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Who doesn’t recognize this: you buy just too many groceries, leaving leftovers that eventually disappear in the trash. It may sound like a small issue, but all households combined provide a significant surplus of unused food. Add to that the waste of companies, where loads of canteen lunches remain untouched, or the hospitality industry that
The recently published report Towards Circular Food Systems in Bonn shows that transitioning to a circular food system offers Bonn a way to achieve substantial waste prevention and to fulfill it’s long-term strategies of becoming a zero-waste city while also contributing to its aim to become climate-neutral by 2035
As part of its waste prevention ambition, the city of Bonn is focusing on food waste mitigation and packaging reduction initiatives, as well as campaigns to encourage sustainable consumption that contribute to zero waste. The circular economy offers practical tools to achieve this goal.
In the autumn of 2021 Anders Wijkman prepared a paper for the Global Challenges Foundation that was presented in Glasgow at COP 26. It was one of a series of papers with a focus on the need to improve governance in a number of areas. Anders wrote this to EiD: Among quite a number of…
We have reusable cups, bags and bottles: so why are our buildings still single use?
While some other sectors are gradually reducing their consumption and waste generation to meet carbon emissions targets, the construction industry seems to be lagging behind. This is particularly concerning considering that it’s responsible for 38% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 62% of the UK’s waste.
Current national climate pledges — Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — are overwhelmingly focused on the clean energy transition. While these can tackle emissions coming from petrol or diesel cars or electricity generation, 70% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from how we produce everyday goods — and the resources that fuel these processes. To slash global GHG emissions, climate mitigation measures must tackle the way that resources move through our economy, from extraction to use, as well as climbing rates of extraction and consumption around the world. This article, using the Build, Grow, Shift country profiles from the Circularity Gap Report series, reflects on countries’ current NDCs and how they can update them ahead of COP26.
The City of Barcelona in Spain has announced that it is embracing the tools and concepts of Doughnut Economics to guide actions to address the climate emergency and the city's ecological transition.
The initiative was launched during a press conference on July 29, 2021 - the same day as Earth Overshoot Day - which was hosted by Barcelona City Councillor Eloi Badia i Casas.
La Ville de Paris lance « Paris Sème », un dispositif de soutien destiné à renforcer la capacité d’investissement des actrice.s et acteur.s de la filière agricole de proximité. Pour cette première édition, les réponses sont attendues d'ici le 3 août 2021.
Ce dispositif vise à soutenir, au travers de subventions en investissement, les structures et projets relevant des secteurs de la production agricole primaire, de la transformation et de la commercialisation de produits agricoles ou de l’aquaculture et répondant aux enjeux de l'agriculture durable de proximité.
The circular economy is now at the forefront of the competitiveness agenda for various industrial sectors, industrial parks, and firms. This report intends to provide practical recommendations on how industrial parks can promote the circularity of resources and strengthen competitiveness through innovative technologies and business models, and what governments can do to support such initiatives. It also aims to assist policy makers in identifying enablers of and barriers to the adoption of the proposed technologies.
Very important work has been done over the last decade to take industrial ecology and the circular economy into the mainstream. A lot of credit has to be given to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. At the same time, it needs to be highlighted that the cascading of material and energy flows in small and fast and large and slow cycles is a core pattern of ecosystems and the biosphere. For most of our history as a species we managed our household (economy) based on understanding these patterns of nature (ecology). Bioregionally adapted ‘circular economies’ are nothing new. They are the only long term viable economies! Our current linear and globalised system is the aberration!
Vous avez été nombreux ces dernières semaines à demander une analyse critique sur la théorie du donut de Kate Raworth, qui a eu des retours incroyables en peu de temps. Mais de quoi s’agit-il ? Quelles sont ses propositions ? En quoi sont-elles différentes des théories classiques ? Voici le moment d’aborder cette théorie qui dresse un constat implacable de la situation actuelle, et nous livre quelques propositions étonnantes et novatrices.
2021 is a ‘food year’ for URBACT: promoting food democracy and food sovereignty at the initiative of URBACT good practice city Mouans-Sartoux (FR) and the URBACT Transfer Network BioCanteens that it has led (with partner cities in Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Romania).
URBACT will be supporting regular activities of networks around food topics and also creating a specific web page of the URBACT Knowledge Hub, dedicated to urban sustainable food systems – all with the aim to support cities in their transitions to more sustainable food systems!
À Surgères, le syndicat mixte Cyclad mène une démarche novatrice en matière d’économie circulaire depuis dix ans. Après les CyclaB’box, zones de gratuité permanente, il s’apprête
Le Luxembourg a l'ambition de devenir leader international en matière de développement durable en intégrant sept principes de l'économie circulaire dans sa stratégie nationale.
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L’établissement public territorial de Plaine Commune œuvre depuis 2017 pour généraliser le réemploi de matériaux de construction sur tous les chantiers du territoire. Vigoureusement portée par les élus, cette démarche de « métabolisme urbain » est aujourd’hui une politique publique.
The European Commission’s Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) is taking concrete shape with the selection of 12 cities and regions, which will act as Pilots for exemplary projects in terms o..
Circular economy means more than recycling
At least 1 billion used tires are thrown away every year. Because the rubber is made from crude oil that is very difficult to recycle, tires are usually burned, or processed into low-quality rubber mats. However, the goal of a circular economy is to preserve the value of the product and avoid so-called downcycling.
En France, nous détruisons tous les ans 25 à 30 000 hectares de sols essentiellement agricoles pour agrandir nos villes. C’est une surface équivalente à une vingtaine d’aéroports Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Ou cinq stades de foot, mais toutes les heures. Cet étalement débridé de nos villes n’est plus en
On 11 August, the City of Prague reported that it is preparing to convert slag produced from the incineration of waste into building materials. According to Hlubuček, the incinerator produces 65 to 70 thousand tons of slag annually. What is more, the city pays approximately CZK 40 million (EUR 1.5 million) a year for landfilling.
Thanks to research and technological innovations, this waste can now be converted into raw materials and used in the construction industry. More specifically, clean slag reportedly has various useful properties which would allow it to be utilised as a base layer in the construction of roads.
Hlubuček discussed the advantages of transforming slag into raw materials, stressing that it would result in great financial savings and a reduction of CO2 emissions. In turn, it would help bring the capital closer to achieving its climate goals.
In short: - The Czech capital of Prague has fast become a trailblazer in establishing a local circular economy.
- Circle Economy’s ‘Circle Scan’ analysed the material flows, GHG emissions and value generation of Prague’s economy to set priorities and measure the scale of issues.
- Besides the Circle Scan, political endorsement and stakeholder management was instrumental in embedding the circular economy into daily decision-making processes.
Dedicated to advancing the circular economy and bringing together the circular economy community, in 2021 the ECESP Coordination Group (CG) will focus on 8 key areas identified as essential for the transition, based on their collective experience and exchanges with other stakeholders:
Retailers, Consumer and Skills
Cities and Regions
Circular Procurement
Food waste, Food systems and Bioeconomy
Construction and Infrastructure
Textiles
Network Governance and Circular Economy Hubs
Economic Incentives.
A circular economy is an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. Looking beyond the current take-make-waste extractive industrial model, a circular economy aims to redefine growth, focusing on positive society-wide benefits. It entails gradually decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources and designing waste out of the system. Underpinned by a transition to renewable energy sources, the circular model builds economic, natural, and social capital.
Increased recycling has come at the expense of greener activities like reuse. The European Union now needs to adopt a multidimensional approach to tackle Europe's waste problem and move towards circularity, writes Joan Marc Simon. Looking back, in the last 30 years, Europe has reduced landfilling by around 30% and doubled recycling and incineration figures. At the same time, reuse/refill has been decimated and we are generating 20% more waste per capita. In other words, the bottom of the waste hierarchy has been getting fatter at the expense of the upper side. This confirms that, when the wise man pointed at the moon, all we could see was the waste accumulating on the finger. But it was just a pointer, a symptom. The good news is that we are finally collectively understanding that the solution lies elsewhere.
Portugal’s new National Circular Cities Initiative, known as InC2(link is external), is designed to “support and empower municipalities and their communities in the transition to a circular economy”. To do so, it will bring URBACT’s participative methodology and capacity building to a wide range of municipalities throughout the country. The programme is financed by a EUR 1.5 million National Environment Fund over three years.
The DEAL Team has collaborated with Biomimicry 3.8, C40 Cities and Circle Economy – through the Thriving Cities Initiative – to create the City Portrait methodology, and pilot the approach in Philadelphia, Portland and Amsterdam. We have created this Guide (available as PDF below) because we are making the City Portrait methodology freely available to all who are interested in downscaling the Doughnut to their city or place, and we want to make it as simple and straightforward as possible for others to do.
Europe's current economic model "has no future" and does not respond to "major environmental challenges", Portugal's prime minister António Costa said on Friday, calling for the adoption of new models such as the circular economy and sustainable bioeconomy.
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