The travel & tourism industry has touchpoints with most, if not all, key value chains and material flows in society and is therefore very relevant to consider for the circular economy transition.

To guide a sustainable recovery and development of the industry post COVID-19, this publication introduces key circular economy principles and concepts in the context of travel & tourism. This report provides private tourism operators with a robust introduction to circular economy concepts and how these apply to their operations and business transformation.

It also offers guidance to policymakers, regulators, and trade bodies on possible circular economy-inspired policy and business development directions.

According to the European Commission, circular procurement is "the purchase of works, goods or services that seek to contribute to the closed energy and material loops within supply chains, whilst minimising, and in the best case avoiding, negative environmental impacts and waste creation across the whole life cycle".

Circular Public Procurement (CircularPP) is a 3-year project (2017–2020) supported by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region programme. CircularPP has published Recommendations to national policy-makers on circular public procurement. For example, local pilots of procurement of circular products and solutions should be encouraged, as municipalities play an important role in implementing circular economy activities and can promote the use of circular criteria.

FoodDrinkEurope - an organisation representing Europe's food and drinks industry - has designed a website explaining what the industry is currently doing to enhance a resource-efficient circular economy.

Entitled Ingredients for a Circular Economy, the website specifically looks at the areas of farming, manufacturing, sustainable packaging and consumers, providing numerous examples of how the European food and drinks industry is helping to promote circular economy. The website also sets out policy recommendations for how to unlock further sustainable growth and innovation for a resource-efficient circular economy in the food and drinks industry. 

Zero Waste Scotland has commissioned a study on Measuring Scotland's progress towards a circular economy, in order to assess the value of existing metrics and identify the most effective ways to drive and track progress on reducing our carbon emissions.

The study has concluded that no single metric could be used to monitor Scotland’s progress on adopting a circular economy. However, a range of metrics could be developed and used collectively.

Two datasets in particular (a Scottish material flows accounts and Scotland’s carbon footprint) will be key to this as the country progresses towards a circular economy

The Alliance for Flame Retardant Free Furniture welcomes the new Circular Economy Action Plan and calls on EU institutions to address the unnecessary use of chemicals preventing circularity and the achievement of climate goals, such as toxic flame retardants in furniture, which endanger people’s and firefighters’ health as they migrate out of products and can lead to increased fire toxicity.

The use of such retardants is a historical, hazardous and ineffective practice which is not proven to reduce the number of fires. It is at odds with circularity objectives and their presence in furniture runs counter to the ambition to introduce and increase circularity.

Ensuring fire safety is a must, but it needs to be done in ways that are not hazardous.

In 2016, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) set up a Symbiosis Users Network (SUN) to boost industrial symbiosis in Italy. The network promotes circular economy models through industrial symbiosis by focusing on operational issues.

SUN's 2019 conference was devoted to Good practices of industrial symbiosis in Italy and the contribution of regional policies as a strategic lever. The event, co-organised by SUN, Ecomondo and ENEA was held in Rimini (IT) on 7 November 2019 at Ecomondo - a leading event in Europe for new circular economy models.

Click on 2017 and 2019 to see the reports on SUN's two conferences.

Reports on ENEA-promoted conferences on industrial symbiosis are available here.