EPR - A Building Block of the Circular Economy
In Germany, reaching such a conclusion is a serious business. When Töpfer stepped in – an economist by training – he was determined to apply the polluter pays principle, i.e. the pr...
EPR as an Economic and Environmental Instrument
Over the years, EPR has been applied within the European Union and various countries to different waste streams, including packaging waste at municipal level. This has undoubtedly led to a better en...
Italy: Compost is Catching up
Collection of the organic fraction continues to grow in Italy. This gives us a profile of excellence compared to the rest of Europe, and in some cases such as Milan, even compared to the rest of t...
Biofuels: The Aviation Industry Takes Off
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), in 2014 air transport produced 715 million tons of CO2 (689 in 2012), about 2% of climate-change gases. Not a negligible share. There...
Sardinia: An Alliance between Farmers and Green Chemistry Is Born
It is a deal between agriculture and chemistry, local and global markets, environmental and production interests. An agreement, not a compromise, because the challenge of Matrìca, the joint...
Problem Solved: Tyres Soon to Become a Versatile Resource
Armando Testa, Pirelli Elephant, 1954 ©Pirelli Ecopneus has come a long way in less than three years. It is a not-for-profit consortium business made up of...
Distributed Generation Finally Hits the Bioplastics Production
Just think of localized and distributed generation of electricity. Such is the case of a family installing a photovoltaic system on the roof of its house, thus becoming a power prosumer, i.e. it p...
The Po Valley: An Open Air Biorefinery
A huge wholly-Italian open air biorefinery, where wheat, rice, corn, sorghum, tomatoes are grown (and refined) and cows, pigs, calves and sheep are bred. And where the residues of agricultural pro...
Biomaterials Come out on Top
If the creation of an award is a sign of the maturity of a sector, and considering that “Bio-based Material of the Year” has now reached its eighth edition, then the bio-based material s...
Circular Design: Matter Exits No Man's land
“Nature and its design are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for science and designers. Its shapes, materials and complexity offer great inspiration.” These were the words of Jani...
A Recurring Health Menace
Twenty-three years after being banned, asbestos is still very much present, in various forms, on Italian territory: CNR and INAIL have given the rough estimate of about 32 million tonnes. Although L...
Marine Biomass: An Unconventional Wealth
In fact, the ocean capacity is far from infinite and investigations in its ecosystems have shown the large impact of those man-made environmental condition changes, such as pollution, global warming...
Straw Yellow Gold
However, there are various sophisticated plans not to throw it away. This is happening within a cultural panorama that I find extremely fascinating: the most advanced technologies enable us to ident...
Putting Madrid and Barcellona back into Circulation
I believe it is worth talking about it for several reasons. First of all, what is striking is the level of maturity of the societies we are talking about. Catalonia is the historical flag of cultu...
The New Economy According to Tim Jackson
Meant as a report for the British government in 2009, Prosperity without Growth is back in the bookstores in a completely revised new edition. In such volume, Tim Jackson, professor of Sus...
Houses like Trees, Cities like Forests
In 1987, Michael Braungart – a chemistry graduate – founded EPEA, the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency based in Hamburg, of which he is currently CEO. For over twe...
The Renewable Future is Already Here
A Country aspiring to have a circulating car fleet no longer powered by fossil fuels by 2030. A national chemical industry that – by the same year – aims at becoming totally oil free. A ...
The Circular Economy: A Transformative Force for Climate Change
Previously published in Swiss ECS, NZZ-Verlagsbeilage, 18 September 2017 (www.swissecs.ch/de/medien-kontakt/medienecho) The circular economy offers transformative mitigation opportunities t...
The Building Revolutionary from Singapore
World GBC, acronym for Green Building Council, is one the leading global association whose goal is to make the building sector sustainable. Born in 1999 in California, with member organizations in o...
2012 Earthquake: The Emilia-Romagna Model
While an increasingly vehement debate is still ongoing over the failure to remove debris and rubble in the Municipalities of Central Italy hit by the quake a little over a year ago, a Region –...