Insights

Conou, the First Roadshow Devoted to Businesses Has Kicked Off

Conou, the First Roadshow Devoted to Businesses Has Kicked Off

CircOILeconomy aims to raise awareness on the proper management of used lubricating oil in the industrial world. The new project devised by Conou, the Italian consortium that deals with management, ...

Green and Circular Jobs

Green and Circular Jobs

In the beginning there were eco-jobs, then jobs with a low carbon dioxide content, and finally green jobs. Now circular jobs have also appeared, explicitly referencing the circular economy dynamics....

The Land Where Oceans and Forests are at the Heart of the Bioeconomy

The Land Where Oceans and Forests are at the Heart of the Bioeconomy

The Atlantic Ocean has played an extremely important role in the history of Portugal. As a glorious nation of seafarers, to this day the Portuguese look at the ocean as a central component to the de...

Battle to the Last Bottle: Canada vs Nestlé

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...

The European Race on GPP

The European Race on GPP

To date, Italy is still Europe’s only country where Green Public Procurement (GPP) is compulsory: the boot-shaped country is a GPP textbook case. For over two years, all public procurements h...

Boosting Waste Diversion with Blockchain

Boosting Waste Diversion with Blockchain

Uttering the word “blockchain” within the technology sector will not cause fellow employees to bat an eye, instead they will probably start to delve into a deep discussion on this buzzin...

A Database for the Circular Economy

A Database for the Circular Economy

As the founder of the Circular Economy Club (CEC), it’s safe to say that Anna Tarí is as well placed as anyone to keep her finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the circular ...

CircE: an Interreg Europe Project Steering the Economy Towards a Circular Model

CircE: an Interreg Europe Project Steering the Economy Towards a Circular Model

The Circular Economy (CE) is on the tip of the tongue of politicians and business representatives across the European continent and beyond. However, quite often the real issue hindering the developm...

The Construction Industry: Increasingly Green, Increasingly Circular

The Construction Industry: Increasingly Green, Increasingly Circular

With estimated overall costs of about $135 billion for the insurance industry, 2017 represented the bleakest year in their history, mainly because of the compensation for damages caused by Hurricane...

Grid-Interactive Buildings: Good for Business and the Environment

Grid-Interactive Buildings: Good for Business and the Environment

Grid-interactive buildings are designed to create lower, flatter, flexible load shapes which reduce operating costs for the building owner. They can also provide services to the grid such as demand ...

Power to Imagination. The Radical Green Future of Ecotopia 2121

Power to Imagination. The Radical Green Future of Ecotopia 2121

  Radical, visionary, eccentric, ironic, and firmly outside the box. Shamelessly, boldly and irreverently utopian. You can love it or hate it, but you can surely not remain indifferent to Al...

REbuild: To Decarbonise Construction We Need to Close the Loop

REbuild: To Decarbonise Construction We Need to Close the Loop

We need a paradigm shift, even in the construction sector. Deep, fast and pervasive. In one word, ground-breaking: or better “disruptive,” as the innovator’s jargon calls it. Innov...

Energiesprong: How to Transform 11,000 Apartments into Net Zero Energy Buildings

Energiesprong: How to Transform 11,000 Apartments into Net Zero Energy Buildings

Sprong in Dutch means “leap forward.” In fact, a leap forward is exactly what Energiesprong has realised over the last few years in the residential housing construction and energy effici...

New Model, Different Jobs

New Model, Different Jobs

Cillian Lohan is Rapporteur of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) for the circular economy. His fundamental conviction that sustainable and resource efficient business models will eve...

The Sustainable Future of Labour

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...

Moving from Endless Growth to Endless Jobs

Moving from Endless Growth to Endless Jobs

In his famous book The Ecology of Commerce, Paul Hawken wrote: “[...] we have to look at how our present economic system consistently rewards short-term exploitation while penalising long-term...

Is the Circular Economy an Employment Driver?

Is the Circular Economy an Employment Driver?

Eight hundred million by 2030. This is not a new climate or energy target set by the international community, but the number of jobs that are expected to be lost by then. This labour squeeze will be...

New Jobs: How Many and of What Kind

New Jobs: How Many and of What Kind

Transitions are never easy, especially for those whose livelihoods are rooted in the models left behind. Drastic societal and economic changes have always caused fear of job losses, whilst often act...

Making Products Last

Making Products Last

Recently, Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, made an unnoticed but major statement. She announced that Apple’s goal was to eliminate the ...

The Future of Employment? It's Very Similar to its Past

The Future of Employment? It's Very Similar to its Past

Flexibility is the future of employment. Collaborative consumption will save the world. The internet is a democratic revolution. These are some of the enthusiastic statements that have marked our ec...