Month: July 2021

Dr. Zaid, Secretary General of Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation, and Dr Sandra Piesik, Founder of 3 Ideas B.V, say as we rebuild our economies, grow our societies and look to protect the planet, everything must ‘link back to nature’. Here, they look at the potential of the date palm in creating a bio-circular economy. 2021 marks the beginning of a new era for sustainability. It’s the year that the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) has begun. It’s the year where climate change returned to the agenda for America, with Joe Biden sworn in as President. And, with a degree of hopefulness, it’s the year where countries around the world could emerge from the pandemic. The final point is perhaps the most important. It’s been spoken about a lot and even branded as ‘The Great Reset’ by the World Economic Forum. As countries begin to open up again, there’s a great opportunity for the world to build back better and with a green recovery in mind.

Parliament adopted comprehensive policy recommendations to achieve a carbon-neutral, sustainable, toxic-free and fully circular economy by 2050 at the latest. The report, adopted today with 574 votes in favour, 22 against and 95 abstentions, is a response to the Commission’s Circular Economy Action Plan. Binding 2030 targets are needed for materials use and our consumption footprint, covering the whole lifecycle of each product category placed on the EU market, MEPs stress. They also call on the Commission to propose product-specific and/or sector-specific binding targets for recycled content.

A regional coalition, led by UNEP, will support access to financing by the public and private sector, with special emphasis on SMEs — to foster innovation and the implementation of specific projects in the region. The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) has launched a regional coalition that aims to support Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) transition to a circular economy. As the region continues to grapple with the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, a circular economy transition offers new and better growth opportunities to build a resilient and low-carbon economic recovery.

Staying ahead of the technology curve means strengthening your competitive advantage. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights into the circular economy. This time, you get to discover 5 hand-picked startups developing metals & mining solutions. The insights of this data-driven analysis are derived from the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering 1.379.000+ startups & scaleups globally. The platform gives you an exhaustive overview of emerging technologies & relevant startups within a specific field in just a few clicks. The Global Startup Heat Map below reveals the distribution of the 282 exemplary startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Further, it highlights 5 startups that we hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. You get to explore the solutions of these 5 startups & scaleups in this report. For insights on the other 277 metals & mining solutions, get in touch.

New research by the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre (FFW CRC) shows beef, bread, cheese, and salad are the most thrown out foods in Australian kitchens. The study is the largest investigation ever undertaken in Australia, using data from multiple sources to determine the how, why and where of food waste in Australian homes. FFW CRC chief executive officer, Dr Steven Lapidge, said the researchers used on-line surveys, electronic kitchen diaries, audits of kerb side bins and focus groups to understand what is really happening. The study shows that while most of us think we don’t waste food, we do, and we waste a lot. The average household throws away 219 kg of food a year. That adds up to an average of $965 per person per year – enough for a holiday.

The circular economy supports sustainability by enabling economic growth without greater resource use.
“The Basics” provides essential knowledge about core business sustainability topics. Companies sold 1.52 billion smartphones worldwide in 2019. Meanwhile, almost half of American smartphone users reported upgrading their phones before the phones stopped working. And almost all discarded phones go to landfills. This is a common pattern in our current “linear economy,” where we take materials to make something and then get rid of it when we’re done using it. The linear economy is a system that assumes that our supply of resources is infinite and that the Earth can absorb all our waste. This approach has real costs, for businesses and the planet. Those landfilled phones, for example, are full of valuable materials. A tonne of iPhones delivers 300 times more gold than a tonne of gold ore. The linear economy doesn’t capture that value. Instead, the old phones become waste and companies manufacture new phones in a resource- and energy-intensive process.

An independent development trust and social enterprise which delivers sustainable community projects to benefit Newtown has the potential to make the town the circular economy capital of the UK. That’s the opinion of Montgomeryshire MP Craig Williams who met officers Stuart Owen and Adam Kennerley from Open Newtown to hear about the company’s current and incubating projects. Open Newtown, which manages 140 acres of green space in Newtown, delivers sustainable community projects with the aim making the town a viable and vibrant place to live, work and visit. With Newtown Town Council, the company has developed a new destination play park and a BMX Pump Track and Mountain Bike Trail and is currently building a £1.5 million Riverside Venue, which will open up the River Severn and surrounding parkland to visitors and local residents, with canoe access points, nature/heritage trails and a forest/river school.

A report by PwC states that Australia’s circular economy could be worth up to $2 trillion by 2040, and also save up to 165 million tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere. Titled, Building a more Circular Australia, the report explores the opportunity for Australia to establish a framework for sustainable growth using the circular economy …

Transitioning to a circular economy would support the EU’s efforts to reach climate neutrality by 2050, according to a recent Ellen MacArthur Foundation policy paper. The recently published policy paper A climate-neutral and circular industry for Europe, which the Foundation has co-authored with experts from the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), demonstrates the importance of the circular economy to the EU’s ability to meet its climate targets, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation says. The Foundation has also offered a series of recommendations that it says will enable the EU to ‘accelerate the transition to a circular economy’.

Circular economy is a production and consumption model that involves reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products to keep materials within the economy. It implies that waste becomes a resource, consequently minimising the actual amount of waste. The circular model is generally the antithesis of a traditional, linear economic model, which is based on a ‘take-make-consume-throw away’ pattern. This paper looks at the job creation potential and added value produced by the circular economy and illustrates the generation and treatment of waste in the EU.

If you’re someone who has a reusable coffee cup (and remembers to use it), has a compost at home and regularly engages in meat-free mondays, then you might have heard of the phrase the Circular Economy (CE) before.  While most people assume that the CE is just about recycling (and no shade if you do), it actually goes much deeper than that—in fact, recycling is the last resort when it comes to an ideal CE. To put it simply, the theory behind the CE is about transforming our current linear consumption model (Take-Make-Waste) into a circular one that keeps products and services in use for longer (well, forever) to reduce environmental impact and protect precious natural resources. The benefits of the CE are endless, but in short it enables us all to consume more consciously, without compromising on quality, cost or experience.

Prominent Northeastern grocery store chain Hannaford Supermarkets made headlines recently by declaring that for an entire year it had not sent any spoiled or outdated food to landfills, where the organic decomposition process produces methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. Instead, Hannaford, which operates in New England and New York, is contracting with an anaerobic food reprocesser to strip the food from its packaging, mix it with microbes and manure, and turn it into fuel, fertilizer and bedding for dairy cows.

Time is running out for the world to address the impact and effects of climate change. Thankfully, political leaders and businesses are focusing their attention on the crisis — and the green finance movement is gaining traction globally as investors and financial institutions work to mitigate climate change by funding projects tied to sustainability objectives. This event features conversations between Insider senior editors and financial market leaders and investors about funding sustainability, the path to double profit, and the latest green finance trends to get the world to net-zero carbon emissions.

Prominent Northeastern grocery store chain Hannaford Supermarkets made headlines recently by declaring that for an entire year it had not sent any spoiled or outdated food to landfills, where the organic decomposition process produces methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. Instead, Hannaford, which operates in New England and New York, is contracting with an anaerobic food reprocesser to strip the food from its packaging, mix it with microbes and manure, and turn it into fuel, fertilizer and bedding for dairy cows.

Today, the Clorox-owned personal care brand announced plans to be Net-Zero-Plastic-to-Nature by 2021 and shared updates on packaging improvements, new product launches, waste elimination initiatives, and smart partnerships—all part of the Burt’s Bees plan for circularity. “The challenges of the pandemic have only heightened the importance of protecting nature as a resource, for the health of people and all life on Earth,” ​Burt’s Bees Senior Director of Sustainability Paula Alexander, points out in today’s media release about the personal care brand’s latest sustainability goals. “That’s why we’ve chosen to focus on systemic changes across our supply chain while working toward a circular economy—to enable a more connected and stable relationship between people and nature,” ​she says. The brand is using Plastic Waste Reduction Standards established by the non-profit climate action and sustainable development organization Verra​ as well as those outlined by The 3R Initiative​ (in partnership with EA, South Pole and Quantis).

EIT Climate-KIC, EIT RawMaterials, EIT Digital, EIT Food, EIT Manufacturing and EIT Urban Mobility have created a Cross-Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) action aiming to strengthen the collaboration of their activities related to the circular economy.  A coordinated and efficient collaboration between the different KICs will help the EU achieve its Circular Economy Action Plan.   The initiative aims to establish discussions among the KICs to find ways to develop a joint offer around circular economy and improve coordination with the Commission on this issue. It will also strengthen collaboration with other relevant stakeholders, support the European Institute of Technology in discussions with the Directorate-General for the Environment of the European Commission and facilitate the access to markets for innovative solutions developed in participating KICs. 

China’s National Development and Reform Commission has said that the country will develop new recycled material standards within its new circular economy strategy. Previously, China has said that it will permit imports that meet these standards. In the 14th Five Year Circular Economy Development Plan, it says it will develop new recycled material standards for waste steel, waste non-ferrous metals, waste plastics and waste paper. By 2025, China plans to use 60 million tonnes of waste paper per year in its industries, rising from 54.9 million tonnes in 2020. It also said that its printing and packaging industries will be required to use more recycled content.

The scrap recycling industry is the first link in the global manufacturing supply chain and is thus dependent upon both a healthy domestic manufacturing base and access to global markets. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) updated its policy position on free and fair trade, recognizing the support it provides to recyclable commodity market access development. Recyclable materials are sustainable commodities that have value and are sold in the global marketplace according to ISRI’s globally recognized specifications as a raw material that reduces the environmental impact of using virgin materials for manufacturing. More than 40 percent of global manufacturers’ raw materials needs are met by the ready supply of recycled commodities.

How to capitalize on the growing upcycled foods movement Make food from food waste. Food waste is a global problem as their leftovers remain in large quantities in almost all parts of the supply chain in agricultural and processing enterprises. Fruits and vegetables constitute the highest food waste. 45%-60% of fruits consist of waste — pulp, rind, cake left after pressing, kernels and seeds. Despite the food surplus, more than 820 million people worldwide are undernourished, and one in nine people on earth is hungry.

The Circular Revolution is described as being ‘the first business-led hub in the UK focused on circular thinking’. Designed in partnership with Swansea and Exeter Universities, the £2.3m centre is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh government, which will contribute over £1.5m. “It is a privilege to be afforded this opportunity to host the centre and drive circular thinking forward globally from Wales,” said Riversimple director Fiona Spowers. “While there is a lot of enthusiasm for the concept of circular business models, they are hard to adopt and embrace fully. With Circular Revolution’s pilot programme, we are uniquely positioned to trial, test and refine this research on a real small business in Wales, Riversimple.”