Resources & Publications

Austria is first nation to measure Circularity Gap

Amsterdam, June 19th 2019 - Circle Economy and Alstoff Recycling Austria (ARA) today announce the release of Circularity Gap Report Austria, the first measure of circularity for a nation state. This landmark report paves the way for nations to lead the transition from a linear economy of Take-Make-Waste to a circular economy.

The analysis, commissioned by ARA, found a circularity rate for Austria of 9.7%, ahead of the  figure of 9.1% in Circle Economy’s Global Circularity Gap report published in January 2019. The Austria report will enable political and business leaders to identify and monitor the best interventions to boost the circularity rate, the proportion of materials that are recycled, re-used and re-manufactured in the Austrian economy.

Closing Austria’s circularity gap

The report estimates the improvements to be gained from four courses of action:

1. Shifting from fossil fuels to renewable resources (boosting circularity to 9.9%)
2. Recycling of all recyclable waste (18.8%)
3. Maintaining current buildings and infrastructure by sourcing all construction materials from demolition of old building stocks (11.6%)
4. Prioritising imports with a higher proportion of secondary content (20.1%).

Combined, these four actions can boost Austria’s circularity rate to an estimated 37.4%.

From global to national scans

Nation states can play a pivotal role in the global transition to a circular economy. Setting comprehensive national policies can drive global action, setting a benchmark for collaboration at multilateral level. The Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 is testimony to the influence of national governments in setting an agenda for the United Nations.

Austria leads the way

Austria ranks as one of the global frontrunners in recycling. After four decades of policy interventions, 58% of all municipal waste is recycled. The Circularity Gap Austria identifies opportunities to radically reduce inputs of primary materials, including waste and emissions. This study, commissioned by ARA, demonstrates Austria’s determination to unlock new business opportunities as a frontrunner in the circular economy.

Hybrid methodology

Applying the methodology of the Global Circularity Gap Report to a national context, Circle Economy has focused on two parallel methodologies: a production-based analysis and a consumption-based analysis.

The production-based methodology tracks materials that are produced within a closed system. This analysis is comprehensive at a global scale, when the planet is in effect a closed system. When applied to a nation state, however, the production-based analysis will not include the full material footprint of imported goods.

The consumption-based methodology adapted from Circle Economy’s Global Circularity Gap Report tracks products across the entire supply chain. This analysis tracks material footprints across the globe, to measure the total material cost behind domestic consumption.

A landmark for national policy

The Circularity Gap Report Austria is the first of its kind. Its outcomes therefore have relevance beyond providing an agenda for Austria. As a contribution to the discourse on the measurement of circularity at national level, the report sets a precedent for other nations to steer effective collaboration in the realisation of a circular economy.

Endorsements

"Austria is taking a pioneering role in the transition to the circular economy. This Circularity Gap Report - Austria shows how Austria is performing as a country in comparison to the global average of 9,1%. In this epoch of climate breakdown, with profound societal and economic challenges, our vision of a circular economy is an inclusive, sustainable and future-proof model for development. We have done this work with hundreds of businesses and dozens of cities around the world. With this report commissioned by ARA, Austria becomes the first country to bring national perspective to this global debate. Austria has developed a strong social partnership over the years, with a strong record in recycling. We hope that all stakeholders - policymakers, industry, academia and civil society - will  build on the great ideas put forward in this report, and jointly map a path to faster and scalable action." -- Harald Friedl, CEO, Circle Economy

"Turning from the global to national level with Austria, we used a hybrid methodology bringing a greater focus on consumption to our assessment. Looking simply at production, we can track only what is produced in a system or enters as a finished product. Fine for the globe, but when focusing on a nation, such a model cannot account for materials used in production outside the state, the full material footprint of a product. By tracking products across the entire supply chain, even when their footprints criss cross the globe, we can measure the total material cost behind domestic consumption." -- Marc de Wit, lead strategic partnerships and consulting, Circle Economy

To download the report: https://circle-economy.com/circularity-gap-report-austria

Media enquiries

For further information and to arrange interviews with the report’s authors, please contact Mark Ashurst at press@circle-economy.

About Circle Economy

Circle Economy works with cities and businesses to accelerate the transition to a circular economy and to close the Circularity Gap. An impact organisation, we identify opportunities to turn circular economy principles into practical reality.

Our work combines practical insights with scalable responses to achieve our vision of economic prosperity and societal balance within planetary boundaries. Our mission is to connect and empower a global community in business, cities and governments to create the conditions for systemic transformation.

Amsterdam, 6 June 2019

The first Circle City Scan in the Czech Republic provides a visual roadmap to kick-start Prague’s circular transition.

[cta link="http://www.circle-economy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Prague-Final-Report-20190406_MR.pdf"]Download the report[/cta]

Today, 6 June 2019, Circle Economy and INCIEN launch Circular Prague, a visual roadmap that identifies the strategies that are best positioned to kick-start the Czech capital’s transition towards a circular economy. The collaborative Circle City Scan process has highlighted the potential to promote circular lifestyles in ReUse Hubs, using public procurement, boost the construction through circular procurement, and utilise the city’s food waste as biomethane to power the city’s waste collection fleet. To capitalise on the growing circular momentum, the report provides tangible steps to take these projects from concept to reality, and kick-start Prague’s circular transition.

Prague's households, construction sector, and waste management system are best positioned to kick-start circularity

The Circular Prague report marks the culmination of a Prague’s Circle City Scan; a 12-month collaborative innovation process involving local government, research organisations and businesses. The ‘Scan’ process analyses both the economic and political landscape of the city, as well as uncovers the resource ‘metabolism’ of the city, in order to identify areas of the city with the greatest impact, benefits and momentum to kick-start the circular transition. Contributing a combined CRK 165 billion to the local economy, the city construction and waste management sectors present great opportunities to close the city’s material loops. While Prague’s households, and their generation of 430,000 tonnes of waste each year, are key to create a healthy, sustainable and vibrant city.

"Thanks to the Circular City Scan Prague, we got really inspired. There is a huge opportunity for Prague to make more efficient use of its resources, reduce its climate impact, and at the same time, boost innovation and create new jobs through the innovative circular solutions identified through the Circular Prague project. Now is the time to get these pilot projects off the ground.”

• Petr Hlubuček, Vice-mayor of Prague for the Environment and Safety

Prague can power its entire waste management fleet on 93,500 tonnes of biowastes

To secure the benefits of a circular economy, the promising opportunities for a circular Prague were developed into practical and scalable circular strategies. For example, biodegradable and food wastes present huge and, as of yet, untapped potential for the city. Developing a biogas plant within Prague could transform the 93,500 tonnes of biodegradable waste that is generated in the city each year could produce almost 7 million m3 of renewable biofuels - enough to power the entire waste management fleet (and still have 40% left over!). Recognising this enormous opportunity, the city of Prague has already taken proactive steps towards making this circular project a reality.

UTILISING BIOMASS AS BIOMETHANE

"This project and study helped us to better understand Prague's material and waste flows. As a result of the process, we have several great pilots projects ideas which we are currently looking to implement. Soon maybe our entire fleet will be running on biofuel from waste."

• Patrik Roman, CEO Pražské Služby a.s.

To bring Prague’s circular transition from conceptualisation towards implementation, the Circular Prague report presents a detailed action plan for each of the circular strategies that were pinpointed. Each action plan emphasises a collaborative and integrated approach to ensure the circular transition.

Along with the a plant to transform biomass to biomethane, two other circular strategies were developed:

• ReUse Hubs: The decentralised network of circular ‘Hubs’ throughout the city can focus circular activities to circulate value in the 430,000 tonnes of waste that Prague’s household produces each year, as well as inspire and support circular lifestyles.
• Circular procurement in construction: With public sector influencing almost a quarter of construction activities in the city, incorporating circularity within the procurement practices help to close the loop on the sector’s staggering 13 million tonnes of materials and 116,000 tonnes of CO2, while boosting innovation and competitiveness.

From a post-industrial city to an innovative circular hotspot

Over the past decades, Prague has been rapidly reinvented itself as a high-tech, trade and service-oriented economy. Now, the city is recognising the power of the circular economy to boost innovation, competitiveness and create a healthy and sustainable urban environment. Adopting circular strategies can allow companies to create new value out of resources once considered waste, helping to ‘close-the-loop’. These new economic opportunities can boost employment, value-added, and innovation throughout Prague’s vibrant industries.

“Circular Scan Prague is at its end, but the journey of Prague towards the circular economy has just begun. Thanks to an incredible collaboration with our partners from Circle Economy we have managed to create an unseen momentum within the city's departments, highest political levels, as well as local businesses. Everyone is now on board, and ready to start implementing several circular pilots, we have identified. I hope more Czech and Slovakian cities and regions will follow this journey soon enough. It is time we get serious about the change we need to see around ourselves.”

• Vojtěch Vosecký, Co-founder & Chief Business Officer, INCIEN

Moving from inspiration to implementation

The circular strategies identified and developed through Prague’s Circle City Scan present a clear way forward for the city. Now it is important for the city and its stakeholders to build upon the momentum and energy that has been created in the circular around circularity. Continued collaboration between the city, businesses, and citizens is crucial to ensure the implementation of these pilot projects, and further propel the transition towards a circular economy.

[cta link="http://www.circle-economy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Prague-Final-Report-20190406_MR.pdf"]Download the Circular Prague report[/cta]

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For further information please contact:

Circle Economy - Annerieke Douma - Director for Cities and Regions - annerieke@circle-economy.com
INCIEN - Vojtěch Vosecký - Chief Business Officer - vojtech@incien.org

This paper features a meta-analysis of the empirical literature on the net employment effects of renewable energy. It finds that the reported conclusions on net employment effects are to a large extent driven by the methodology that is applied, and that policy reports have a greater tendency to report a positive net employment effect than academic studies.

Today, 6 June 2019, Circle Economy and INCIEN launch Circular Prague, a visual roadmap that identifies the strategies that are best positioned to kick-start the Czech capital’s transition towards a circular economy. The collaborative Circle City Scan process has highlighted the potential to promote circular lifestyles in ReUse Hubs, using public procurement, boost the construction through circular procurement, and utilise the city’s food waste as biomethane to power the city’s waste collection fleet. To capitalise on the growing circular momentum, the report provides tangible steps to take these projects from concept to reality, and kick-start Prague’s circular transition.

The city of Amsterdam wants to be a regenerative and inclusive city for all citizens while respecting the whole planet. But how to realise the radical and ambitious vision to make such a thriving city? That’s the question that the City of Amsterdam, Kate Raworth and Circle Economy have started to answer at We Make The City, a showcase for urban innovation held in Amsterdam on June 19.

Today, Circle Economy is proud to announce the first successful circularity scan of a nation state, our Circularity Gap Report Austria. Since no previous attempts have been made to measure the level of circularity within a nation state, this landmark report paves the way for state-led collaboration towards circularity. The document identifies for the Austrian political and business community the best interventions to improve circularity and how to monitor their implementation and impact.

Both knowledge partners will contribute valuable knowledge and insights to the pilot aimed to improve and accelerate the uptake of post-consumer recycled cotton. Textile Exchange is the global non-profit for industry transformation in preferred fibers, integrity and standards and responsible supply networks. ReBlend is a circular textiles and fashion label and change agency to accelerate the transition to textiles with positive impact.

The Cotton Recycling Pilot is a 12-14 month project designed to address barriers to the use of post-consumer recycled cotton and increase supply chain experience with circular textiles. Circle Economy and Recover will bring together supply and demand to establish a mutual understanding of the capabilities and limitations of post-consumer recycled cotton. The project aims to identify brand and retailer requirements for recycled textiles, address available raw materials supply and performance barriers, create reference documents to facilitate faster scaling, and enable the production of real products through supply chain engagement.

Through this partnership, Textile Exchange and Reblend will support the work of the Cotton Recycling Pilot and share data and insights from past projects and ongoing work. The project is additionally supported by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. By combining knowledge and working together, industry uptake of recycled post-consumer textiles can be accelerated without reinventing the wheel.

Learn more about the project and get in touch here:

Cotton Recycling Pilot

Amsterdam, 2 May 2019 - Today, Circle Economy​ announces the strategic partnership of​ ​Fashion for Good​, the global initiative to make all fashion good, with its Switching Gear project. The initiative aims ​to accelerate re-commerce and rental business models in the apparel industry. The project will work with 6 brands on a circular innovation process that will help them to design and launch these new types of business model pilots by 2021.

Through this partnership, Circle Economy and Fashion for Good will establish a powerful, global network of over 50 frontrunning solution providers and innovators, brands, and rental and re-commerce experts to exchange insights and tangible solutions to move the apparel industry towards circular business models that can create a positive impact for people and the environment.

Circle Economy proudly confirms the following first founding members of the Enabling Network: Eileen Fisher,Gibbon, MUD jeans, Reflaunt, RePack, Stuffstr, Style Lend, The Next Closet, The Renewal Workshop.

The past two decades have seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of times clothes are worn. Coupled with a shift towards fast fashion, average consumers today buy 60% more items than they did 15 years ago and wear them for half as long. 70% of closets usually go unworn and it is estimated that 33% of women wear items as little as 5 times before disposing of them.   

The network will work to bring the topic of apparel rental and the re-commerce market to the fashion industry global agenda, connecting brands with circular innovators and providers, as well as build and share knowledge.

“We are very excited to build the Switching Gear network together with Fashion for Good. We strongly believe that connecting a powerful and active community of brands, solutions providers and experts is key to advancing the practical implementation of circular business models in the market”, says Gwen Cunningham, Program Lead of Circle Economy.

The network, supported by C&A Foundation, is part of the Bridging the Gap initiative, a group of six organisations working to stimulate sector-wide collaboration, facilitate innovative technologies and the design of best practices to enable the implementation of circular business models in the fashion industry’s supply chain. Other strategic partners of the Bridging the Gap group include the World Resources Institute, WRAP, London Waste and Recycling Board, QSA Partners and Forum for the Future.

“Working together as part of the Bridging the Gap initiative, Circle Economy and Fashion for Good, can assess the needs of brands and connect them with innovators and experts working to solve the issues preventing the implementation of circular business models. This network will be a powerful platform to create and share knowledge about how to implement and give scale to the clothing rent and re-commerce system, so we can make fashion a force for good”, Douwe Jan Joustra, Head of Circular Transformation at C&A Foundation.

Recommerce, rental, and leasing offer commercial opportunities for brands to innovate their business model while optimising the useful life of clothes to their full potential and reducing the overall impact of the industry. The Circle Economy project team is currently onboarding 6 core brands for the pilot development, as well as interested solution providers, innovators, brands and experts for the Switching Gear Enabling Network. “Brands and organisations interested in joining this movement to make fashion circular should contact us”, Gwen adds.

[cta link="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfiaZvYx8xKZcX-4l93Wkz7Hl2wfJnapdgD1QXtZXqCSNJH0w/viewform"]Apply to join the network[/cta]

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Press contact:

Please reach out to Yasmina Lembachar at press@circle-economy if you are interested in featuring the press release and/or have an interview request.

To join the network:

Please apply to join the network here, or contact Luna Nillese luna@circle-economy.com for more information on joining.

“Switching Gear” is a C&A Foundation supported project that will guide 6 brands on a circular innovation process towards the design and launch of rental and recommerce business model pilots by 2021. Find more information about the project here.

About Circle Economy

We work to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. As an impact organisation, we work to identify opportunities to turn circular economy principles into practical reality.

With nature as our mentor, we combine practical insights with scalable responses to humanity’s greatest challenges. Our vision is economic, social and environmental prosperity without compromising the future of our planet. Our mission is to connect and empower a global community in business, cities and governments to create the conditions for systemic transformation.

More than 50 businesses are now part of our membership community (from large multinationals to active SMEs and innovative start-ups) with whom we co-create practical and scalable solutions, making the circular economy happen. In addition, we work with cities, governments, CSOs, NGO’s, advisory boards and intergovernmental bodies.

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Website

www.circle-economy.com

Social media

Twitter: @circleeconomy

Instagram: @circleeconomy

Facebook: @circleeconomy

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/organization/1671305/

About Fashion For Good

Fashion for Good is the global initiative that is here to make all fashion good. It’s a global platform for innovation, made possible through collaboration and community. With an open invitation to the entire apparel industry, Fashion for Good convenes brands, producers, retailers, suppliers, non-profit organisations, innovators and funders united in their shared ambition.

At the core of Fashion for Good is our innovation platform. Through our Fashion for Good-Plug and Play Accelerator we give promising start-up innovators the expertise and access to funding they need in order to grow. Our Scaling Programme supports innovations that have passed the proof-of-concept phase, with a dedicated team that offers bespoke support and access to expertise, customers and capital. Our Good Fashion Fund will catalyse access to finance to shift at scale to more sustainable production methods.

Fashion for Good also acts as a convener for change. In October 2018 the Fashion for Good Experience has opened: the world’s first interactive tech museum dedicated to sustainable fashion innovation. In its hub in Amsterdam, Fashion for Good also houses a Circular Apparel Community co-working space, creates open-source resources like its Good Fashion Guide about cradle-to-cradle apparel.  

Fashion for Good’s programmes are supported by founding partner C&A Foundation and corporate partners adidas, C&A, BESTSELLER, Galeries Lafayette Group, Kering, Otto Group, PVH Corp., Stella McCartney, Target and Zalando.  

About C&A Foundation

C&A Foundation is a corporate foundation here to transform the fashion industry. They work with change-makers all over the world, offering financial support, expertise and networks to make the industry work better for every person it touches.  The foundation collaborates with a variety of stakeholders, including NGOs and industry partners, and works closely with smallholder farmers and garment workers.  C&A Foundation is driven by the belief that despite the vast and complex challenges, collaborative action can make fashion a force for good. www.candafoundation.org

Twitter: @CandAFund

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The city of Basel is championing the transition towards a circular economy. Through the Circular Cities Switzerland project, Circle Economy and ecos, guided municipal officials and local businesses through a Circle City Scan process to create a strong narrative for cities to engage in the circular economy, by demonstrating economic and commercial feasibility, as well as clear social and environmental benefits. The project has been supported by the MAVA Foundation. 

The collaborative Circle City Scan process has highlighted the potential to promote circularity in Basel, such as developing a digital marketplace for secondary construction materials to boost local value creation through material cycling, catalysing circular innovations through establishing a circular living lab in a neighbourhood, as well as reducing plastic waste through reusable food container scheme, among other initiatives. 

The documents below present the methodology, results and conclusions of each phase of the Circle City Scan process.