Paola De Bernardi spoke about the paradox and limits of the agri-food system, then suggested possible operational solutions.
Circular Economy
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10 March 2023Let’s take the opportunity to celebrate all women playing a pivotal role in the progress toward a circular economy. From entrepreneurs and politicians to scientists and designers, women are making huge contributions to sustainable development. Here are only 5 of the most prominent thousands of females devoting themselves to circularity. ELLEN MACARTHUR 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes, and 33 seconds: this is how long Ellen MacArthur took to circumnavigate the whole globe, becoming the fastest solo sailor to complete this journey. During her boat trips, Ellen witnessed firsthand the by far unsustainable levels of waste and pollution of our planet, and the resulting pressing environmental challenges facing the world today. Specifically, she could not remain indifferent to the vast amounts of plastic bottles, bags, and debris floating on the water’s surface: plastic pollution was hopelessly harming marine life and ecosystems. The “take-make-dispose” economic model was one of the primary causes of this problem and needed to be replaced. In 2010, she founded the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, becoming a leading voice in the circular economy movement. As a matter of fact, the Foundation inspired circular change in businesses, governments, and organizations all around the world, and contributed to research on circularity and policy implementation. Just think that the Foundation contributed to the development of the European Union’s Circular Economy Package, promoting a more circular approach to resource use and waste reduction in the EU. JENNIFER HYMAN AND JENNIFER FLEISS Double the Jennifer, double the power. Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss are the founders of Rent The Runway: the leading clothing rental platform providing consumers simultaneously with a cost-effective and sustainable solution to show off the most iconic high-end looks. By allowing them to rent dresses for special occasions, RTR allows fashionistas to have high turnover fashion rates without harming the...
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24 February 2023Let us consider a commonly used object: a plastic water bottle. Before ending up on the shelves of our trusted supermarket, the object in question will have to go through several stages. First among them is the extraction of the materials needed to produce the bottle. Then there is the actual manufacturing stage, where the product takes shape, which is followed by the transportation and distribution stages. However, the life of the bottle does not end there: the bottle will in fact be used by the final consumer, and then it will be thrown in the trash and disposed of, recycled, or transformed into a new product according to the principles of the circular economy. Each step in this process has its own impact on the environment. Life Cycle Assessment (generally known by its acronym LCA), is a detailed analysis used to estimate what effects a product or service causes on the environment, throughout its life cycle, from material extraction to disposal. LCA helps us understand that there is much more to it than what appears on the surface and helps us look at the big picture. Considering the life cycle of a product in its entirety can be critically important – both for consumers who want to make increasingly informed choices and for companies who want to make their products less and less impactful- in identifying areas for improvement and in making sustainability decisions. A product life cycle analysis generally consists of four steps. The first is to define the objectives (for example, that of reducing the environmental impact of a product) and the scope of the assessment, and then identify the methods to be used in the analysis. The next step is to create the so-called LCI, or Life Cycle Inventory: a list that includes all inputs and...
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13 January 2023During the course of the latest Re-think Taranto, Dario De Lisi, Sales Manager of the company Fruttirossi, spoke and presented the case study of the company that, through the adoption of different techniques manages to be sustainable and circular. Masseria Fruttirossi, explained Dario De Lisi, is an agritech company, located in the countryside of Castellaneta, in the province of Taranto, which was established in 2016 and whose plant was inaugurated on October 2, 2018. The company’s core business is pomegranate cultivation. In this field, it has managed to reach significant cultivation areas in a short time, with about 300 hectares of land and 200,000 trees planted in a few years. These numbers make the Society a leader in pomegranate cultivation in Italy. De Lisi highlighted how the company treats pomegranate as the main product of its business, around which to build a real supply chain project. In fact, the company deals not only with cultivation in the field but also with the processing of the fruit through innovative technologies designed to preserve its organoleptic properties, which, as now proven by numerous scientific evidence, make the pomegranate one of the most antioxidant fruits ever. Sustainability has always been a foundational theme in the company’s development. As explained, since its design, Fruttirossi has in fact chosen to place the concept of sustainability as the basis of its operations. As an example, suffice it to say that on the roofs of the company’s warehouse, there is a photovoltaic system, with an installed capacity of about 750 KW, which makes the company, especially during daylight hours, self-sufficient from an energy point of view. This aspect is relevant, especially in light of the current soaring prices of the energy resource, as it allows the Company to remain competitive in the market. In addition to energy...
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23 December 2022Martedì 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...
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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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11 August 2022Martin Charter, Director at the Centre for Sustainable Design University for the Creative Arts, during his speech at Re-think Circular Economy Milan held in February 2022, started his speech introducing the concept of ircular economy. Circular economy is part of the broader approach to sustainable development and picks up a number of the Sustainable Development Goals. What we’ve really seen over the last 7-8 years is an increased usage of the term “circular economy”. Actually, the first legislation about circular economy was created in China in 2008. It’s also important to recognize that we move in waves and we are presently, in Charter’s opinion, in a fifth green consumer wave; and those waves have different perspectives, so this particular wave that we’re in at the moment, is very much around the climate change, around nature and biodiversity, but also the social and community dimension, because of Covid has come in. Also, a key element of this wave is the engagement by youth in the agenda. Perspective is everything. Yes, there might be trends focusing on particular issues, but it is essential to keep our overall perspective. Continuing, Charter explained that 2015 was a critical year for many reasons globally and in Europe there was the Paris Agreement, and the recalibration of the sustainable development agenda with the launch of the the SDGs, but also it was the Commission’s first attempt to bring together awhole package of policies in the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) 1.0. – that was then brought together into a CEAP 2.0. What was particularlyinteresting is that there was a focus on new sectors, for example clothing and textiles becoming much more in the focal area for circular economythinking.But of course, Covid really hit everybody and has led to a lot of uncertainty, but before this we...
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6 July 2022During the Re-think Circular Economy Forum Milan 2022 event, Valentina Cerolini, co-founder of Deesup, started her speech by presenting their reality. Deesup is a startup with its own interpretation of the value of Circular Economy (CE). They started the company some years ago while following their intuition, they found a gap in the market and they decided to fill it out. Cerolini stressed the fact that when they talk about market, they are talking about the luxury second-hand furniture market, which at that time was already huge in terms of size. At the moment, the estimates say that by 2025, the value of this market will reach about $16 billion, however, they already knew that the combination of CE model and the resale system they were adopting was becoming somehow mainstream. This is what happened as in many successful use cases, especially in the fashion industry such as for the famous acquisition of Depop from the American base Etsy. Zooming on furniture, Deesup characteristic, it is important to understand that this is the right moment for that and to offer the value through authenticity. Their team of expert curators select all the iconic second-hand items that arrive in the platform that helped also in creating a community of design lovers. With their work and innovation, they were able to build a community of about 30,000 users consisting of design lovers, architects, interior designers, gallerists that are interested in the platform products because they see the value of the circularity in this app as well as a secure payment. Deesup plays the role of the mediator between buyers and sellers ensuring them a very smooth process for selling and buying furniture items. From 2020, Cerolini continued, the startup experienced interesting booming years because people went through the pandemic and the houses...
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23 June 2022During the Re-think Circular Economy Forum held in Taranto last here, we had the honour to have as guest Walter Stahel, father of the Circular Economy and founder of The Life-Product Institute in Geneva, who began his speech giving a panoramic view of the opportunities of a low-waste, low-carbon circular industrial economy. Circular Industrial Economy (CIE) is about stocks, not flows, he started, and it’s about managing, maintaining the value and the utility of natural capital, human capital, cultural capital, manufactured capital. The origins of circularity are several: in nature, in infrastructure designed for long-term use, in good husbandry in societies of poverty and scarcity. The take-away from early sustainability and Circular Economy is that it comes from people caring for their belongings – what they have – and as there is no waste in nature, it simply means that all waste is man-made. Walter explained that, looking at the economy as a whole, it is like a bath-tub economy, where you have inflows and outflows, but the thing we are most interested in is quality and quantity of stock of water in the tub. This is largely unknown today. So, a bath-tub view of a mature circular economy is one loop, with a main era of “R”, reuse, refill, repair, remanufacture and an era of “D”, de-linking materials to recover molecules as-pure-as-new from used resources. The era of “R” is about essential services, production is about productive labour and that’s why economists usually ignore the era of “R” because it’s not productive labour. The era of “R” of the Circular Industrial Economy is about local SMEs and innovation to extend the service-life of objects. And who takes the decisions in the era of “R”? It’s the owner-user in control of his/her belongings. Then, according to Walter, a first watershed happened...