The Europe to Come
It is a fact. The circular economy has been a pillar of the outgoing EU Commission and Parliament. “The political power of this idea is obvious,” explains Frans Timmermans – Vice-P...
Europe on the Edge
Polls in early March told a story of ultra-nationalist, sovereigntist and even openly neo-fascist parties gathering widespread political support. From the Visegràd Group to Lega Nord in Italy...
Bio-on's Rapid Rise
A new generation of high-performance biodegradable polyesters has arrived, made from sugar co-products or waste, derived from beetroot, potatoes, glycerol and extracts from fruit and veget...
Nà¸rrona: Outdoor Fashion Changes Clothes
For Jørgen Jørgensen, CEO of Nørrona, sustainability is a life goal. In the business world there is often talk of a “value proposition” to be made to customers throu...
Decarbonise Now
The Mauna Loa observatory, in Hawaii, has found the average concentration of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, to be above 410 parts per million (ppm), the highest level seen in the last 800,...
Carbon Smart Circular Economy
A carbon-proof circular economy? For Dr. Jennifer Holmgren this is not an impossible task. LanzaTech is working to create a large scale industrial Carbon Capture and Usage project (CCU). With two go...
Italian collectivesystems, an idea for the planet
Naturally, maps were kept hidden since they were one of the main instruments of power, the punishment for those who stole them was death; these object were precious and often a state secret. In the ...
A Strategy for the Environment
Sergio Costa is the new Italian Minister of the Environment; he was nominated on the 1st of June of this year. He is considered one of the technical ministers of the 65th Italian governmen...
Capillary Circularity
Producing renewable energy automatically allows a company to be considered as a circular enterprise. What happens, however, when a large holding company in the energy sector, which has decided not t...
Battle to the Last Bottle: Canada vs Nestlé
Small blue and white houses, with picket fences freshly painted each season, their gardens filled with roses, birthroots and violets. Cars parked carefully in the driveways, beside manicured front l...
Marx Reloaded
For over a century, social activists and trade-unions have battled for new rights, including those of women, and have fought for changes such as the universalisation of paid holidays and minimum wag...
The Sustainable Future of Labour
Complexity is key to analysing employment’s social, economic and environmental challenges. This is a pivotal statement in the research and studies by Enrico Giovannini – an eco...
A Global Affair
“Without a true valorisation of agricultural production coca cannot be stopped,” explains a local small-scale farmer called Nico, when interviewed. Even if this is an extreme example, th...
A Sea of Opportunities
Pollution, over-exploitation, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, as well as climate change have become major threats to aquatic eco-systems. To unlock the potential of seas and oceans, ade...
Back to the Future, Rediscovering Traditional Knowledge to Win the Food Challenge
What has food become? What does it mean for Western society to feed itself? What does the meat on the plate before us represent? What do we mean by food security? Questions that, even if s...
100 Resilient Cities
How can we implement a real circular economy without having cities geared for resilience against stress and shocks? This is a key area of reflection when discussing the future of cities and in parti...
The Age of Plastic
The media is full of Chris Jordan’s famous pictures of seagull carcasses with their stomachs full of bottle caps, tubes and other plastic paraphernalia. Documentaries denouncing the indecent...
For a Circular Europe
After years of delays, the European Parliament in Strasbourg has approved the Circular Economy (CE) Package. However, things have not yet come full circle. “The way for a new develop...
The American Way
What is the difference in the way Brussels and Washington D.C. see the circular economy? To get an answer one should have attended the Fourth Circular Economy Summit, organised by the powerful US Ch...
BusinessEurope, Circular Means Business
©BUSINESSEUROPE / Photo: Erik Luntang “Business is fully on board with the circular economy revolution. Not only because it is good business to save resourc...