By 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...
zerowaste
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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...
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30 September 2020English Version ZEROBARRACENTO is a gender-neutral zero-waste brand envisioning outerwear as a service. The fundamental values of the company are 0% waste and gender on the one side, and 100% traceability, transparency and inclusiveness on the other side. In addition, the hundred percent stand for 100% sustainability, an issue that has been at the core of the brand since the beginning. Following the product principles of the brand, the clothing lines need to be clean, essential and sourced locally. Therefore, the company is exclusively using materials coming from certified suppliers. To guarantee short transportation ways, every step of the design, product development and manufacturing takes place in Italy and factories are chosen in such a way that they are close to the place where the raw materials have been sourced. Moreover, the selected suppliers operate in the cities/regions which show the highest level of expertise in working with sustainable materials. For the organic and recycled wools, Biella and Prato have been chosen as supplier districts for instance. All material inputs are certified, of high quality and flow through a production/consumption chain that is circular. In addition, every product is self-complementary, designed to last and fully traceable throughout the value chain. One of the materials is Newlife™, a certified yarn, made from 100% post-consumer bottles. The patterns of the textiles are developed with a zero-waste design technique that eliminates textile waste at the design stage, an approach that contributes to reduce the use of natural resources. Usually, around 15% of textiles go wasted in the production process of fashion clothes. The technique involves eliminating waste by removing accessories (no buttons, no zippers, no hooks and eyes) and included the selvedge when sewing the garments. This way the final products are finished up with just a few seams. The packaging is made...
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8 July 2020By Alexandra Kekkonen – Tondo’s associate English Version Estonia is an innovative nation in Northern Europe known globally for its digital ambitions. It is one of the top countries in Europe in terms of start-ups per capita and ranks first in the Entrepreneurship Index by the WEF. The country is a world pioneer in providing public services online – 99% of all public services provided 24/7 online. Thanks to smart e-solutions, it takes only a few hours to start a company and minutes to declare taxes. Estonia has a small population (1,3 m.) and territory (45,226 km²). Unlike other countries, the country is characterized by strong deurbanization tendencies in 15-years perspective. Another distinct feature of the Estonian society is so-called slow living approach: a large part of the population does not consider economic growth a priority[1]. These trends are enhanced by declining and ageing population (as of January 1, 2020, the share of people over 65 in the population structure of Estonia was 20.04% of the population) Ecological footprint per person is 7.1 gha, whereas biocapacity [2] is 9.5 gha per person, leaving a room for improvement. Approximately 71% of Estonia’s gross domestic product (by value added) is generated in the service sector, industries account for 25%, and extractive industries (including agriculture and mining) – about 4%, mainly oil shale. Estonia is the second largest emitter of CO2 per capita in the European Union and by far the most carbon-intensive economy among the OECD countries. The reason for that is oil shale, sedimentary rock that has been mined in Estonia for electricity generation since the fifties and, since recently, have also been used for liquid diesel fuel production. The country contains second largest deposits of oil shale (2.49 billion metric tons of shale oil) in the EU after Italy (10.45 billion...
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By Enrico Benco – CEO at GS4C English Version Enrico Benco begins his presentation by introducing the innovative SME GS4C which he co-founded in 2012. GS4C identifies itself as a supplier of sustainable solutions in the sector of composite materials, its mission is precisely to transform materials in order to recover them at the end of their life, validating and making prototypes of sustainable technologies that involve companies in case studies and projects. The GS4C Business Model is based on Open Innovation to support large companies in the manufacturing sector, in particular marine, wind and automotive. The technology and consultancy transfer of Sustainable Solutions in the composite materials sector, has led GS4C to become the touchstone in the sector both nationally and internationally. Loop Mini650 was the first project presented, a sailboat made of 100% recyclable materials that demonstrates the possibility of creating zero-dump composite materials. Loop will also be the first boat equipped with the H2Boat solution with Metal Hydride in a T-shaped keel capable of storing about 7 kWh of energy in the form of low pressure hydrogen, which can be used through a 300 W fuel cell. The sailboat operates in one of the most difficult environments for composite materials (with exposure to UV rays and salt water), besides to the requirements of lightness and mechanical stress, the structure must bear. The project will be a test bed and a promotional vehicle for technology. The fiber of which it is composed is the FilavaTM of the Belgian company Isomatex S.A. FilavaTM production is unique thanks to a genuine and innovative treatment of the raw material: basalt, which is enriched with various mineral additives to increase and guarantee its original mechanical and chemical properties. Among the other projects there is also the one with Enea: it is by B.AI.i,...
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21 February 2020By Maddalena Fava – Partner of Cooperativa Ziguele English Version Every year, millions of tons of waste end up in the sea or in the port area; this phenomenon derives from: poor management and collection of waste, lack of infrastructure, little knowledge about the serious consequences on the natural habitat.Since the 1970s, the scientific community has been paying attention to this phenomenon, known as “marine litter“: “any durable material produced by man and abandoned in the marine environment; waste resulting from human activities whose destiny is to accumulate in the marine environment”. Fishing, aquaculture and recreational waste includes special waste (batteries, motor oils), organic waste (undersized species, waste), waste collected at sea (plastic, glass, paper and cardboard, fabric, wood, ferrous material).Currently, in the ports, this waste has a disorganized management: no space is available for storage and there are no operating methods for disposal. The reuse practices of the organic fraction are completely absent. Because of this, fishermen who collect waste from the sea, not finding suitable structures on the ground, abandon them back into the water, helping to increase environmental problems even in port areas. PRiSMa-Med is a cooperation project funded on the Interreg Maritime program, born precisely to combat these problems.The project involves several public and private partners located in three Italian regions, Liguria (Liguria Region, TICASS Scrl), Tuscany (Tuscany Region, Gestimar Scpa, CIRSPE) Sardinia (FLAG North Sardinia, Union Comuni Alta Gallura), and Corsica (Chamber of Commerce of Ajaccio and Southern Corsica).The objective is the characterization of the waste produced by fishing activities or collected at sea and to reinsert them in the production cycle through feasibility studies of recovery chains. We want to contribute to the reduction of waste and waste deriving from fishing, aquaculture and therefore from ports. To do this we need a system of...