Last October we had as speaker at our event, Re-think Circular Economy Forum 2020 in Milan, Antonino Biundo, CEO at REWOW srl. Antonino explained to us what REWOW is and how they aim to rewind used cooking oil into bio-based materials. In order to understand their activity, it is necessary to comprehend what is the meaning for Used Cooking Oil. That’s the reason why Antonino Biundo started his speech describing Used Cooking Oil (UCO), which derives from vegetable oils used for food cooking, processing, and storage. As he highlights UCO are also highly polluting for the environment: only 1 litre of UCO may pollute up to 1 million litres of water. In Europe, 4 million tons of UCO is generated per year, but only 5% is collected. Zooming on Italy, we have 64% of UCO which comes from households and only 20% is collected, which is mostly used to produce biofuels with a low value on the market. What do they do at Rewow? They create a second life for used cooking oils and, at the same time, they want to raise awareness in order to triple the collection of this waste. To achieve this, in July 2020, they filed the patent on the Chemo-Enzymatic Process to produce innovative Aliphatic Polyesters and thus increment the added value of UCO. Indeed, the market of bioplastics is constantly growing, and it is expected to reach 28 billion dollars by 2026. Generally, the other producers of bioplastics produce their products with either synthetic or biological processes. However, biological processes are more expensive, especially for the significant downstream processing costs for their technology. The Rewow materials, instead, are produced synthetically from waste, but they have similar characteristics to the biologically produced ones, especially for the hydrolysis and flexibility. Moreover, Rewow, together with other few companies, is planning and making awareness raising campaigns....
Month: October 2021
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26 October 2021Nowadays, there are many possibilities to get awarded, recognised and supported for sustainable ideas, projects and businesses. One of the most recently created global environmental prizes is the ‘Earthshot London Prize’, founded and currently run by The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge until the initiative becomes its own entity by the end of this year. The Prize, whose first edition was held in 2021, was designed to incentivise and support change and to adjust our planet over the next 10 years. In order to do so, they decided to focus on five of the so-called ‘Earthshots’ – global goals – which aim at transforming our system in a more sustainable and equal one for now and tomorrow. For each of these Earthshot challenge, institutions, cities, companies, startups, organizations can propose a protection-oriented solution and who will propose the best one receive a global platform and prestigious profile with their stories to be illustrated over the ten years to anyone interested in order to have mass adoption, replication and scaling of them. Moreover, each winner will get £1 million in prize money to support environmental and conservation projects agreed with them. The Earthshots challenges are the following: Protect & Restore Nature: species all over the world are facing extinction or have been threatened by men because of improper ways of production, consumption and disposal; Build a waste-free world: the actual economic system is characterised by a logic of easily throwing away what we own and use, without properly considering whether they can be reused, repurposed or recycled; Clean our air: a lot of people breathe toxic air on a daily basis and this provokes numerous deaths that could actually be prevented by introducing 100% renewable energy for everyone, removing pollution caused by human activities and much more; Revive our oceans: life underwater is extremely at risk...
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21 October 2021Dolci scarti: quando il rifiuto diventa una risorsa. Lo scorso aprile durante il nostro Hackathon, Hacking the City, abbiamo avuto il piacere di avere con noi numerosi ospiti, tra cui la Professoressa Paola Branduardi dell’Università degli studi Milano-Bicocca. Nel 2050 il numero di abitanti sul pianeta Terra sarà all’incirca di 9 miliardi, un dato conosciuto non di recente, ma che è accompagnato da una recente percezione di poter offrire delle soluzioni alternative che siano in grado praticamente di risolvere le sfide attuali garantendo a tutta la popolazione un accesso equo a beni e servizi. Come può il micro non essere in realtà un’altra faccia del macro? Da quando è arrivata all’Università Milano-Bicocca, la Prof.ssa Branduardi si è occupata dei microrganismi considerandoli come gli attori principali dell’equilibrio dinamico del nostro Pianeta e studiando il ruolo che possono giocare anche nel macro ambito. Durante la sua presentazione ha spiegato che la Terra è caratterizzata al suo interno da flussi di materia di energia che non sono altro che il modo dinamico che questa ha di tenere in equilibrio la parte biotica (dove c’è vita) e quella abiotica (dove c’è materia). È fondamentale che questo flusso continui e che tutto ciò rimanga in un andamento ciclico, dove i produttori primari sono con una materia organica che poi è consumata, e qui troviamo sia organismi che microorganismi. Dopodiché, c’è la fase di decomposizione che riporta i nutrienti organici ed inorganici a disposizione. Questa chiusura del cerchio la fanno solo i microrganismi con dei metabolismi unici e la fanno sin dalla loro comparsa sulla Terra, dove sono i primissimi abitanti e sono anche la maggior biomassa vivente. La Prof.ssa Branduardi ed il suo team, prendono ispirazione dalla natura e da ciò che già conoscono, ad esempio i lieviti, per studiarli nella loro biodiversità ed inserirvi dei principi di ingegnerizzazione che possano espanderne le...
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19 October 2021Press Release – Circular Threads Tondo has presented the first Italian study on the relationship between Textile industry and Circular Economy in Northern Italy. <To download the report: https://docsend.com/view/zbhfcu97zibu2qtq> To download the executive summary click here. Milan, 18 October 2021 – Tondo is pleased to present “Circular Threads”, the first study that aims to investigate the link between the Italian textile and fashion industry and the Circular Economy. You can download the report here. The study, carried out in collaboration with Fondazione Pistoletto, Associazione Tessile e Salute and rén collective, analysed the level of sustainability and circularity of textile and fashion companies in Northern Italy, with a particular focus on the Biella district, a pole of excellence and reference for the Italian textile sector. The study aims to provide an overview of the current situation and to accelerate the transition towards the circular economy in the textile sector, identifying the best practices implemented and the main challenges faced by companies. Specifically, a three-level analysis was conducted: for the first level, desk research, a series of sustainable and circular actions for the textile industry were identified and it was verified which of these actions were implemented in a sample of 300 companies in Northern Italy. As a second level of analysis, a questionnaire was submitted to a sample of almost 70 companies to assess the level of circular and sustainable practices implemented in a number of key areas. Lastly, a detailed analysis based on material flows was carried out for 2 companies in order to calculate the circularity index at product level using the Ellen MacArthur Foundation methodology. Considering the strategic importance of the Italian fashion and textile industry, the transition towards more circular and sustainable production models represents not only a necessity but also a relevant economic opportunity. However, the...
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18 October 2021RE-THINK CIRCULAR ECONOMY FORUM TARANTO 28-29 settembre 2021 – Dipartimento Jonico dell’Università di Bari Aziende, istituzioni, startup ed enti di ricerca hanno mostrato il loro percorso tutto circolare per favorire la nascita di attività innovative e imprenditoriali nel territorio tarantino e pugliese Milano, 5 ottobre 2021 – Far emergere le tante opportunità e potenzialità del territorio tarantino e pugliese da un punto di vista di sostenibilità ed economia circolare. Con questo obiettivo si è concluso Re-think Circular Economy Forum, evento di portata nazionale promosso e organizzato da Tondo, svoltosi a Taranto il 28 e 29 settembre 2021. L’evento ha riunito aziende, startup, enti di ricerca ed altre istituzioni per mettere in evidenza nuove strategie, progetti in corso e opportunità derivanti dall’Economia Circolare. Main partner dell’iniziativa è stata Eni, società integrata dell’energia impiegata nella transizione energetica per raggiungere la totale decarbonizzazione di prodotti e processi entro il 2050. Gli ulteriori partner dell’evento sono stati: il Comune di Taranto, l’associazione Eurota ETS, UniCredit, Fondazione ITS Logistica, EPM Servizi, Confapi Industria Taranto e New Euroart. Più di 40 realtà a confronto che hanno toccato svariate tematiche, dalla transizione energetica e mobilità sostenibile ai porti circolari e alla gestione ambientale. Tra i tanti ospiti, Eni, Comune di Taranto, Confindustria, Confapi, Ordine degli Ingegneri, Enel, Ingelia, Reset, Suez, Free Energy Saving, UniCredit, New Euroart, Autorità Portuale di Taranto, Circle Economy, MSC, Invitalia, Unità di Misura, Irigom, Ecopneus, EPM. L’evento ha riscosso particolare successo sia in presenza, con più di 400 persone che hanno partecipato nei diversi momenti delle due giornate, sia online, con più di 1000 persone collegate nei 2 giorni. «Il successo di questo debutto dice molto sulle potenzialità che il territorio offre – commenta Gianni Azzaro, Consigliere Nazionale ANCI e primo promotore dell’evento -Taranto è pronta per essere luogo dove teoria e pratica...
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5 October 2021By Valentina Ndou – Prof.ssa presso Facoltà di Ingegneria dell’Innovazione, Università del Salento How can tourism firms contribute to the CE development? Today, the tourism sector is at a turning point. The Covid -19 pandemic situation is considered a unique event with disastrous effects on the socio-politic and economic situation of countries, organizations, and businesses. Tourism has been among the hardest hit by the pandemic situation with a simultaneous shock in demand and supply. Understandably, many tourism researchers worldwide are now debating about strategies, policies, and new business models for sector recovery and restart. What is being echoed by most researchers is to convert the challenges of this crisis into opportunities for rethinking and innovating the competitive strategies of the sector to resist destruction as well as for growth and renewal. While the pandemic situation has profoundly affected the tourism value chain worldwide, sustainable tourism development is emerging as a critical issue for future development trajectories. It is being widely argued that sectors’ recovery needs to be based on sustainable tourism development models that boost the efficient use of natural resources while producing less waste and addressing the challenges of climate change and biodiversity (UNWTO, 2020). The awareness of the significant impact, in terms of GDP, of tourism on a global scale and the growing diffusion of the digital transformation process that the sector is experiencing, also increases attention to the environmental impacts of the sector. On this aim, a new economic paradigm, known as “circular economy” (CE), has emerged recently to deal with the sustainability issues that are increasingly applied in tourism research and practice. CE is considered “an alternative industrial paradigm to the traditional “take, make, dispose of” economic model”. In recent years, the research on CE for sustainability has become an important field of practice and research for the manufacturing sector. While, research and...