Bedzzzy is a great example of a 'product as a service'. Based in the Netherlands, it targets old mattresses which are a major source of waste, producing its own recyclable mattresses – the world’s very first 100% circular mattresses.
Reet Aus is a PhD-qualified fashion designer who founded her own brand that focuses on sustainable fashion. She has studied the issue of waste in the fashion industry.
Remondis is one of the world's largest recycling, service and water companies with over 30 000 employees and 900 business locations. The Lippe plant in Lünen is one of their largest sustainable projects: it has a surface area of 230 ha and is the largest industrial recycling plant in Europe.
Nasekomo is a company based in Bulgaria that uses insects (specifically Black Soldier Flies) to produce sustainable insect protein, oils and fertilisers that can be used for feed and in agricultural industries. Nasekomo’s goal is to use – and increase the usage of – these insects as part of a global solution to the issues caused by the exponential consumption of meat.
The Carlsberg Group, in cooperation with innovation experts EcoXpac, packaging company BillerudKorsnäs and post-doctoral researchers from the Technical University of Denmark, have been working on "Green Fibre Bottles" – a "paper bottle" for beer.
Rombat is the largest producer of car batteries in Romania. Since 2005, the company has been collecting vehicle batteries to extract the lead they contain, recycle them and manufacture new batteries. The batteries are processed at the 3.7 ha Rebat facility in Copșa Mică.
The Hungarian fashion brand Sharolta makes upcycled denim clothes and bags in Budapest. They collect jeans at several collection points in the city, and work with companies that can provide them with textile waste.
PDR is a German company with extensive expertise in recycling materials, which has developed a groundbreaking technique to reuse polyurethane (PU) foam cans. In Germany, about 25 million cans are used each year, and a federal legislature has classified used PU foam cans as polluting waste which must be recycled.
Fortunale is entirely eco-friendly, and it is inspired by modern principles of circular economy: a Fortunale sweater is designed, from its origin, to be recycled at the end of its natural use until 80%, because it is made of pure wool, and this precious characteristic allows us to regenerate its fibers into new prime materials.
Nuova Sara oil separator centrifuges apply centrifugal force to separate shavings and metal waste. The de-oiled shavings can be recovered and valorised as secondary raw materials.
Today, most electrical/electronic equipment (EEE) is not designed for recycling, let alone for circulation. Plastics in these products account for 20% of material use, and through better design, significant environmental and financial savings could be made. Technological solutions and circular design opportunities already exist, but they have not yet been implemented. Some challenges, such as ease of disassembly, could be resolved through better communication and by sharing learnings across the value chain. Instead of WEEE, we should focus on developing CEEE: Circular Electrical and Electronic Equipment. The case examples of this report show how different stages of the lifecycle can be designed so that circular plastic becomes possible and makes business sense. It is time to take a leap in material flow management and scale up these circular solutions across the industry.
To increase clarity in circular projects, France's standardisation body AFNOR developed a voluntary standard, XP X30-901, that proposes a common understanding, laying out the terms, principles, and practices for all actors to agree to work with on the subject.
XP X30-901 proposes a 3 x 7 matrix covering the three dimensions of sustainable development - environment, economy, society - and the seven areas of action of the circular economy: sustainable procurement, ecodesign, industrial symbiosis, functional economy, responsible consumption, extension of service life, and the effective management of materials and products at the end of their life cycle.
In this report, six members of the standardisation commission share their experiences on this voluntary standard.
Local government programmes that encourage and support circular economy practices, such as repair, recycling and circular design activities help attract new investment, create jobs and result in tangible socio-economic benefits for the city and its people, reveals the report: The Role of Municipal Policy in the Circular Economy: Investment, Jobs and Social Capital in Circular Cities.
The report explores the connection between municipalities pursuing circular economy policy and investments in circular business that create jobs. In order to maximise circularity's benefits for society, municipalities can employ a series of regulatory, economic and soft instruments that include strategies, targets, loans and subsidies, which are all also conducive to generating employment.
Circular Baltic 2030 - Circular economy in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) is a report produced by the Swedish independent think-tank Global Utmaning.
It is a collection of circular economy best practices supporting the implementation of the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and covering the EU Member States of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden as well as the partner countries Norway and Russia. The report also showcases a number of circular economy best practices from around the world.
In many countries, governments are looking for ways to transform their economy into one that is circular, or to improve the level of resource efficiency (e.g. see the EU programme ‘Closing the loop’ or the World Circular Economy Forum).
To do so effectively, having an overview of the current state of circular activities in the economy is important. To date, such an overview has been lacking. This PBL report provides an outline of the current state of the circular economy in the Netherlands. It also provides information that may be of interest to other countries and presents opportunities and suggestions for subsequent steps towards achieving a circular economy.
This report examines the actual implementation of existing measures and potentially relevant new approaches for deepening the application of ecodesign principles for plastic materials and products containing plastic.
It looks at a number of sectors which rely heavily on plastic, including packaging, construction, electronics, automotive, furniture and textiles. The study assesses a wide range of criteria and tools available in horizontal and product regulations, as well as so-called soft tools such as standards, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes and the EU Ecolabel.
The report also looks at the potential of these tools for driving circularity and opportunities for extending promising solutions to other sectors.
On the occasion of the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF), held on 4-5 June 2019 in Helsinki, the Architects' Council of Europe (ACE) published a Statement highlighting the importance of design to achieve more circularity in the construction and building sector, as well the solutions that architecture can bring.
Like many other sectors, the construction and building sectors operate largely within a linear economy model of “take, make and waste”. Yet, there is growing awareness of the finite nature of natural resources and fragility of our environment, and thereby of the urgent need to develop more sustainable and regenerative economic models.
Architecture has a crucial role to play here as many decisions taken during the design phase have long-lasting consequences on the environmental performance of a building. Developing circular economy principles in the built environment is fundamentally about changing the way we design our buildings to ensure that they can be operated, maintained, repaired, re-used or adapted to new needs, while optimising resource value and generating as little waste as possible. If high-quality architecture can create significant value, conversely, ill-conceived buildings can cause considerable waste and costs, both in the short term as well as for future generations.
Designing and building in a circular manner requires acknowledging that a building is above all a support for life. Beyond optimising the use of resources for their own sake, it is essential to seek to preserve and enhance the economic, social, environmental and cultural value that a place embodies for end-users, so that it can be used for the longest possible time.
The Statement presents different architectural solutions promoting circularity, focusing on preserving and enhancing the value of resources. It also puts forward some policy recommendations to support the architectural approach to circularity.
This publication, managed and delivered by C40 Cities, provides 40 thorough examples of practical circular economic initiatives from cities around the world, for inspiration and replications by other cities.
The Climate-KIC Circular Cities project is investigating how city governments can be transformational change agents and creators of smart and sustainable neighbourhoods.
The results are expected to improve how cities manage building, construction and utility waste and, through productively utilizing household and industrial waste streams, can increase the growing perception that what was once viewed as waste can now be viewed as resource streams.
The EU faces multiple challenges (climate crisis, environmental disasters, a lack of competitiveness, falling behind in the digital race, etc.) that it will need to address if it is to ensure long-term sustainable prosperity for European citizens. At the same time, there are two ongoing transitions – the creation of a circular economy and the digital transformation – that could provide the means to address these challenges, if they are managed well.
As the EU and national policymakers are making significant efforts to promote a circular economy on the one hand and a digital economy on the other, Annika Hedberg and Stefan Šipka, together with Johan Bjerkem, argue that it is time to align the agendas as a means to achieve greater sustainability and competitiveness.
This publication:
It suggests that the EU must:
This Discussion Paper builds on the findings of the EPC’s "Digital Roadmap for a Circular Economy" project of 2017-19 and paves the way for a more extensive final study, scheduled to be published in the late autumn of 2019.
The project has been supported by Aalto University and the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) (members of Helsinki EU Office), Central Denmark region, Climate-KIC, the Estonian Ministry of the Environment, Estonian Environment Investment Centre, HP, Orgalim, the province of Limburg, UL, Fondazione Cariplo and Cariplo Factory.
The report of the Institute of Innovation and Responsible Development, is the result of a collaboration between the representatives of the organizations participating in the "Circular construction in practice" debates under the Polish Circular Hotspot. It presents an analysis of the implementation of the circular model in the construction sector.
First, it identifies the causes of the current state of play, which have elevated the built environment to the top spot among the largest polluters of the natural environment.
Second, it analyses the basic barriers on the way to circular construction.
Third, it presents specific ways to reduce these barriers, with a view to making sustainable construction a reality.
Fourth, special attention is paid to specific, innovative technologies to improve resource efficiency and, as a result, improve the economic, environmental and social impact of the construction sector.
The Valumics webinar "Putting solutions on the table", to be held on 16 July, at 15.00-16.30 (CEST), aims at discussing challenges and opportunities to support Europeans to transition towards more sustainable food consumption behaviours.
The webinar is organised in the context of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development. It will look into practical ways to accelerate a just transition to a circular and carbon-neutral economy in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while engaging all sectors of the economy and society.
The EU Ecolabel "pop-up shop": the Showroom will take place in Berlin from 28 September to 4 October, and and will showcase a selection of the best EU Ecolabel products and services.
The webinar session titled "Artificial Intelligence and Circular Economy" is part of a series of online events by Tondo. It will held on 9 July 2020 at 6 p.m. (in English with the support of slides).
CINDERELA invites you to this webinar on 14 July 2020 (9:30-11:30 CEST). The EU-funded project will present "CINDERELA One-Stop-Shop" (CinderOSS), its new digital platform for actors involved in chains for urban construction works with the use of secondary raw materials (SRM) recovered from local/regional waste streams.
How can circularity help solve sustainability problems and what does it mean for IT products? How can it be implemented on the ground, when you procure and use IT products? These and other questions will be answered in an event organised by TCO development on 22nd September to deep-dive into the topic of Circular IT Management in Practice.
In the framework of Furn 360, a European project aimed at developing a training curriculum to facilitate the implementation of circularity in the furniture sector, a webinar will be held to share insights on the current state of circular economy in the sector, with representatives from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the European Furniture Industries Confederation.
The annual European Week for Waste Reduction Awards Ceremony is organised online on 25 June at 14:00 CEST to reward the most outstanding waste prevention initiatives carried out during the last edition.
This leading circular economy event will take place on 15-18 November 2021 in Barcelona.
The International Society for Circular Economy (IS4CE) - a new academic society for the circular economy - is organising the inaugural International Online Conference on Circular Economy, to be held in cooperation with the Exeter Centre for Circular Economy (ECCE), University of Exeter, Exeter, UK, on 6-7 July 2020.
Polish Circular Hotspot builds on COP24 to sign cooperation agreement with circular networks across Europe, including ECESP Coordination Group member Circular Change.
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the initiative "Towards an EU Product Policy Framework contributing to the Circular Economy".
The Coordination Group of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform held its second annual meeting on 18 and 19 October 2018.
The 7th European Environmental Evaluators Network Forum addressed the impact of evaluating environment and climate policies, including policies enabling the circular economy.
The Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform annual conference will take place on 6 and 7 March 2019.
The SCREEN Final Conference was held in Rome on 18 and 19 October 2018, during the two-day Forum CompraVerde (BuyGreen), in order to present the results of the SCREEN project.
The Consumer Insights into the Circular Economy event took place on 25 October 2018 in Brussels.
The Be Circular Annual Meeting took place on 24 October 2018
The XI International Environmental Congress took place in Bogotà, Colombia on 23 and 24 October 2018, with participation from Cillian Lohan, ECESP coordination group member for the EESC.
