Occitania, a Positive Energy Region

Toulouse – the Occitania region’s capital – is a lively and historically rich city that has developed along the Garonne river. Known for being home to the Airbus headquarters and t...

The Life of Mines After Mining

Mining is an increasingly hot topic in the global community. Germany, a country traditionally considered to be a green leader, is just one example of the struggles faced when enacting a rapid and fa...

Being Sustainable in the Coloured Gemstone Business

The multibillion-dollar coloured gemstone industry is active in nearly 50 countries; contributing to the livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. Although it is difficult to obtain the exact num...

Cobalt Shortages Ahead

The rapid growth in electric vehicles is creating an enormous demand for cobalt, causing high prices and supply chain issues for this critical material. Cobalt is a ferromagnetic metal and one of t...

Solaris Tobacco Crop, a New Hope to Power Africa's Biofuel Jetliners

Solaris is a humble crop, largely ignored by farmers across Africa because it contains none of the lucrative nicotine found in other tobacco varieties. Solaris is a non-GMO rop that is harvested yea...

Fighting Cholera with Waste

Yemen is suffering from a devastating humanitarian crisis. In the midst of civil war, most people no longer have access to energy and organic waste piles up in the streets. This allows fatal disease...

IoT and Intelligent Waste Collection with Nordsense

Name: Nordsense Sector: New technologies and platforms Pros: Smart waste-management system based on the IoT Characteristics: A sensor, installed in dumpsters and bins and co...

Chakr, Capturing Pollution to Make Ink

Name: Chakr Innovation Sector: New technologies and materials Pros: A retrofitted device that captures polluting particles emitted by diesel generators at the source Characterist...

Subscription Clothing with Le Tote

Name: Le Tote Sector: Circular Business Model Pros: Subscription service for women’s clothing Characteristics: Allows customers to rent women’s clothes and acces...

Aeropowder: Insulating Materials Made From Feathers

Name: Aeropowder Sector: New materials Pros: Thermally insulating material for packaging and construction, made from poultry-industry waste Characteristics: Making use of ke...

Single-use Plastics and the Automotive Industry: Upcoming Commitments for the EU

Following the report from the UN experts, on October 9th the European Council requested decisive action aimed at realising the Paris Accords, and was joined in this by the European Parliament on Oct...

The wood packaging recycling industry

The Rilegno consortium has been gathering, recovering and recycling wood from wood packaging in Italy for more than 20 years. Consortium and independent bodies have gathered and recycled around 1.8 ...

The steel packaging recycling industry

The amount of steel packaging in 2017 was 480.000 tons, and apart from a few economic oscillations, like those caused by the 2008 economic crisis, the trend of marketed steel has remained quite stab...

The aluminium packaging recycling industry

Twenty years of development and growth of separate waste collection and packaging recycling that have shown constant trends, coherent with the evolution of systems and management models that have be...

The paper packaging recycling industry

Circular economy in our DNA  Recycling is the backbone of the circular economy system and the Italian paper industry is an example of best practice: used paper and cardboard coming from domest...

The plastic packaging recycling industry

Corepla’s contribution to the implementation of circular economy is articulated in various sectors. The Consortium operates according to the principles of sustainability and its three dimensio...

The glass packaging recycling industry

During the first 20 years in which the consortium was active, the amounts of glass packaging released for consumption increased by 27.6% (from 1,905,000 in 1998 to 2,430,000 in 2017), the quantity o...

Packaging recovery performances and the future of this sector in Italy

Packaging waste management in Italy   The weight of packaging released for consumption in Italy has increased by 22% from 1998 to the present day, going from 10.7 to 13 million tonnes: the gr...

Sustainable development: a collective effort

The 17 sustainable development Objectives and the 169 Targets they include must be achieved by 2030; these are the result of almost three years of negotiations between the governments from around th...

CONAI and Consortium industries

1. The History of Consortium System   We must take a step back to the 20th of March 1941, in order to reconstruct the legislative landscape that gave life to CONAI, the day in which the issue...