How to Turn an Old Sofa into Biofuel
Old furniture, sofas, nappies and bar receipts are solid urban waste. Globally, according to a World Bank report carried out in 2012, we produce 1.3 billion tonnes of it every year. Only 34% is recy...
From Coal to Biomass
The strong presence of the chemical industry (the sixth European country by turnover, according to CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council, and first in the world on a per capita basis), with ...
The Soil's Perspective
“On a global scale, our analysis systems show that farmland expansion has reached a point of no return”, these are the words used by Johan Rockström in the interview published in is...
Biobased in the Spotlights
The biobased economy is growing at a steady pace. It represents a large share of the overall European GDP, with €2 trillion in annual turnover, employing over 22 million people. While the growt...
Cardboard Beats Decay
It is one of the areas with the highest population density in Italy. It is an old town centre. It is in Southern Italy, but recycling is working. We are talking about Rione Sanità in the cent...
If the Wolves of Wall Street Become Lambs
Turning the “wolves of Wall Street” – oblivious to any good cause – into lambs at the “planet’s sickbed:” a strenuous, nearly contrived, undertaking. And ye...
500 materials under the lens
When we talk about products, and thus about materials, renewability must be thought as a material’s ability to regenerate in time (months or years) to be again available for the system. With ...
An Opportunity to Rethink the Role of Foundations
“The circular economy can become an opportunity to systematise and restore meaning to many actions that the former banking foundation system in Italy carries out to catalyse and re-c...
Bioeconomy: The Virtuous Cooperation between National Cluster and Regions
A national platform to promote a model of circular economy focussed on innovative, integrated and multisector value-chains: this is how the Italian National Technological Cluster of Green Chemistry ...
Sustainability is Worth More
$22.890.000.000.000. Almost $23 trillion’s worth of banknotes. That’s the value of sustainable investments, as it’s been recorded at the end of 2016, the latest year for which we h...
Green Economy: Exporting Italian Know-How
There is an “Italian way” towards Green Economy that’s establishing in global markets. Ecomondo, the event organised by Rimini Fiera, that reaced the 19th edition, is a model able ...
Circulating Capital
These are the questions that for over a decade Jamie Butterworth has tried to answer. The former Ellen MacArthur Foundation CEO has become one of the founders and partners of Circularity C...
Bottom-up Funding
Funding the circular economy is not easy. Funding a start-up in the circular economy is complicated. Funding a start-up with a circular business model (product-as-a-service) becomes almost prohibiti...
The 4 Vital Elements of a Viable Circular Service Model
While the circular economy is gaining momentum all across the world, the urgency to develop and implement viable circular business models is crucial to its success. One business model that is very p...
A Winning Agreement
BBI JU is a public-private partnership between the EU and the Bio-Based Industries Consortium. It has funded as much as 65 projects in the past 3 years, playing therefore a fundamental role in enhan...
It all Started in Helsinki
It might well have been the largest circular economy gathering to this day. We are talking about the first ever World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF), that took place in Helsinki, Finland, on 5-7 June...
This is How We Recycle Nappies
It is the first technology able to 100% recycle materials making up nappies and absorbent products. A plant built from scratch in Lovadina di Spresiano (Treviso), which transforms otherwise landfill...
Upcycle and the Atomic Bomb
Elliptical, philosophical, rarely obscure and always enlightened with solid, simple concepts. Talking for more than an hour with one of the XXI century design guru is a revealing trip in e...
Thinking with Our Hands
Terms such as “biobased, sustainable, circular materials” are at long last starting to be part of the layman’s vocabulary. Indeed, characterizing an object by its material is a lev...
The Planet We Will See
In your latest book, The Great Transition, you discussed how we are starting our transition out of fossil fuel. Which technology you see trending right now and which have the highest hope ...