The Finnish city of Lahti has been pioneering industrial symbiosis at the Kujala Waste Treatment Centre where all sorts of waste are reused. Several companies have established interconnected material flows, thus making one’s residues another one’s raw materials.
Di-Plast Contact for stakeholder from the Netherlands
Vienna's Municipal Department 48, responsible for the city's waste management, has been active in re-use since 1989, when the city’s first re-use shop was founded. In Summer 2015, the Department opened the 48-er Tandler: a mobile re-use shop where citizens can buy affordable, quality second-hand goods and whose proceeds go entirely to charity.
In a circular fashion industry, designers, producers, retailers & consumers are challenged to take the whole life cycle of a garment into account. Circular Flanders and Flanders DC guide you through the principles of this sustainable way of working.
Lieze is head of the international policy unit at OVAM, the Public Waste Agency of Flanders, which ensures that Flanders deals with waste, materials and soil in a well-thought and environmentally sound manner. Since 1981 OVAM developed a balanced mix of economic and regulatory instruments on waste, materials and soil that made the Region of Flanders one of the frontrunners in Europe in this field.
We join forces with our partners in business, civil society, research and government, to develop a circular economy in a multi-stakeholder participatory approach. Circular Flanders serves as hub, inspiration and matchmaker for the transition to a circular economy in Flanders. We take actions that go further than sorting and recycling waste, to make a systemic shift from take-make-waste to a new economic model that keeps account of the scarcity of raw materials and ecological limits of our planet.
Together with a number of partner organisations, Circular Flanders and the Government of the Region of Flanders launched the Green Deal for Circular Procurement (GDCP) on 8 June 2017. Some 130 companies, local authorities and non-profit organisations took part in this landmark event. The idea is based on the Dutch 'Green Deal', which has been translated into the Flemish context. The Green Deal has its origin in the policy memorandum and letter Environment. Purchasers are still reluctant in changing their proceedings to allow reuse of -or recycled content in- products and in accepting new 'circular' contracts. With the GDCP Circular Flanders wants to take away the uncertainty and help buyers to change their procurement proceedings. In return the purchasers share their experiences in a learning network and the participants all set up 2 pilots. In the end they will become ambassadors who can inform other purchasers on the financial, social and ecological advantages of CE. Over 200 experiments will prove the success of Circular Procurement.
The purpose of the project has been to highlight the possibilities the municipalities and regions have to accommodate a more circular economy in the future.
The Catalan Government considers that public procurement should be used as an instrument to support strategic policies in the transition towards CE.
SCP/RAC promotes an action in Morocco to support the country in transitioning from single-use plastic bags to other green means.
The EU-funded SwitchMed Programme supports and connects stakeholders to scale-up social and eco-innovations in the Mediterranean. It promotes inclusive growth, job creation and sustainable development by supporting policy makers, eco-innovative small and medium sized enterprises, industries, start-ups and entrepreneurs in the Southern Mediterranean countries.
EU-funded SwitchMed Programme supports and connects stakeholders to scale-up social and eco-innovations in the Mediterranean. It promotes inclusive growth, job creation and sustainable development by supporting policy makers, eco-innovative small and medium sized enterprises, industries, start-ups and entrepreneurs in the Southern Mediterranean countries.
The EU-funded SwitchMed Programme supports and connects stakeholders to scale-up social and eco innovations in the Mediterranean.
The Circular Economy Demonstration Projects programme was launched in 2014 and has been repeated yearly, having developed 36 projects by 2016.
SCREEN is a Horizon 2020 project covering 17 European regions.
It aims at defining a replicable systemic approach towards a transition to Circular Economy in EU regions within the context of the Smart Specialization Strategy. The project also deals with the identification and implementation of operational synergies between investments in research and innovation under Horizon 2020, the Structural Funds and the European Investment Funds.
GreenLab (previously BSE Academy) has been created to develop environmental markets in the Brussels-Capital Region and create jobs of all kinds.
In the district of Leoben, about 12.300 tons of municipal waste were buried without any energy recovery until 2003. Since 2004 landfill regulations prescribe a pre-treatment of waste before landfill deposit and a new scheme for waste management with multiple treatment options – a residual waste splitting plant – allowed a reduction of municipal waste to a quarter and the production of heat and electricity for local use, reducing energy imports for the region.