Martedì 20 dicembre, a partire dalle ore 15.30 presso il Salone degli Specchi del Comune di Taranto, si è tenuto l’evento di lancio del progetto Taranto Circolare. L’evento ha avuto come obiettivo quello di presentare lo stato dei lavori del progetto e di raccontare agli stakeholder e alla comunità locali le potenzialità di Taranto Circolare per il territorio, le sue aziende ed organizzazioni. Nello specifico, con il progetto si sta creando una piattaforma digitale le cui funzionalità serviranno a promuovere l’economia circolare su Taranto, con particolare attenzione alla Città Vecchia. Durante la prima parte dell’evento sono intervenuti Fabrizio Manzulli e Gianni Azzaro, rispettivamente Vicesindaco ed Assessore al Patrimonio e allo Sport del Comune di Taranto, il quale ha supportato l’organizzazione dell’evento e il progetto. Con i loro saluti hanno sottolineato l’importanza di credere e sostenere iniziative che supportino lo sviluppo dell’economia circolare su Taranto, un territorio pieno di potenzialità. In seguito, Francesco Fumarola e Francesco Castellano, Co-fondatori di Tondo, organizzazione ideatrice del progetto, hanno preso la parola spiegando le fasi più importanti del suo sviluppo ed implementazione, facendo una panoramica della timeline sui futuri step. Inoltre, l’evento di lancio è stata l’occasione per mostrare pubblicamente una prima parte della piattaforma di Taranto Circolare e la campagna crowdfunding che è stata lanciata per supportare la prima fase del progetto, relativa alla raccolta e all’analisi dei dati per misurare il livello di circolarità della città, e la terza fase, quella di progettazione di nuove progettualità circolari. Proseguendo, è intervenuta Ilaria Giannoccaro, Professoressa Ordinaria del Dipartimento di Meccanica Matematica Management del Politecnico di Bari, per spiegare nel dettaglio la fase del progetto relativa alla raccolta, analisi e misurazione dei dati materici ed energetici al fine di sviluppare una metodologia che serva ad analizzare la circolarità della città. La professoressa ha inoltre illustrato il...
Year: 2022
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16 December 2022Comunicato Stampa Report di Re-think Taranto 2022 – Evento di lancio del progetto Taranto Circolare Milano, 14 dicembre 2022 – Il report di Re-think Circular Economy Forum Taranto, evento promosso da Tondo e co-organizzato con Eurota ETS, è disponibile online, dove si potranno consultare tutti gli interventi di questa edizione o riguardarli tramite il nostro canale YouTube. L’accesso al report finale e alle registrazioni, può essere fatto tramite il sito di Re-think Taranto 2022: https://re-think.today/taranto-event-2022.php L’evento, alla sua seconda edizione tarantina, ha avuto come Main Partner Eni ed ulteriori Partner sono stati la Regione Puglia, il Comune di Taranto, UniCredit, Next Chem, Fondazione ITS Logistica Puglia, Confapi Industria Taranto, New Euroart, l’Ambasciata dei Paesi Bassi a Roma e l’Autorità di Sistema Portuale del Mar Ionio. Re-think Taranto 2022 è stata l’occasione per sperimentare, con grande entusiasmo da parte del pubblico, l’organizzazione di un’area fieristica parallela al convegno dove 18 stand tra aziende, startup, corporate, istituzioni e centri di ricerca hanno potuto condividere direttamente con il pubblico presente i loro progetti e prodotti. All’evento ci sono state più di 3.000 presenze durante le tre giornate, tra fisico e online, mentre sui social c’è stata una copertura di circa 150 mila impression e sul sito c’è stato un traffico di più di 8.000 utenti durante i mesi a cavallo dell’evento. In questa edizione, si è anche organizzato un Hackathon parallelo indirizzato agli universitari e dottorandi della Regione Puglia che si sono sfidati su tre challenge: Porti Smart; Porti Sostenibili ed Agricoltura Rigenerativa e Circolare. A conclusione del secondo giorno, il 4 ottobre, le squadre finaliste per ogni challenge si sono sfidate per ottenere il titolo di team vincitore assoluto. Quest’anno, la squadra vincitrice è stata lo Star Facility Centre, composta da Deborah Maria Racca, Paolo Marasco, Antonio Carnevale e Francesco Cantillo, con...
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12 December 2022During the last edition of Re-think Circular Economy Forum held in Taranto, there were many speeches that tried to explain, in a concrete way, what was new, and the efforts made to move from a system based on the linear economy to one based on the circular economy. In this sense important was the speech of Antonietta De Sanctis, who introduced the reality founded by Eni: Eni Joule. Joule, explained Antonietta De Sanctis, Head of Incubation and Acceleration Programs at Joule – Eni’s School for Business, was created with the aim of giving concrete support to innovative and sustainable startups and in line with what is the energy transition strategy that Eni has been undertaking for several years now, and with which it intends to achieve, in 2050, fully decarbonized products and services. The support that Joule provides to innovative and sustainable companies operates through two pathways. On the one hand, Human Knowledge is aimed at the physical person. This is a training path that goes through two main tools: first, is a platform accessible to all, a distance learning so-called Open, which to date has about 9,000 subscribers. The platform was developed in collaboration with leading Italian business schools and, in addition to offering training content, serves as a tool to create a community. In fact, the current members meet periodically in events that are as virtual as they are physical, where there is an exchange of knowledge, and experience, and common projects can be initiated. The other tool is the Lab, a path accessible through calls for proposals, which are launched periodically (about three times a year). These programs allow teams, or newly formed startups, to apply their innovative idea and win a mini pathway to validate their business idea. On the other hand, the second track pursued...
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2 December 2022During the Re-think event held in Naples in July, Marcella De Martino, CNR’s first researcher, spoke about an exciting project they are pursuing in the marine waste management supply chain. Marcella De Martino began her speech by introducing the FIRM project, which originated from a multi-measure call from the Campania Region under the EMFF, from the old 2014-2020 programming. It is a very ambitious project that seeks to solve one of the great problems of our seas: the presence of marine litter. To better understand the project, De Martino began by presenting the background of the marine litter problem. The data she refers to can be found in the report “Mare Nostrum Mare Plasticum“, which mentions that there are currently 50 million tons of visible waste in our seas. Looking in detail at the Mediterranean Sea, it is estimated that there are about 1.2 million tons of plastic waste, another really worrying piece of information is that still today about 700 tonnes of plastic are spilled into the sea daily. European and national strategies have been particularly active on this issue for several years; it is an ongoing process that will bring results from medium- and long-term perspectives. At the moment, the recycling rate of all industrial waste is around 12 percent and Italy is among the most virtuous countries. Among the European strategies working on this front are the Green Deal, the Circular Economy Action Plan, and the Strategy for Plastics in the Circular Economy, which aim to foster the ecological transition and create sustainable and circular economic models. Italy has transposed the European regulations, adapting them to the national context. At the Italian level, the National Strategy for the Circular Economy, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, and the National Waste Management Program have been published, with measures...
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25 November 2022As we know, today it is especially important to be able to transform our economy from linear to circular, and during Re-think in Milan, Coos Wessels presented us with a reality that transforms waste into useful products for the market. Coos Wessels, Managing Director at CirTec, discussed what the business is doing to upgrade toilet paper to value paper. First, he explained that CirTec is an acronym for Circular Technology, in particular, they focus on the recovery of valuables from sewage and wastewater streams, using low-value residual energy for treating concentrated waste streams. His intervention focused on the recovery of cellulose from sewage. While presenting, Wessels tried to avoid the word wastewater, because as he said, sewage should be considered a valuable source of many materials and not waste. In fact, the consumption of all natural resources is still increasing worldwide, underlying the need to recover valuable materials from different sources such as sewage. For instance, in sewage, they found cellulose (which is the main element of their business) together with bioplastics, phosphate, and more. Therefore, sewage can have a significant impact. However yet, up till now only about 1% of what is in our sewage water is used. Italy, Wessels continued, is the largest consumer of tissue papers and in Europe, there are about 9.6 million tonnes of tissues consumed. However, about 6.5 million tonnes end up in the sewage system and come up at the sewage treatment plant while the rest is used for other things. In this context, CirTec can recover approximately 4.5 million tons of material saving about 4.9 million trees a year and producing a forest of 29,700 hectares. CirTec was born while looking at the Dutch water authorities and realizing that it is possible to produce energy while treating sewage. From this idea, they...
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18 November 2022As part of the last Re-think held in Milan in February 2022, Paolo Marchetti, Commercial, Strategy, Innovation and Sustainability Director of ATM, Azienda Trasporti Milanesi, spoke about how important the company’s focus on sustainability and circular economy issues is, what projects are underway and what its goals are. Paolo Marchetti started his speech by remarking on the importance of speaking about sustainability for a company that in the city of Milan has a great impact. ATM is a group composed of 10,000 employees and operates in Milan but also in its surroundings in 96 municipalities, operating around 185 kilometers, before Covid-19, it carried 2.5 million passengers per day. It operates not only in urban and suburban public transport but also in automatic metros and in the backend of the industry, managing rail diagnostic, and maintenance of the fleets, infrastructure, and network technologies. Moreover, to be most integrated, it also manages the bike-sharing system and the car park around the city. All these modes of transportation guarantee the company to build a strong strategic plan with really focused pillars regarding its vision. First of all, Marchetti underlined how ATM is able to make the city of Milan a liveable, sustainable and smart city. At ATM, they work to guarantee this vision by operational excellence in building a stronger sustainability policy, not only regarding carbon neutrality but also all the points of view of the company with the help of technological innovation, and with benchmarks as well. In fact, for instance, the company also operates in Copenhagen, which was very important in improving the automatic metro management. The network in Milan is complex and integrated, there are different layers aimed at guaranteeing all the types of movement in the city: 5 metro lines, 19 tram lines, 4 lines of trolleybuses and 158...
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10 November 2022Quest’anno A2A festeggia i 50 anni dalla nascita della prima centrale di teleriscaldamento a Brescia. A2A ha deciso di celebrare questo importante traguardo, organizzando insieme a Tondo un Hackathon aperto ai licei ed istituti bresciani, al fine di trasmettere la conoscenza sugli elementi chiave che riguardano il teleriscaldamento e allo stesso tempo per poter essere ispirati dalle idee fresche e innovative dei ragazzi. L’Hackathon si è tenuto il 21 e 22 ottobre e si è svolto nella sede di A2A di via Lamarmora. L’evento ha visto la partecipazione di studenti e studentesse provenienti dal Liceo Gambara, dall’Istituto Salesiano Don Bosco e dall’Istituto Itis Castelli. I partecipanti sono stati numerosi e volenterosi. Alla fine della seconda giornata sono stati decretati tre gruppi vincitori, uno per ogni challenge proposta, ai quali è stato assegnato un premio. L’evento è cominciato la mattina di venerdì 21 ottobre con l’apertura di Michele Rota, Responsabile sviluppo teleriscaldamento per A2A Calore e Servizi e Vincenzo Oliviero Innovation Manager di A2A, che hanno accolto i ragazzi introducendo brevemente le tre sfide. La prima challenge è stata introdotta e raccontata da Daniele Pasinelli, Referente Progetti strategici in A2A Calore e Servizi e Luisa Zacchi, Asset Management coordinamento in A2A Calore e Servizi. Il teleriscaldamento offre molti vantaggi: utilizzo di fonti di calore locali, elevata sicurezza dell’approvvigionamento, ridotto fabbisogno di spazio, spese di manutenzione ridotte. Il teleriscaldamento risulta anche tra gli strumenti più efficaci per la riduzione delle emissioni di anidride carbonica e la sua diffusione è in costante crescita, soprattutto in Europa. Eppure, si può ancora fare meglio, sfruttando fonti energetiche rinnovabili (biomasse, geotermia ecc..) e\o integrazioni di calore da recupero industriale nelle reti di riscaldamento e riducendo il consumo di combustibili fossili. Dunque, la sfida della prima challenge era quella di trovare delle nuove opportunità di integrazione delle...
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4 November 2022During the Re-think Circular Economy Forum in Milan held in February 2022, we had the pleasure of listening to a talk by Silvia Buzzi, HSE and Sustainability Manager at Caviro Extra, who told us about a wonderful circular reality Silvia Buzzi takes us into the world of wine: Caviro is an all-Romagna group that has as its input to enhance the entire wine supply chain. It is also a beautiful tangible example of regenerative capitalism. Caviro is a second-degree cooperative, encompassing 29 members including 27 social wineries. It was founded in 1966 and has recovery in its DNA, because physiologically in the agricultural world it is essential not to throw anything away. The mission is to valorize members’ grapes, not only to valorize the grapes by paying them at an average price above the market price but to valorize all the by-products of winemaking because grapes hold so many surprises. There are 12,000 winemaking members scattered in seven regions of Italy, from northern Italy to southern Italy, because this makes it possible to guarantee a great variety of wines, thus satisfying the most demanding palates. Caviro’s wines range from the daily wine we know, Tavernello, and Castellino, to super-premium category wines such as Amarone Della Valpolicella. These members cultivate more than 36,000 hectares of vineyard area in Italy, this means that where there is a cooperative there is no land abandonment and this is fundamental; therefore, without land abandonment, because the remuneration is certain, we can be sure that land use change does not happen and the biodiversity that our territory needs is guaranteed. Silvia Buzzi explained that Caviro’s supply chain processes about 10 percent of Italian grapes, about 700 thousand tons per year, and makes wine from them clearly, exceeding 220 million liters of wine poured on the market,...
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19 October 2022Enhancing marine protected areas through waste recovery During the Re-think event held in Naples in July, Carmine Esposito, Head of Mare Vivo Campania region, presented Mare Vivo, an environmental association that has been working nationally and internationally for more than 40 years to protect the sea and the environment. It consists of its own scientific technical committee of University professors, researchers, and professionals who are experts in the various issues the association deals with. The association is divided into territorial delegations and divisions, such as the diving division, the marine protected areas division, the rivers division, and, most recently, the naval league division. The latter arose from a memorandum of understanding with the Italian Naval League as part of a project having as its object pollution, which aims to reduce marine pollution by microplastics. This battle has been carried on for some time now. All activities carried out by the association aim to increase the attention of public opinion and relevant institutions toward the sea. Among the activities carried out are environmental education, scientific research, sustainable development, training, information campaigns, and shoreline and seabed cleanup activities. In recent years, Esposito continued, environmental education programs have given much satisfaction. For example, the “Dolphin Guardians” project features children as protagonists. It aims to increase their awareness of the enormous environmental, landscape, and natural heritage that their territory possesses, as well as wanting to reverse the direction by trying to reduce the impact of pollution. At the end of the “Guardian Dolphins” course, the participating children will become true sentinels of the sea, able to carry out monitoring and reporting activities at the relevant maritime offices of the harbor master’s office. Numerous educational institutions throughout Italy have been reached with great satisfaction. Mare Vivo also, Esposito continued, schedules several educational visits with foundations...
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14 October 2022A2A Case study During the Re-think Circular Economy Forum event in Milan held last February, there were many speakers who brought their company’s conduct as a case study. In this case, Guglielmo Carra, Innovation Manager at A2A told us about how to manage waste to make it a resource. He started his speech by explaining that A2A is a life company that deals with the environment, water, energy, and all the necessary conditions for life. They take care of people’s well-being by providing them with those services to meet their daily needs. All this considers the principles of long-term sustainability. Looking at their investments they are planning a 10-year industrial plan with 18 billion euros in investment, of which about 60% will be focused on the energy transition, and 40% will be on Circular Economy (CE) projects and activities. In the company, they deal with different business sectors: from power generation to distribution and selling of energy, water, and gas, together with the waste collection as well. A2A business model is an integrated loop of services that allows maximizing the value of resources, such as energy, water, or materials, and for which, innovation, new technologies, and digitalization are all key enablers to accelerating the transition to a CE. On a yearly basis, the company serves about 4 million people, it collects and treats about 3.2 million tons of waste, and interestingly the recovery rate of waste as energy and materials is above 99.7%. This means that only 0.3% of the waste they manage goes to landfill, instead all the rest is processed in A2A plants with the end goal of creating a positive impact on the communities they operate in. To have a correct waste management system all the sorted waste goes into the selection plans which operate to create...