Insights

Rockwool: Circular and Fireproof Insulation

Rockwool: Circular and Fireproof Insulation

The construction sector, also thanks to recent regulatory provisions, is decisively directing its efforts toward circularity. Rockwool products can provide an important contribution and they also im...

The Circular DNA of the Construction Sector

The Circular DNA of the Construction Sector

Energy-intensive, raw material-grubbing, massive waste and emission producer and much more, the construction sector has a lot to be blamed for, but luckily the circular economy – from single const...

What is the New European Bauhaus?

What is the New European Bauhaus?

100 years after Bauhaus, a movement that radically changed art, design and architecture in Germany and beyond, the European Commission has launched a New European Bauhaus to rethink our lifestyles a...

Covestro open a new area of application for CO2 in plastics production: the automotive industry

Covestro open a new area of application for CO2 in plastics production: the automotive industry

In addition to mattresses, sports floors and textile fibres, Covestro has opened up a further area of application for the use of CO2 in plastics production: now foams for the automotive industry can...

Reusable packaging: the Loop system conquers supermarkets all over the world

Reusable packaging: the Loop system conquers supermarkets all over the world

The Loop system is a great idea, and it was clear from the start. Large retailers are finally starting to understand it now. The platform for reusable packaging invented by Tom Szaky, CEO of the Am...

More Shadows Than Light on the Future of Food in Europe

More Shadows Than Light on the Future of Food in Europe

Not enough care for the climate and biodiversity, and an imbalance that favours larger farms that aim to perpetuate industrial approaches. This, in short, is the assessment of European trade associa...

Circular Economy in the hospitality industry

Circular Economy in the hospitality industry

The hospitality sector consumes 5% of global water use, emits 1% of global GHG emissions and accounts for 20% of the tourism industry total carbon emissions. Hospitality private actors overwhelmingl...

The Slum Economy: an alliance between circular and informal

The Slum Economy: an alliance between circular and informal

According to the United Nations, today, over a billion and a half people live in informal settlements and by 2030 that figure could soar to 3 billion. So, the issue of future circular cities is inex...

The Wizard and the Prophet or How to Feed 10 Billion People

The Wizard and the Prophet or How to Feed 10 Billion People

The future of our planet depends on the approach we choose to solve problems. As Charles C. Mann illustrates in his latest book, The Wizard and The Prophet, there are two dominant visions: one, that...

Why Every Roof in Japan Could Have Solar Panels Soon

Why Every Roof in Japan Could Have Solar Panels Soon

In line with their ambitious 2030 emissions reduction goal, Japan seeks to expand its national solar power generation capacity. By doing this, the densely populated nation may soon see every house, ...

Can developing countries benefit from the circular economy?

Can developing countries benefit from the circular economy?

Developing countries have not benefited from the linear economy, the economy in which goods are manufactured from raw materials, sold, used, and then discarded as waste. They have poor access to che...

Rental: a New Frontier for the Great Outdoors

Rental: a New Frontier for the Great Outdoors

There are a growing number of companies providing various options for outdoor or alpine sports equipment rental, in Europe and elsewhere. They offer a new way to save money while being respectful of...

Sustainability in two dimensions: it’s time for graphene and 2D materials

Sustainability in two dimensions: it’s time for graphene and 2D materials

The future may be two-dimensional. At least, the future of materials. Since 2004, when the two Russian physicists Gejm and Novosëlov succeeded in isolating the first monoatomic layer of graphene, ...

Mottainai! Inside the Tokyo Olimpics’ circularity strategy

Mottainai! Inside the Tokyo Olimpics’ circularity strategy

There are plenty of serious stories to cover in the run-up to the Olympics between the pandemic, record temperatures so high they’re making beach volleyball courts unplayable and, apparently, rogu...

How a holistic waste management system could cut CO2 emissions

How a holistic waste management system could cut CO2 emissions

The optimization of the waste management system worldwide could cut down 2.76 billion tons of CO2 per year, or 5% of total global emissions. It’d basically be as effective as grounding all commerc...

Digital Tech & Sustainability Combine for Harmonious Territorial Development

Digital Tech & Sustainability Combine for Harmonious Territorial Development

Data collection, coordination between different urban infrastructures, support to decision-making processes: these are the sectors in which digital and sustainability technologies can provide crucia...

USA: the introduction of the COMPOST Act is a major step forward for soil conservation

USA: the introduction of the COMPOST Act is a major step forward for soil conservation

Without soil there is not agriculture and without agriculture there is not bioeconomy. The USA celebrates the introduction of the Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion of Sustainable Tech...

Circular cities and the informal economy: Africa is now hungry for data

Circular cities and the informal economy: Africa is now hungry for data

The spread of circular economy practices and principles in developing countries often runs up against the obstacle of a lack of data. The problem grows even bigger when working in informal contexts,...

Sustainability travels by train

Sustainability travels by train

The rail sector is changing and becoming ever greener, by reducing fuel consumption and emissions, introducing new technologies like hydrogen engines, and focusing on the circularity of processes an...

Urban Metabolism: the city as a living organism is circular by nature

Urban Metabolism: the city as a living organism is circular by nature

Urban metabolism is an approach that first of all requires starting from a vision: regarding cities as a living organism. It’s not mere philosophical speculation, there are practical reasons to ad...

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