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Julia Metzner
Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda (SRIA) on Circular Economy
Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda (SRIA) on Circular Economy

CICERONE is a group of European programme owners, researchers and businesses seeking to build a platform for an efficient circular economy. Its report Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) on Circular Economy aims to help owners and funders of European circular economy programmes adopt a systemic approach to circular economy transition.
The SRIA was developed based on eight priority themes (biomass and biotechnologies, chemicals, construction and demolition, food, plastic, raw materials, waste and water) and builds on four societal areas that face sustainability challenges (urban areas, industrial systems, value chains and territory and sea) to identify priority areas to tackle EU region-wide issues and facilitate the circular economy transition.
03 May 2021 to 13 Jun 2021

Being part of EU Green Week is the opportunity to showcase the achievements of your organisation or city to a wider audience. The 2021 edition will highlight the role that the EU Action Plan Towards a Zero Pollution Ambition can play in creating toxic-free environment across the EU. If you are planning an event on this theme, why not register it as an EU Green Week partner event?
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, or how to accelerate the transition to a circular economy

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation develops and promotes the idea of a circular economy. It works with, and inspires, business, academia, policymakers, and institutions to mobilise systems solutions at scale, globally.
Its vision is a new economic system that delivers better outcomes for people and the environment. Business models, products, and materials are designed to increase use and reuse, replicating the balance of the natural world, where nothing becomes waste and everything has value.
A circular economy, increasingly built on renewable energy and materials, is distributed, diverse, and inclusive. The Foundation’s work focuses on six interlinking areas:
- Learning
- Business
- Institutions, Governments and Cities
- Insight and Analysis
- Systemic Initiatives
- Communications.
Wallenius Water Innovation’s contribution to a circular economy: Using UV light to resist bacterial growth in metalworking fluids
Wallenius Water Innovation is a Swedish clean-tech company that works with UV light to prevent bacterial growth in metalworking fluids. The non-toxic solution secures long-lasting process fluids without using hazardous biocides. In this way, fluids can more easily be reused in the installation rather than be disposed.
Circular economy approach to industrial wastewater
ZERO BRINE proposes a circular economy approach to reduce the negative impacts of brine from process industries and create economic value from the reuse of its constituents, such as sodium chloride, magnesium, calcium, sulphates, sodium bicarbonate, heat and fresh water.
Alberto Arroyo Schnell

About this contact:
Alberto Arroyo Schnell is responsible for policy and programmes at the European Regional Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He has held leading positions on EU environmental policy for the past 15 years. His current focus is working together with the key sectors related to / impacted by / benefiting from biodiversity and nature, aiming to find ways to achieve the environmental targets jointly and to ensure ownership of these targets by all stakeholders. He is Spanish, with a background in Forestry Engineering.
DuCoop presents innovative solutions for heating, water and energy management for a new district in Ghent with 400+ dwellings
DuCoop invests in sustainable technologies for the Nieuwe Dokken, the new circular districts in Ghent. The cooperative DuCoop provides systems for decentralized water sanitation with water re-use, 4thgeneration district heating and smart energy management. The company contributes to the climate ambitions of the city of Ghent, by closing the loops on water, energy and nutrients.
19 Oct 2020 to 21 Oct 2020

This workshop on 20 October 2020 will look at how cities and regions have invested in a circular economic system and how this has made them more resilient during the Covid-19 crisis.
Innovative plastic materials, natural additives and novel irrigation technologies will improve the performance of Mediterranean greenhouses
The AZMUD Project proposes innovations which will help reduce the consumption of water, energy, nutrients and pesticides, and promote the use of waste water in greenhouse cultivations.
LIFE Green Sewer - Membrane Technologies for WasteWater Treatment
LIFE Green Sewer is a LIFE Program funded project that aims to implement a new secondary wastewater treatment of industrial water.
MBB LIFE+ Investing in Water project - case study APS Bank
This case study is a part of the MBB LIFE+ Investing in Water project. APS Bank decided to invest in a holistic on-site water conservation programme. The aim of the programme was to put the bank’s sustainability policy into practice, reduce operational costs and help conserve scarce national resources.
ZERO BRINE recovers valuable resources from saline wastewater in the Polish mining industry
ZERO BRINE is running a pilot project to recover valuable resources from wastewater in the Polish mining industry so that they can be reused in other sectors.
Saltgae develops microalgae technology as sustainable alternative for wastewater treatment
The SaltGae project has established real scale demonstration sites in Slovenia, Italy and Israel that show the long-term techno-economic performance of microalgae technology for the efficient treatment of saline wastewaters from the food and beverage industries.
GIDA purification plant: PPP providing high-quality water for the textile industry while limiting water consumption
GIDA is a wastewater treatment plant that helps meet the needs of the local textile industry by supplying water of sufficiently high quality, while keeping water consumption to a minimum.
VertECO: a vertical ecosystem for indoor and outdoor greywater treatment
VertECO consists of a vertical ecosystem (vertical constructed wetland) treating greywater from handwash basins, showers, and laundries.
DyeCoo uses reclaimed CO₂ as the dyeing medium, in a closed loop process
DyeCoo, based in Weesp, the Netherlands, has more than 15 years of experience in CO₂-based textile processing technology. By replacing water with CO₂ for the dyeing process, no wastewater is generated. Furthermore, DyCoo uses reclaimed CO₂ from existing idustrial processes, making it a closed loop operation.
PerForm Water 2030 - redesigning water infrastructure for efficiency and circularity
The PerFORM WATER 2030 project will cover the following 4 main thematic areas and will focus on different study activities and pilots (TRL 4 to 7) implementation:
- Water pathway
- Biosolids valorization pathway
- Material and energy recovery pathway
- Economic sustainability and social acceptability of new technologies.
RE-Salt initiative: Recycling of industrial salty process water
After several years of research, a pilot plant has been constructed and gone into operation within Covesto’s project Cycles (funded by German Federal Ministry of Environment (BMUB)), to demonstrate the reuse of low-concentrated salt-containing wastewater streams.
SwitchMed - MED TEST II
Skaff Dairy Farm is a small-sized enterprise producing around 840 t of dairy products annually for the local market. Skaff Dairy Farm joined the MED TEST II project in order to improve quality and reduce defects, to drive out waste and continuously improve cost efficiency. The main problems the company faced was energy and finished products losses.
No more microplastic fibres in our laundry's waste water!
The PlanetCare Filter is a simple, yet efficient filter for removing microfibrers from washing machine waste water.
From waste water to RichWater, an innovative technology for combining treatment and reuse in agriculture
RichWater is a EU Horizon 2020 funded project which has provided an innovative technology for wastewater reuse in agricuture. An integrated approach combining treatment and irrigation in a single system enables taking maximum advantage of nutrients.
Different ways of turning wastewater treatment plants into resource recovery facilities
The EU FP7 funded project R3Water “Demonstration of innovative solutions for Reuse of water, Recovery of valuables and Resource efficiency in urban wastewater treatment“ demonstrated solutions to support the transition from being purely a wastewater treatment plant using energy and chemicals, towards a resource facility delivering different valuables.
In the city of Almere, innovative waste project turns water plants into paper
The city of Almere, working together with local stakeholders and the company Millvision, has developed an innovative circular economy partnership. The aquatic plant is a local and renewable input to the production of the paper but it also "circular" as something that would be discarded as waste is re-valued as a raw material used in production.