Rice for architecture by Ricehouse
Ricehouse natural mortars are obtained by expertly mixing aerial lime with rice husks, a agricultural by-product derived from husking raw rice.
Ricehouse natural mortars are obtained by expertly mixing aerial lime with rice husks, a agricultural by-product derived from husking raw rice.
CleanBags machines empty and internally disinfect bags used in healthcare facilities. The disinfectant used is chlorhexidine digluconate which has a broad spectrum of action, meaning that it acts on bacteria and viruses, even COVID-19.
Italy's Puglia Region has large expanses of olive groves. Pruning these trees yields around 800 kilotonnes of residual biomass each year and Fiusis uses this biomass to produce energy.
Ristorazione Sostenibile 360° is the first voluntary certification programme for regional catering, suitable for any type of restaurant in the Emilia-Romagna Region (IT).
How to recover phosphorus through the agricultural use of digestate produced by co-digestion of sewage sludge and other organic waste.
In Italy and France, where the IN.TE.SE project has been developed, new decentralised composting services have been designed and implemented for domestic and community users, tailored to the local areas.
Ccrave is a content and ecommerce platform all in one, with a focus on waste-based and zero-waste products in the home, fashion and lifestyle categories.
All products (detergents and cosmetics) at Officina naturae are conceived to be safe and effective for humans and the environment in the name of sustainability, eco-design and circularity.
Renycle® is a product obtained from recycled nylon 6, a highly valued material because of its excellent resistance, dyeability, softness and versatility.
Coffee grounds contain many nutrients which are excellent for growing mushrooms. This secondary raw material is even ready for use, having been sterilised at 80 to 90°C by the coffee machine. What's left once the mushrooms have been collected is a good fertiliser.
The Regional Government of Extremadura is working on a 'Strategy for a Green and Circular Economy' titled "Extremadura 2030". The objective is to encourage the production of goods and services while reducing the consumption and waste of raw materials, water and energy sources, thus based on the principle of closing the lifecycle of production. By doing so the regional government of Extremadura has created an intrinsic link between its overarching regional economic policy goals, European priorities for a sustainable economic future and the global fight against climate change. This strategy calls for citizens, businesses, civil society, public administration and the scientific community to collaborate in realising the circular economy. Implementation is foreseen through 4 horizontal programmes across 7 thematic axes. - Massive citizen participation program; - Citizen training program in green leadership; - Green and bio-economy R&D support program; - Program for the identification and enhancement of the full potential of the green economy of Extremadura.
The Roadmap towards the Circular Economy in Slovenia sets the path for Slovenia to become a circular economy front runner in the region. Designed through an inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach, it identifies four priority sectors, give recommendations to the government and identifies best practices. The Roadmap introduces the Circular Triangle, a model which unites three inseparable elements – Circular Economy (business models), Circular Change (government policies) and Circular Culture (citizens), three interdependent aspects that are at the core of systemic change from a linear to a circular economy in Slovenia.
This strategy sets out our priorities for moving towards a more circular economy - where products and materials are kept in high value use for as long as possible.
It builds on Scotland's progress in the zero waste and resource efficiency agendas. A more circular economy will benefit:
Realising these benefits will mean rethinking our approach to how goods are supplied, how they are used, and what happens at the end of products' lifetimes. In this strategy, we are prioritising four areas, although we will also take action elsewhere:
The Strategy for Promoting Green and Circular Economy of the Government of Catalonia aims to foster sustainability as a strategic area to attain economic recovery, increase competitiveness, create jobs, and reduce environmental risks. This strategy is structured into key policies' areas for promoting green and circular economy: the generation of demand and creation of markets, the improvement of the access to funding, the stimulation of research, development and innovation, the boosting of internationalisation and the promotion of employment and entrepreneurship. This strategy therefore contextualises the concept of green and circular economy in Catalonia. At the same time, it is a strategic roadmap that establishes the main areas of work for the medium-term, which are essential to promote this model in Catalonia.
The London circular economy route map outlines a vision of a capital city thriving through the adoption of the principles of circular economy: an economy which keeps products, components and materials at their highest use and value at all times.
Circular Flanders is the hub and the inspiration for the Flemish circular economy. It is a partnership of governments, companies, civil society, and the knowledge community that will take action together. These organisations are the core of our partnership. Each one has committed to carrying out a specific action.
Leading the transition: A circular economy action plan for Portugal was adopted by the Portuguese Council of Ministers in December 2017.
Natural resources are defined as all components of nature: biotic and abiotic resources, physical space (such as land), environmental media (water, soil and air), flow resources (such as geothermal, wind, tide and solar energy), and the diversity of all living organisms.
Natural resources are essential for life on our planet, and always will be. Many natural resources, however, are in limited supply. Conserving natural resources is therefore of vital importance, including for future generations.
The Federal Government embraces its responsibility in this regard. As early as 2002, it set a target in the National Sustainable Development Strategy of doubling Germany’s raw material productivity by 2020 relative to 1994. The German Resource Efficiency Programme (ProgRess) of 2012 was directed towards achieving this target.
“Towards a Model of Circular Economy for Italy - Overview and Strategic Framework” is a document that defines Italy’s strategic positioning on the issue in line with the commitments adopted under the Paris Agreement, UN Agenda 2030, G7 Communiqué and within EU.
The document calls for a "change of paradigm" for Italy's economy, for a new way to consume, produce and do business. There is a need for a new industrial policy aimed at sustainability and innovation capable of increasing the competitiveness of products and manufacturing.
Considering the importance of the document, the Italian government decided to collect the contributions of all institutions, firms, experts and citizens who deal with the issue to develop a document that is the result of a shared and participatory process.
The Government-wide programme for a Circular Economy is aimed at developing a circular economy in the Netherlands by 2050.
Its ambition is to realise, together with a variety of stakeholders, an (interim) objective of a 50% reduction in the use of primary raw materials (minerals, fossil and metals) by 2030.
It has as main priorities: Biomass and food, plastics, the manufacturing industry, construction sector and consumer goods.
How can a "strategic stock management" approach shed light on the potential of circular strategies for critical raw materials? This reports provides insights at regional macro-economic level for policy-makers.
The future economic and environmental potential of a Flemish Circularity Hub for li-ion batteries from electric vehicles is explored as a case study with high policy relevance.
In ‘Vision 2050. A long-term strategy for Flanders’, the circular economy is one of seven transition priorities. New business models play a key role in this transition.
This paper explores incentives and barriers for consumers in adopting new circular business models - such as Product-Service Systems (PSS). Eight B2C suppliers were interviewed in the sectors of coffee, housing, electrical appliances and clothing.
The study confirms that PSS are context-dependent and emphasises the dynamic relation between producers and consumers in PSS.
Future research priorities include uncovering practical and cultural aspects of PSS, as well as exploring what it takes for PSS to be transformative in the context of a transition towards the circular economy.
This study focuses on the willingness of consumers to use circular business models (CBMs).
It assesses the ‘suitability’ of a product or sector for a particular circular business model from a consumer-based perspective: is it likely that a sufficient number of consumers would be willing to adopt the CBM to make it worthwhile for providers to enter this market? The study aims to provide an overview of different attitudes towards a diverse set of CBMs. Specifically, it takes six scenarios concentrating on coffee, printing, housing, clothing, household chores and secondhand markets. This approach makes it possible to compare results for a variety of CBMs as well as to identify general trends in consumers’ intentions and reported behaviour.
This report assesses how the circular economy contributes to reaching climate goals with regard to residential housing.
The draft Flemish climate policy plan covers the operational phase of housing and the material and carbon footprints of building and renovation. The report explores two ways to reduce these footprints: reducing the size of new housing and splitting existing buildings, and applying alternative construction methods or building materials and increasing the use of recycled and reused materials.
This report details the research conducted by the Steunpunt Circulaire Economie, covering the results of a consumer survey with over 2000 respondents, as well as four interviews with car-sharing companies and interest groups.
The main objective is to get a better understanding of the position of car-sharing in Flanders, what people think of car-sharing, including the barriers people face, and what impact car-sharing is having on behaviour and the environment.
The report concludes with a set of implications and recommendations for policy relating to car-sharing and its place in the circular economy.
This short-term assignment attempts to improve our understanding of the data availability of biomass flows within the Flemish economy and develops a methodology to approximate the flow of biomass between different industries.
This needs to be done in order to maximise their potential and reduce unnecessary waste flows. However, the report finds that the data currently available are insufficient, and considers that the construction of a physical counterpart to monetary input/output tables might be the answer.
This study starts from the draft version of the Flemish Climate Policy plan. It assesses how specific measures and strategies reduce the impact on the climate. It also aims to illustrate the added value of the circular economy, which is intrinsically focused on reducing the material footprint.
The study looks at the climate impact from a consumption or footprint perspective, starting with Flemish consumption and including the value chain both inside and outside Flanders. Territorial GHG emissions are included separately to distinguish between the global and Flemish impact. The mobility sector has been selected as a case study. The study focuses on passenger transport by car.
The production of Portland cement (PC) is responsible for 8-10 % of the global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. PC and PC-based blends are the most common binder in concrete production (< 99 % of cases). As PC is accountable for 74-81% of the CO2 footprint, substantial climate impact reductions for concrete requires eco-innovation at the cement level.
One of the most promising technologies to lower CO2 emissions consists in partially replacing traditional PC with industrial byproducts displaying cementitious properties, such as blast furnace slag from iron production, or coal combustion fly ashes from power generation, but their availability and properties are rather constrained.
A diversification of local (secondary) raw materials to extend partial substitution of PC is ongoing.
This research paper is the first output of the research line that studies employment and actor analysis for the circular economy. The study aimed to gain insight into how the transition to a more circular economy could affect the labour market, with an emphasis on net job creation or loss, job creation at different skill levels, and geographical job concentration. The methodology used was a combination of literature review and exploratory data analysis, the latter focusing mainly on the Belgian region of Flanders.
In order to identify and analyse possible bottlenecks and opportunities in the current post-consumer plastic recycling landscape in Flanders, available data sources were summarised and relevant sector organisations and companies interviewed. Specifically, interviews were organised with companies working on polyolefins in order to gain greater insight into the potential for circularity of the value chain for this type of polymer and its applications.
Circular economy marketplaces for reuse and recycling of products exist. The USOdy platform claims outstanding results with respect to its primary objective, the reuse and recycling of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), by contributing to the increase of the reuse of administration’s EEE from 5 % up to potentially 50 %.
Going beyond, the practice also enables vulnerable users and groups to get access to refurbished equipment at an affordable price, which contributes to reducing the overall digital divide in the society and creates jobs at refurbishing organisations for vulnerable persons. The practice is transferable to any region: all necessary resources (code, methodologies…) are available as free software.
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Fab City Challenge is an initiative launched in 2014 by the then mayor of Barcelona, “challenging” cities to become self-sustainable by 2054. Since then, the project has expanded to a global network of 28 cities and one country (Georgia), cooperating with each other to improve, implement and exchange their urban practices.
The end-goal is for each city to produce everything they consume. In order to reach its objective, the Challenge vividly promotes increased collective action and co-designed solutions for the common well-being of the planet. That is the main idea of its Manifesto, which contains 10 guiding principles for promoting sustainability and liveability – with actions at local and regional levels.
CIRCLES is a platform dedicated to disseminating circular economy solutions in the Eastern Netherlands. It encourages entrepreneurs to participate in the green transition, promoting their sense of ownership in the transition process. It offers a space for stakeholders to interact and exchange views on circular economy – digitally or physically - or simply a space to establish partnerships.
Several organisations – public, private and NGOs – interact in a range of ways, including workshops, publications, opportunities to access finance. One of the initiatives, for instance, consists of a space to submit ideas. If viable, cooperation with regional universities can be established, and entrepreneurs can collaborate to reach solutions.
BauKarussell is a consortium supported and co-run by industrial actors and the City of Vienna. It seeks to establish circular loops in the city's construction sector, with an emphasis on large-scale demolition. The platform focuses on compliance with new regulations and ensuring that reusable components are dismantled and made available for reuse through partnerships with large property developers.
Green practices are becoming standard practice in the construction sector in Austria, and this initiative is in line with that trend. Workers from social enterprises actually prepare material for reuse. It is estimated that the consortium could create around 9 000 jobs in Austria.
Som Mobilitat is a non-profit cooperative working for a more sustainable mobility model. It seeks to promote the use of public transport, cycling and walking.
The cooperative also offers an electric carsharing service if none of the other options are available for certain routes. The cooperative is structured around communities where the shared electric vehicles can be used by individuals and private and public organisations.
ACCEZ is a platform which aims to foster circular economy practices in the southern Netherlands. It pools initiatives by several regional universities and public and private actors in the following fields:
The platform bolsters cooperation between partners to develop solutions for knowledge-intensive issues. To do so, they oversee and fund triple-helix research projects. The end-goal of the platform is to enhance the regional knowledge base and networks, with a view to substantially accelerating the transition to a circular economy.
The Sustainable Procurement platform is managed by ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability with the aim of disseminating information to the public with case studies, events, guidance, and other resources about sustainable and circular procurement at the world level.
According to the platform, circular procurement refers to a range of ways of acquiring goods and services, taking into consideration the whole lifecycle of products throughout their supply chain.
Through circular procurement, it should also be guaranteed that the products and services acquired get value for money and generate benefits not only for the buyer, but also for the environment, society and the economy.
The Mercado Organizado de Resíduos (MOR) is a Portuguese online platform that can be used to trade different types of waste for recovery (with the exception of waste classified as hazardous by the general waste management scheme).
MOR provides the space for waste of all categories to be traded, whether for recovery or for disposal under the country's general waste management scheme. This includes transactions and exchange of by-products and recycled materials.
The Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (Portuguese Environment Agency) has licensed MOR Online as the first integrated management platform in the waste market.
The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra is a future fund collaborating with partners to research, trial and implement bold ideas that shape the future. It aims to make Finland a pioneer in sustainable well-being.
Since 2015, Sitra has been working to lead the way to a circular economy – a new kind of society in which everyday lives and well-being are no longer based on excessive consumption and fossil fuel use.
Currently, Sitra’s work focuses on supporting a fair transition to a circular economy and investigating how business can be based on sharing instead of ownership. Sitra is also working to advance circular trade policies, to increase the understanding of environmental effects of digitisation and to explore the potential of the circular economy to safeguard biodiversity.
Specialized in establishing and nourishing dialogue between different stakeholders particularly in the process of creation of circular economy (CE) roadmaps, it is promoting new narratives, orchestrating interests, exchanging knowledge and enabling innovation.
CIRCULAR STRATEGIES
ROADMAPPING PROCESS
EXPERT CONTRIBUTION
The LCA4Regions partners are organising a conference in Brussels on 12 May. This will be an opportunity to share their project's initial outcomes and discuss how to apply life cycle assessment (LCA) to improve policy planning and actively make conscious decisions about resource efficiency and investments, with a focus on the sustainable built environment.
The REthinkWASTE project is organising a webinar on Pay As You Throw and Know As You Throw models on 5 May.
Learn on Friday 3 June how the Level(s) tools can help you implement core indicators to assess and report on the sustainability performance of buildings.
A public hearing on 29 April 2022 is organised to feed into an EESC opinion on the Sustainable products initiative, including Ecodesign Directive. It will bring together speakers and participants from the EU institutions, as well as the organised civil society to discuss the proposed legislative framework.
On Thursday 28 April The European Commission invites you to an online event on the methods for measuring the life cycle performance of products and organisations: the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and the Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF).
This webinar on 26 April will show you how to help your value chain reduce its carbon emissions to fight climate change, keep your business competitive, and stay legally compliant.
Join the event on 21 April 2022 for the launch of the Circularity Gap Report Sweden to learn more about the state of circularity in Sweden and how advancing it can help strengthen climate action.
The 4th OECD Roundtable on the Circular Economy in Cities and Regions will bring together key stakeholders from cities, regions, national governments, the private sector, civil society, academia, philanthropy and international organisations on 12 April 2022.
This event on 7 April aims to explore the concept of biofactories and present the technical advances of the projects ECOVAL and WALNUT. The social, legal and market barriers for the valorisation of high added value products for agriculture and industry, such as sludge or biofertilisers obtained from waste flows from urban water treatment plants, will be discussed.
This #EUCircularTalk on Measuring Circularity on 17 May 2022 aims to reach out to and hold an interactive dialogue with stakeholders outside the leadership group. This session will address the link between ISO work on international circular economy standards and circular procurement practices.
The national Norwegian GPP audit will be presented as an example of measuring green public procurement efforts and their impact.
You are invited to participate in a survey by the European Commission on the use and application of the environmental footprint methods (and PEFCRs and OEFSRs). The results of this survey will help the Commission understand how they can provide further support for accelerating and implementing these methods more effectively.
Join this year's Nordic Circular Summit exploring the circular economy in the Nordic region on 23–26 November, and learn about the region’s tremendous circular opportunities.
The sixth EU Raw Materials Week will take place from 15 to 19 November 2021, bringing together stakeholders to discuss policies and initiatives in the field of raw materials.
During the online event on Bio-based solutions for the green and digital transition on 16 November, you will learn how to upcycle woody biomass residues into valuable and innovative products.
On the Green Track is an EU campaign on biodiversity and nature for young people, organised in collaboration with the Global Biodiversity Youth Network and implemented in spring 2022 during the European Year of Youth.
You or your organisation can contribute to the debate about the future of nature and biodiversity by organising a youth-focused event and hence become one of the Green Track Stops.
This online course is accessible to all professionals and individuals, from entrepreneurs to business owners and project managers who want to learn how to design resilient and profitable business models with circular economy principles. In this 15 hour, self-paced course, you will learn the basics of business ecosystem design and how to put the circular design approach into practice.
Biomimicry is sustainable innovation. With biomimicry, embrace sustainable innovation and solve your business problems by finding inspiration from nature. Learn and apply this philosophy, its methods and tools within your company. In this 16 hour, cohort-based course, you will learn life principles and how to use them in your business or with your customers.
As part of the European LIFE Waste2Build project, INEC and SYNETHIC launched a survey to identify existing circular economy approaches in the construction and deconstruction sector. One of the questionnaire's objectives is to showcase the initiatives already on the ground.
The Circular Economy Hotspot Catalonia 2021 will take place in Barcelona. The 5th edition of the event aims to share circular economy strategies and experiences.
The celebration of this event strengthens the Circular Catalonia hub, a meeting point for companies, institutions, and people ready to put into practice solutions and strategies to consolidate the circular economy in Catalonia.
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the rules on compensation for damage caused by defective products. A specific focus will be on the use of artificial intelligence in products and services. You can take part in this consultation until 10 January 2022, thus contributing to the process of further developing and fine-tuning this initiative.
Innovative, sustainable, and circular technologies or products don’t always fit the ‘traditional mould’ within a sector which can make it difficult to prove their performance. The EU Environmental Technology Verification Programme (ETV) is set to create credibility for environmental products on their own terms.
On 1 September 2020, the 5th Circular Change Conference, held under the theme of “Mainstreaming the Circular Economy Mindset”, will set the trends for the discussion on sustainable leadership, business-led innovation and the EU’s sustainability goals based around the European Green Deal.
Together with its 26 members the WBCSD has jointly developed a universal and consistent framework to measure circularity. The Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) provides a simple, objective and quantitative framework that can be applied to businesses of all industries, sizes, value chain positions and geographies.
After three years of hard work, the URBANREC project has been brought to a successful completion. The main outcomes of the project include a comprehensive guide on bulky waste management, the implementation of demonstration activities on innovative practices for the re-use, collection and treatment of urban bulky waste, as well as knowledge transfer activities.
Between 2018 and 2019, knowledge brokerage between Slovenia and Portugal took place on waste collection and treatment, reuse and repair facilities as well as communication strategies.
Over 100 participants joined the Circular Economy on the City Level webinar of the Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) which sparked interesting discussions about smart and efficient ways of leveraging the potential of cities and municipal utilities in the transition towards more circularity.
The ECESP Coordination Group met for the third time on 17 October 2019 in Brussels to review the Platform's 2019 activities and define its objectives for 2020.
On 9 May 2019, the National Institute for Circular Economy (INEC) and Orée, the two main circular economy organisations in France, presented their collaborative research on the political dynamics of circular economy in Europe and the civil society networks that drive this circular transition.
ACR+ has made substantial contributions to developing monitoring systems with corresponding indicator sets for urban and regional authorities. Among others, ACR+ has continued its Circular Europe Network projects within the Urban Agenda Partnership on Circular Economy, while also contributing to the CIRCTER final report on sub-national circular economy monitoring.
Following a 19 February 2019 workshop on Circular Economy Competences - Making the Case for Lifelong Learning in the European Parliament, ACR+ and Zero Waste Scotland have produced a report detailing how to introduce circular thinking in education, create vocational training programmes in waste management, repair and reuse, and developing training programs for local authority staff.
ACR+ has consistently advocated to accelerate the circular economy, while also showcasing urban best practice in circular economy throughout 2019 at various events across the European continent.