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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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...
Searching for the circular car
Creating a platform for all the players in the automotive supply chain that relies on field knowledge, partnerships, funding and creativity to develop the technologies and business models of the car...
When design helps to develop an end-of-life experience
In the context of product life cycles and the circular economy, the phrase "end of life" typically refers to the point at which a product or service has reached the conclusion of its use by a consum...
Biofuels and oil refineries: Biden’s turnaround?
According to the International Press Agency Reuters, President Joe Biden’s administration, under pressure from labor unions and U.S. senators including from his home state of Delaware, is consider...
Circular Cities: the Rotterdam Strategy
The Netherlands have set themselves rather challenging circular goals where cities play a key role in such transition. Rotterdam, with its port and industries, outlined a pathway up to 2030 that wil...
WEEE: illegal trade of electronic waste must be stopped to achieve EU goals
Countries in the European Union collect and recover more end-of-life electrical and electronic devices than the rest of the world. This work, however, is still not sufficient to achieve the recyclin...
Turkey like China: stop to the import of plastic waste
It’s Turkey’s turn to be tired of accepting plastic waste from Europe. With an amendment published on May 18th in the Official Gazette, the Turkish Ministry of Commerce has banned the import of ...
Sustainable products for the future with version 4.0 of Cradle to Cradle Certified
Designing and manufacturing sustainable products that will nourish a healthy, equitable and circular tomorrow: that's the goal of Cradle to Cradle Certified, a global standard rooted in the Cradle t...
Predictive maintenance: predicting the future while saving resources
An error, a failure, a sudden malfunction. Imagining the unexpected is the goal of the predictive maintenance system that provides manufacturing companies with a prediction of a future failure of ph...
Remanufacturing: a vast untapped potential for circularity
In recent months, policies and initiatives at the European and global level have emphasised the potential of remanufacturing as the key model for the circular economy, useful in extending the lifesp...
What We Waste: 41 billion bottles and cans are littered every year in Europe
There are over 41 billion plastic and glass bottles and beverage cans that every year, in Europe, escape the recycling circuit and end up in landfills, incinerators or, worse, in rivers and the sea....
Between work automation and ecological transition, data on the future of green jobs
New economy, new jobs. This is the equation that has been in vogue ever since Henry Ford produced the first mass-produced car on an assembly line in Detroit in 1908, a car that sold over 15 million ...