Insights

Green Economy: Exporting Italian Know-How

Green Economy: Exporting Italian Know-How

There is an “Italian way” towards Green Economy that’s establishing in global markets. Ecomondo, the event organised by Rimini Fiera, that reaced the 19th edition, is a model able ...

Circulating Capital

Circulating Capital

  These are the questions that for over a decade Jamie Butterworth has tried to answer. The former Ellen MacArthur Foundation CEO has become one of the founders and partners of Circularity C...

Bottom-up Funding

Bottom-up Funding

Funding the circular economy is not easy. Funding a start-up in the circular economy is complicated. Funding a start-up with a circular business model (product-as-a-service) becomes almost prohibiti...

The 4 Vital Elements of a Viable Circular Service Model

The 4 Vital Elements of a Viable Circular Service Model

While the circular economy is gaining momentum all across the world, the urgency to develop and implement viable circular business models is crucial to its success. One business model that is very p...

A Winning Agreement

A Winning Agreement

BBI JU is a public-private partnership between the EU and the Bio-Based Industries Consortium. It has funded as much as 65 projects in the past 3 years, playing therefore a fundamental role in enhan...

It all Started in Helsinki

It all Started in Helsinki

It might well have been the largest circular economy gathering to this day. We are talking about the first ever World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF), that took place in Helsinki, Finland, on 5-7 June...

This is How We Recycle Nappies

This is How We Recycle Nappies

It is the first technology able to 100% recycle materials making up nappies and absorbent products. A plant built from scratch in Lovadina di Spresiano (Treviso), which transforms otherwise landfill...

Upcycle and the Atomic Bomb

Upcycle and the Atomic Bomb

  Elliptical, philosophical, rarely obscure and always enlightened with solid, simple concepts. Talking for more than an hour with one of the XXI century design guru is a revealing trip in e...

Thinking with Our Hands

Thinking with Our Hands

Terms such as “biobased, sustainable, circular materials” are at long last starting to be part of the layman’s vocabulary. Indeed, characterizing an object by its material is a lev...

The Planet We Will See

The Planet We Will See

  In your latest book, The Great Transition, you discussed how we are starting our transition out of fossil fuel. Which technology you see trending right now and which have the highest hope ...

The Future Is in the Hands of Corporations

The Future Is in the Hands of Corporations

Pavan Sukhdev - Photo by Beatrice Törnros   How much are ecosystem services worth in monetary terms? How much are rain, oxygen, climate, biodiversity – s...

Capital is Natural

Capital is Natural

Graphic elaboration of Karl Marx (engraving), by Robert Diedrichs, 1970   Capital is still a term thought to be confined to the realm of economics and finance. However, ...

70% Recycling Can Be Achieved. Not Enough? I Would Be More than Happy

70% Recycling Can Be Achieved. Not Enough? I Would Be More than Happy

  Talking about separate collection while strolling early in the morning along Trastevere lanes with Daniele Fortini (born in Orbetello in 1955), CEO of AMA (Azienda Municipale Ambiente, Mun...

Natural Recall

Natural Recall

  The Natural Recall is an international non-profit project. Officially opened in May 2014 within Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Third Paradise at Milan’s Superortopiù, it is n...

Championing the Circular Cause

Championing the Circular Cause

  There has been an overwhelming interest in the circular economy, from industry to NGOs to member state officials – why do you think this is? I think it’s because many people, ...

The New Chemistry Is Worth $80 Trillion

The New Chemistry Is Worth $80 Trillion

Let us begin with your book, regarded as the Bible by those in the know. Will you help us understand where the world’s chemical industry is heading for? Over the last ten years, the chemical ...

The Hidden Value of Plants

The Hidden Value of Plants

  “I will plant, says he, in the desert, cedars, hawthorns, myrtles,  olives, firs, elms and boxes.” Therefore, if you wish to own plenty of these trees, and if you yearn to ...

10% of Biofuels Without Giving up a Single Sandwich

10% of Biofuels Without Giving up a Single Sandwich

At global level, biomass currently amounts to 10-12% of energy production: it is the first amongst renewables and it has an enormous expansion potential both for the production of heat and electrici...

Business Models Reaching For a Circular Slot

Business Models Reaching For a Circular Slot

When they created the Product Life Institute in Geneva in 1982, Orio Giarini and Walter Stahel stood as lonesome cowboys exploring the newfound land of the circular economy. Indeed, during the 60&rs...

Ecological Debt's Hidden War Increases Tensions in the Mediterranean Area

Ecological Debt's Hidden War Increases Tensions in the Mediterranean Area

There is another public debt resting on our shoulders. It is neither less dangerous nor lighter than the financial one. Above all, it is completely out of control. It increases every year, especiall...

das