resources management was part of the priority for jobs and growth and economic competitiveness. The circular economy will be no less important for the new political priority of climate neutrality; it will become one of the indispensable elements for meeting the EU’s ambitions.
EU climate policy and the circular economy are, by and large, complementary and mutually reinforcing. The circular economy is more than just another ‘product standards’ policy.
Circular economy products for the foreseeable future will require both technology push and market pull policies. The principal challenge will be to create ‘lead markets’ for the circular economy in combination with low-carbon products.
Textiles are fundamental to our society and employs millions of people worldwide, making it among the largest in the world and an important part of Europe's manufacturing industry. However, textile production and consumption cause significant environmental, climate and social impacts by using resources, water, land and chemicals and emitting greenhouse gases and pollutants.
In Europe, the sector employs 1.7 million people and Europeans consume on average 26 kg of textiles per person per year. This briefing by the European Environment Agency provides an EU perspective of the environmental and climate pressures from textile production and consumption, and discusses how circular business models and regulation can help move us towards a circular textiles economy.
The Joint Initiative on Circular Economy (JICE) organises a webinar on 1 March 2021 on moving towards a more circular model on textiles. Registrations are open!
Join the Finnish innovation Fund Sitra, the European Environment Agency and the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform to discuss how to create a level playing field for circular businesses and how to enable a transition to a circular economy through incentives that promote circularity. Rendez-vous on 25 March (13:00 to 14:30 CET).
How can the choice of the "best offer" enable the development of the circular economy? What is the state of regulation? Which obstacles to be unblocked can still be identified? Follow the webinar on Le mieux-disant au service de l’économie circulaire - i. e. the choice of the "best offer" to the benefit of the circular economy - on 4 February 2021.
The Metropolis of Greater Paris, INEC, ObsAR and Les Canaux are launching their support programme, the Circular and Social Purchases Programme, at a webinar on 3 February 2021 from 10.30 a.m. to 12 noon.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has set out five universal circular economy policy goals that provide a framework for national governments, cities and businesses to create a transition that fosters innovation and decouples growth from finite resource consumption and environmental degradation.
On 26 January 2021 Circle Economy will launch its annual Circularity Gap Report during the Virtual Davos Agenda Week hosted by the World Economic Forum.
The secretariat of the Sustainable, Long-term Investments & Competitive European Industry Intergroup has the pleasure to invite you to its first event of the year, Protecting the competitiveness of low carbon and circular industries in Europe: the case of Aluminium, a webinar on 26 January 2021.
On 28 January C2C will host its digital C2C Summit: Textiles & Supply Chain, focusing on Cradle to Cradle cycles and material health in the textile industry.
On 10 February, ACLIMA, ATI, EASME, DG GROW and ECESP organised the policy seminar on circular economy and advanced technology/digital policies. The panel discussed the ways industrial recovery policies realise a green, climate-resilient economy in the short and long terms, and how digital transformation respects the environment.
The third edition of the International Circular Economy Meeting aims to strengthen the objectives established in Gipuzkoa province (Spain) for the circular economy. The region set to achieve a recycling rate of 70% by 2030. It also ambitions to place the territory at the forefront as a European reference in circular economy models.
On 5 July a a survey on consumer attitudes to reuse and recycling of electronic and food products was launched in the framework of the EU funded project CIRC4life.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched its Circular Economy 100 (CE100) programme in 2013 and includes city and government authorities, universities, and companies. Within the context of this programme, the Foundation organised an Acceleration Workshop in Catalonia May 2019.
Sustainable Finance: Commission’s technical expert group calls for feedback on their report on Taxonomy for sustainable economic activities
The Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance, set up by the Commission in July 2018, has launched on 4th of July 2019 a call for feedback on their Report on Taxonomy published on 18 June 2019.
While standards and initiatives abound for components of the circular economy, such as recycling, there is no current agreed global vision on how an organization can complete the circle. A new ISO technical committee, inspired by France's XP X30-901 standard for the circular economy, TC/323 has just been formed to do just that.
At the beginning of June, Circle Economy and Altstoff Recycling Austria (ARA) released the Circularity Gap Report Austria, which makes Austria the first nation to measure the Circularity Gap. This landmark report paves the way for nations to lead the transition from a linear economy of Take-Make-Waste to a circular economy.
The call for interest to become a club member of the Consumer Insight Action Panel on circular economy is now open – express your interest today!
WCEF2019 presented the most advanced circular solutions for governments, industries, businesses and citizens and put a strong emphasis on the next level of circularity and how to scale up the transition.
CICERONE has launched an online consultation aimed at circular economy programme owners (organisations that design and fund programmes), as well as CICERONE partner organisations. The consultation is open until 18th July 2019.
The fourth edition of the international Circular Change Conference took place in Maribor, Slovenia, on 16 and 17 May 2019.
In the face of a growing global waste crisis, new corporate reporting disclosures are being developed by Global reporting Initiative (GRI) to help organizations better understand and communicate their waste impacts. It is in this context that the GRI Waste Standard is under development, and open to public consultation and comment until 15 July 2019.
