The EU Wants to Seal the Deal on Plastic
Maybe, this is the reason behind the single use plastics directive presented by the European Commission on the 28th of May 2018 (see n.21/2018 by RM) which was already voted for on the 10th of July ...
Sometimes We Are the Villains
However, as illustrated by the recent research conducted at UCLA and published in Futures – “Existential risk due to ecosystem collapse: Nature strikes back” – in the majorit...
The Age of Plastic
The media is full of Chris Jordan’s famous pictures of seagull carcasses with their stomachs full of bottle caps, tubes and other plastic paraphernalia. Documentaries denouncing the indecent...
A Fiscal Update: The Winning Strategy
The latest study by The Ex’tax Project, New era. New Plan. Europe., shows that by implementing the tax shift, the European Union and EU member states would benefit from higher economic growth,...
What If Karl Polanyi Was Right?
With this sentence, Karl Polanyi outlines the idea that, as of the early 1900s, society was forced to conform to the needs of the market mechanism instead of choosing the more logical approach of ec...
Re-designing the Future
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation “A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design.” The big challenge for innovators and pioneers is to desi...
Waste + Information = Resource
Circular economy principles rely on a very simple equation, “waste = resource.” However, the reality is somewhat different. For example, converting plastic waste into valuable material i...
For a Circular Europe
After years of delays, the European Parliament in Strasbourg has approved the Circular Economy (CE) Package. However, things have not yet come full circle. “The way for a new develop...
An Important Step Forward
Janez Potocnik – Forum for the Future of Agriculture, Brussels 2016 Adopted by the European Parliament on April 18th 2018 and approved by the European Council on...
The American Way
What is the difference in the way Brussels and Washington D.C. see the circular economy? To get an answer one should have attended the Fourth Circular Economy Summit, organised by the powerful US Ch...
BusinessEurope, Circular Means Business
©BUSINESSEUROPE / Photo: Erik Luntang “Business is fully on board with the circular economy revolution. Not only because it is good business to save resourc...
Circular Economy Package: The Packaging Directive
Packaging has found its place in the European Circular Economy Package, approved last April by the European Parliament. It involves a revision a revision of Special Directive 1994/62/CE on packaging...
The Plastic Route no Longer Leads East
A little girl plays among heaps of packaging and plastic waste coming from every corner of the world. She “fishes” for dead fish in a polluted stream, whilst sheep graze on bubblewrap in...
The Solution is Circular
When Daniel Webb opened his storage room, where for a whole year he had collected his plastic waste, a mountain of 4.490 bags, packaging, wrappings, containers, bottles, cups, cutlery, toothbrushes ...
Plastic Europe
What is the role of plastics today? “If they did not exist, modern society would have to invent them to ensure a sustainable future. The reason plastics are the go to material in so...
Cleaning Our Oceans? No Lack of New Ideas
Over the past few years, a trending environmental issues has been that of marine litter. It is a problem affecting many countries around the world. Contrary to what usually occurs, marine litter is ...
Despite Brussels, the Market for Bioplastics Keeps Growing
We can already find it in shopping bags, in many vehicle components, in toys and in food packaging. It’s bioplastic. Plastic that is not derived from oil but, in different percentages, from or...
The Cemetery of Cannibalised Refrigerators
The picture of a cemetery for refrigerators – cannibalised and discarded in an abandoned industrial site just outside Rome, a stone’s throw from Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli – p...
Bamboo Makes a Comeback
The Anjan Bridge in China is one of the oldest in the world and up until a few decades ago was entirely made of bamboo. Only at the end of last century were the bamboo canes replaced with steel cabl...
In Singapore the Air-con Runs as a Service
Everything started around eight years ago when Kaer’s CEO, Justin Taylor, sat down with the chairman and senior directors to begin a conversation on how to innovate the company and generate ad...