The European Policy Centre’s (EPC) Task Force called Digital Roadmap to Circular Economy has explored the linkages between digitalisation and circular economy, the opportunities created by data and digitally-enabled solutions, and the challenges associated with harnessing their full potential for the transition to a circular economy.

The project represents a pioneering endeavour in exploring the interconnections between the digital and green transformations and considers the implications for EU policymaking.

The final publication The circular economy: Going digital and its executive summary show that digitalisation can offer enormous possibilities for the transition to a more sustainable, circular economy but it is essential to steer it in the right direction.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) has always been a meeting place for Sweden’s future. It builds bridges between the business community, the public sector, academia and the political sphere.

Its two-year project "Resource Effectiveness and the Circular Economy" was aimed at making Sweden more competitive in a future with finite resources, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, by economising on resources and developing new technologies, services and business models in five areas:

• premises,
• mobility,
• textiles,
• food and
• plastics.

Read the synthesis report, marking the completion of the project, which presents the most important conclusions, recommendations and action plans from the five subprojects.

Textiles and clothing play an important role in our everyday life. But the global fashion industry model is unsustainable. It uses large amounts of resources and has negative impacts on the environment and people. The global fashion industry, therefore, has to make a transition towards a circular model. In a ‘circular’ fashion economy, clothes, textiles, and fibres are kept at their highest value during use and re-enter the economy to avoid becoming waste.

This research note produced by Ecopreneur.eu is a first inventory of the potential impacts of future EU circular fashion on non-European textile producing countries. It uses existing literature and input from four circular economy experts to analyse the economic, social and environmental impacts. 

A broad coalition of social and environmental NGOs has developed a Civil Society European Strategy for Sustainable Textiles, Garments, Leather and Footwear, looking at the social, environmental and governance implications of the textile sector in one forward-looking document ahead of the comprehensive EU Strategy for Textiles, expected in 2021.

The document aims to contribute to the upcoming comprehensive EU Strategy for Textiles, by providing recommendations on what such a Strategy should encompass in order to maintain a high level of ambition. It includes forward-looking proposals on due diligence, product policy framework, waste, unfair trading practices, international trade, support to producing countries, alternative business models and a multi-stakeholder platform.

The fashion industry has a big influence on the global economy and is known for its social and environmental impact. This online course by Wageningen University & Research is an introduction to circular fashion, brought by 30 experts from academia and practice.

After this course, you will be able to:

• Understand the role of sustainability and circularity in fashion
• Understand the importance of design for disassembly and recycling
• Evaluate new biobased materials for textiles and understand the change in production processes
• Disrupt current thinking and mindset in the industry and manage the transition to circular fashion
• Understand economic paradigms and new forms of value creation for circularity in the fashion industry

Read more and enrol.

Europe is facing a growing mountain of used textiles. In North-West Europe 4700 kilotonnes of post-consumer textile waste are generated annually. Still, less than 1% of textiles produced are currently recycled into new ones, and around 50% are downcycled, incinerated or landfilled.

Automated sorting technologies could enable the industry to turn non-rewearable textiles into valuable feedstock for high-value recycling. Fibersort, a Near Infrared based technology, is able to categorise textiles according to their fibre composition, structure and colour.

At the end of each chapter of the report, recommendations are formulated for recyclers, manufacturers and brands to address the socio-cultural, physical and economic barriers for uptake of sorted textiles.

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:

1. Pre-assessment (conducting awareness meeting with CE professionals, identifying CE initiatives, finding partners etc.) - already completed
2. Feasibility Check
3. Vision Development
4. Implementation