Cleaning Our Oceans? No Lack of New Ideas
Over the past few years, a trending environmental issues has been that of marine litter. It is a problem affecting many countries around the world. Contrary to what usually occurs, marine litter is ...
Despite Brussels, the Market for Bioplastics Keeps Growing
We can already find it in shopping bags, in many vehicle components, in toys and in food packaging. It’s bioplastic. Plastic that is not derived from oil but, in different percentages, from or...
The Cemetery of Cannibalised Refrigerators
The picture of a cemetery for refrigerators – cannibalised and discarded in an abandoned industrial site just outside Rome, a stone’s throw from Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli – p...
Bamboo Makes a Comeback
The Anjan Bridge in China is one of the oldest in the world and up until a few decades ago was entirely made of bamboo. Only at the end of last century were the bamboo canes replaced with steel cabl...
In Singapore the Air-con Runs as a Service
Everything started around eight years ago when Kaer’s CEO, Justin Taylor, sat down with the chairman and senior directors to begin a conversation on how to innovate the company and generate ad...
Trash 2 Cash
Every year the European Union’s 28 member States discard over three million tonnes of textile fibres. A serious instance of waste that damages both the environment and the pockets of consumers...
Circular Europe
How will the Circular Economy Package (CEP) impact Europe? This is the fundamental question everyone in the business is debating right now. In Brussels the glass seems to be half full for ...
The Dark Side of Digitalisation
According to a report issued by Global e-Sustainability Initiative, digital solutions can bring to a 16% reduction of climate-altering gases before 2020, a result that would go way beyond ...
Use-by Date Product
Markets seek value, just like consumers. The problem is that different types of value are brought into opposition. For markets it is about economic value, whereas for consumers of a good it is about...
When a Party Extends Your Life
In 1924 the expression “planned obsolescence” did not exist, but the phenomenon was already there. Indeed, during the same year, a few light bulb manufacturers signed a non-aggression pa...
C'mon People, Let's Repair!
Do you have a sweater you really like, but so do moth which left a clear trail on it? Did your children break the toy train they got as a Christmas present? Do you have to reposition your bicycle br...
Disruptive Design
It has become increasingly normal for businesses to manufacture products that are specifically designed to lose value over time, dramatically so in some cases, with the intent to manipulat...
A Bioethanol-Fuelled Bioeconomy
Abundance of non-food biomass, soil and vast availability of natural resources, a biodiversity almost unmatched anywhere else in the world and a biotechnological and chemical industry focused on inn...
Barcelona, Fab City
There is a new idea of a society that is catching on in many cities, from Paris to Boston, Amsterdam to Barcelona. Actually, it is more of a movement stemming from the very principles of the circula...
Amsterdam, the Circular City
The city of Amsterdam has made a major step in the transition to become one of the world’s first circular cities. The goal? Minimize waste, innovate product-as-a-service business, boast new bu...
Pollution as Blue as Our Jeans
In Tehuacán there are over one hundred industrial laundries, some legal and others illegal. For over thirty years the city, in the region of Puebla, has been a cornerstone of the textile...
A Textbook Case
Analysing internal industrial processes and finding the keys to make them sustainable. This is one of the most interesting and hardest challenges of the circular economy because if sustainability do...
The Lazarus' Effect: The Second Life of Patagonia Clothes
Product Life-Extension is an oft-talked pillar of the circular economy, many talk the talk, but less walk the walk. Patagonia, the famous outdoor fashion brand from Ventura, California, ha...
The Need for a Perspective Change
“All packaging plastic must be recyclable by 2030.” This is the appeal launched by Brussels at the beginning of 2018. A strategy aimed at drastically reducing plastic waste while creatin...