During 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...
Start-up
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2 August 2021English Is it possible to imagine the use of marble in the textile industry? Can marble be light? It sounds incredible, but Francesca Pievani and Alice Zantedeschi, Co-founders of Fili Pari, explained to us – during our Re-think Circular Economy Forum 2020 in Milan – how that can be done. Fili Pari is an innovative Start-Up focused on research and development of unconventional materials for the textile industry, respecting the territory and the environment. The Start-Up specializes in the development of cutting-edge technologies for the enhancement of marble powders. Fili Pari aims to contribute to protecting the land and valleys from the mountain’s dismemberment and encourage the use of by-products as a raw material. Fili Pari was born from the desire to create a new deep connection between the Italian territory and the textile industry. Fili Pari’s concept starts in fact from marble, a natural, typical element of the Italian territory. Since ancient times marble has been used in art, architecture, and represents a cultural, economic, and geological heritage, a symbol of uniqueness and timeless excellence. For instance, the Carrara marble is one of the most precious and luxurious marbles in the world. Generally speaking, Italian marble is among the most valuable in the world and it represents a very important sector of Made in Italy. The Italian stone industry boasts the fifth position in the world ranking for processed marbles, with a share of 10%. The supply chain has more than 3,200 companies and 33,800 employees and reached in 2016 a production worth 3.9 billion euros, three-quarters of which is destined to foreign countries. However, marble was never used in the textile sector. Before Fili Pari, there was no connection or synergy between these two industries. In fashion, it was used as an aesthetic inspiration through prints that reproduce...
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9 July 2021By Sofia Fisicaro ‘’Quando ero bambina mi chiedevo spesso come avessi potuto lasciare la mia impronta, contribuire al cambiamento, all’evoluzione, per un mondo migliore. Man mano che crescevo mi rendevo conto che la creatività, l’arte, in particolare la moda, potesse essere il mezzo con cui esprimere questa mia esigenza di trasformare e migliorare ciò che mi circondava. Così, durante una giornata di lockdown, ho capito finalmente come poter essere parte del cambiamento.’’ Mi chiamo Sofia, ho 21 anni, frequento il terzo anno di Fashion Design & Accessories, sono anche la creatrice e designer del brand genderless e sostenibile: EVE1. Durante il percorso di studi all’università, ho iniziato il percorso di avvicinamento al mondo della sostenibilità. Spinta dal desiderio di conoscere i lati “oscuri” del mondo della moda, ho cominciato a evidenziare quante crepe esistessero all’interno di questo sistema produttivo. A partire dall’eccesso di merce prodotta senza una reale necessità o gli sprechi di materiale che dopo qualche tempo venivano ammassati in un magazzino buio e dimenticato. Tutto ciò mi ha reso cosciente della necessità di creare un’alternativa sostenibile e circolare. Cominciando a scrivere la mia tesi di laurea, ho acquisito consapevolezza nel dettaglio dell’universo di sprechi che genera il mondo della moda, tanti purtroppo. Concentrarmi su cosa non posso fare però, non è mai stato il mio forte e lo considero un dispendio inutile di energie, così lasciando da parte i macro-ambienti non controllabili direttamente da me mi sono focalizzata su cosa invece io potessi cambiare nel mio piccolo. A ottobre 2020, durante un pomeriggio di lockdown decisi di sfruttare i momenti di pausa in casa per riordinare tutti i tessuti rimanenti dai vecchi progetti universitari, erano davvero tantissimi e mi sono subito resa conto di quanto fosse stressante l’idea di doverli gettare via inutilmente, così mi sono chiesta: ‘‘Perché...
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6 July 2021Versione Italiana La Prof.ssa Antonella Zucchella dell’Università degli Studi di Pavia è stata nostra ospite in occasione di Hacking the City lo scorso aprile. Il suo intervento, riassunto in questo articolo, si è concentrato sulla relazione tra marketing imprenditorialità circolare. L’Economia Circolare ha bisogno dell’impegno di diversi attori: tra questi, le imprese dovranno giocare un ruolo tanto importante, quanto denso di sfide. Proprio per questo motivo, la Prof.ssa Zucchella ha introdotto il termine “imprenditorialità circolare” (circular entrepreneurship). L’imprenditorialità circolare si ispira ai principi dell’Economia Circolare per capire e anticipare il cambiamento in condizioni di incertezza, introducendo innovazioni, che possono riguardare diversi aspetti: prodotti, processi, modelli di business, eco-sistemi. L’imprenditorialità circolare riguarda due casi principali: le cosiddette imprese “born circular”, ossia le start-up circolari, che hanno la circolarità nel loro DNA e in quello dei loro fondatori. Queste realtà scrivono la propria storia e il proprio modello di business a partire da un foglio bianco. Vi sono poi le imprese già consolidate, che hanno avviato la transizione verso la circolarità. Entrambe le tipologie di aziende hanno dei problemi specifici da affrontare e delle barriere di cui tenere conto, che sono in primo luogo tecnologiche e finanziarie. È però molto importante anche il ruolo del marketing: ciò potrebbe sembrare paradossale in quanto spesso si tende ad associare il marketing al fenomeno del greenwashing. Sarebbe però certamente un errore non considerare le numerose barriere che ci sono in questo settore, anche al di là del greenwashing: spesso sono proprio queste barriere, di cui raramente le aziende sono consapevoli, a limitare la capacità di azione di quelle realtà che vogliono divenire più sostenibili. Questo fenomeno è definito dalla Prof.ssa Zucchella la “marketing blindness”, ossia la cecità di chi gestisce un’azienda, che non è capace di comprendere i veri bisogni del marketing e del mercato. Questa problematica...
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21 May 2021English version Cingomma is an Italian company that creates accessories such as belts, wallets, bags, and key chains, bringing to life tires, billboards, sails, neoprene, and fire hoses. Cingomma was born almost ten years ago in Turin from an idea of a small group of friends who decided they preferred a product whose creation was industrious and not industrial. The challenge they set themselves was to bring together passions, skills, and talents to create a product that would encapsulate the values and ethics of a group of people who chose to improve the world in which they live. The guys at Cingomma like to define themselves as a creative reality and strongly believe that in order to be good ARTisans, it is necessary to be ARTists. Each product made by Cingomma is therefore unique, creative, handmade, green, and 100% made in Italy. How does it work? At the base of Cingomma is the desire to reinvent the consumption model that is dominant today, reusing products that only apparently have completed their life cycle but that can still be reused and revalued. Every year, in Italy alone, 380,000 tons of tires are disposed of. Cingomma chooses to recover this material, subjecting it to advanced cleaning treatments and transforming it into a beautiful, super-resistant, Italian, and above all unique clothing accessory! Each of the accessories made by Cingomma is characterized by the presence of a fabric label with a number that proves the uniqueness of the product. The numbering is curiously negative: the idea is in fact to show to those who buy an object made by Cingomma how much material has been diverted from landfills. Although bicycle tires and inner tubes are the basis of all Cingomma’s creations, the company loves to experiment and contaminate its products with other waste materials....
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English Version Italian version below A few months ago, we had the pleasure of hosting Ivan Calimani, founder of Krill Design, at our Re-think Circular Economy Forum, the event that we created as a meeting opportunity for those working in the Circular Economy sector. Krill Design is a startup, founded in October 2018, that puts design and technology at the service of the Circular Economy. In his speech, Ivan Calimani, first explained how the need to launch this startup was born from an understanding of just how critical it is that we redesign the way we think about waste. Every year in the world, hundreds of millions of tons of organic material are generated as waste and 98% of these materials end up in landfills to be incinerated or rot in open bins. European companies generate 88 million tons of waste per year, or 20% of all European food production, resulting in an economic loss of 143 billion euros per year. It is estimated that wasted food generates around 3.3 million tons of CO2 per year, representing about 8% of global emissions. This is why the food and beverage industry is looking for effective and sustainable solutions to recycle and reuse waste. In fact, food waste can be used today to realize raw materials for high-value products and help build a circular bioeconomy. Of course, new solutions often require a long phase of experimentation and don’t always prove beneficial to companies, but Krill Design has developed a Circular Economy model that starts and finishes within the same company, using the waste it produces to easily make a finished product. How does it work? How is it possible? Homogeneous food waste, such as peels, seeds, and shells, is transformed into a 100% biodegradable biopolymer. Through a 3D printer, it is then...
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27 April 2021English Version Brave Brew is a Swedish company founded by three friends, Matt, Niclas and Julian, who were shocked to find out that 80,000 tons of bread are wasted every year in Sweden. They then asked themselves this question: what can you do with more than 200 tons of leftover bread per day? They came up with possibly one of the best answers: beer! This is how Crumbs was born: made from bread waste, Crumbs is a locally sourced, locally produced, delicious beer brewed using leftover bread which would otherwise be thrown away. Their motto is simple: “Less Waste, More Taste”. Brave Brew is not a brewery per se, but they work to collect bread that would otherwise be wasted and then they trust local experts to work their magic and turn this bread into delicious beer. Brave Brew has been running since March 2020. They started selling beer in June 2020 and have produced about 45,000 bottles of two different qualities of beer. The first one, Loafy Lager, has been produced in collaboration with Värmdö Brewery, a craft brewery from Stockholm. To produce this first beer, 30% of the grain count has been replaced with rescued bread. The result is a tasty, light lager with citrus notes and of course light bread. Brave Brew is now working with a new brewery with the goal to produce a third beer. The final objective for 2021 is to be able to systemise the bread collection to be able to scale production in other cities. Brave Brew is also working on the idea of producing a new beer using spent grain, which is a leftover of the brewing process. An ambitious goal Brave Brew also seeks to raise awareness on the issue of bread waste and to create an alternative circular and scalable...
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2 April 2021By Giovanni Colombo, Senior Public Affairs Manager at EIT Food – from ReThink 2020 English Version EIT Food is one of the eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities created by the EU under the umbrella of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and is building an ecosystem to generate innovative solutions to make the food system more circular and bring these solutions to the market. The “Circular Food Systems” is one of the six Focus Areas. EIT Food, as Europe’s leading food initiative, is working to make the food system more sustainable, healthy, and trusted. It works in synergy with Europe’s leading agri-food companies, research institutes, universities, and startups to transform the food system and tackle some of the big societal challenges such as food waste. In the EU, around 88 million tonnes of food waste are generated annually, which represents 20% of food production and it is estimated that this could feed 200 million people. The production and disposal of this food waste generate 170 million tonnes of CO2 which accounts for 6% of greenhouse gas emissions of the European Union. The global cost is 870 billion euros. Today, the reduction of food waste is an opportunity because it could help to close the gap between the food needed to feed the planet in 2050 and the food that was available in 2010 by more than 20%. This has been recognized also by the UN SDGs target n° 12.3 which asks us to halve the food waste by 2030. In the European context, food waste covers food loss and food waste and it occurs at all stages of the value chain. Even though in Europe food waste occurs mostly at the consumption level, synergic efforts should be addressing the problem of food waste at all stages of the value chain. Colombo...
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26 March 2021By Luca Bertolasi English Version Lac2Lab is a start-up currently under the constitution, whose project started in 2019. The team is made up of 4 co-founders, with different backgrounds: Paride Acierno and Luca Bertolasi for the economic-business area, Lorenzo Ippolito, and Arianna Palladini for the R&D and production area. Cell cultures are a laboratory technique that aims to reproduce biological phenomena through the growth of certain cell lines within laboratory slides, in a controlled artificial environment. The growth and proliferation of cells are guaranteed through nutrition, given by the FBS (Fetal Bovine Serum), which has various problems concerning the ethical, economic, and qualitative sphere. First, FBS is produced by killing bovine fetuses, and about 2 million of them are killed each year. Furthermore, the FBS has a considerable cost, and the cheaper variants are produced in South America, where herd control isn’t comparable to Italian standards. An ethical and sustainable product The purpose of Lac2Lab is therefore to place on the market a substitute product for FBS, totally ethical towards animals, obtained by reusing a material that would otherwise be wasted: cow’s milk. Indeed, approximately 116 million tons of milk and dairy products are wasted every year around the world. An in-depth analysis of the dairy market was conducted, in particular by examining the relationships between producer, distributor, and the final consumer. This analysis highlighted how to milk waste is an intrinsic problem in the supply chain. The Lac2Lab product is born from the requalification of expired or expiring cow’s milk, no longer destined for food consumption, to be used in Life Science technologies. This guarantees production based on a circular and sustainable economy. The whey, suitably transformed through original processes and replacing the FBS within the cell cultures, also reduces the distances between the additive manufacturer and users: the...
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5 March 2021By Elia Bidut English Version Ccrave, a Portuguese circular content and commerce platform Ccrave is a circular content and commerce platform, born thanks to the efforts of Vincent Van Dessel and Liina Edun. Ccrave is a start-up based in Lisbon that has recently participated in Rise for Impact, a 3 months acceleration program and one of the best impact accelerators in Portugal. Ccrave secured its seed funding and is taking off in 2021. We had the chance to speak to Vincent about the experience of starting a new circular venture and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on CCrave. Vincent, what has been the main difficulty in setting up a new company in the circular economy field? Circular economy is still a pioneering concept and relatively unknown for end consumers but also for businesses. We will only succeed at this systemic change by connecting all the dots in the circular ecosystem. Identifying all relevant stakeholders and building a circular ecosystem with brands, material producers, circular experts, and European circular organizations has been my main task for the last one and a half year. It’s a never-ending journey. Finding the right co-founders was another big challenge as we always aim to have circular advocates as team members. We managed to attract people with a previous successful career path in linear business ventures to shift to a promising circular one, like our new Head of Digital, Beatriz. As a circular business venture that aims to accelerate the transition to a circular economy, you need to walk your talk and lead by example. Therefore to be credible we have to apply circular principles in the core of our company as much as possible. Hosting our website on a green platform, carbon-neutral logistics where possible, sourcing the right products – our vision is there...