A circular economy approach for lifecycles of products and services

Project Information

CIRC4Life

Grant agreement ID: 776503

DOI

10.3030/776503

Project closed

EC signature date 20 April 2018

Start date 1 May 2018

End date 31 October 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 7 228 773,75

EU contribution

€ 6 294 033,39

Coordinated by

THE NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CIRC4Life (A circular economy approach for lifecycles of products and services)

Reporting period: 2019-11-01 to 2021-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This project aims to develop and implement a circular economy approach for sustainable products and services through their value and supply chains. Three new circular economy business models was developed including (i) co-creation of products and services, (ii) collaborative recycling and reuse (iii) sustainable consumption. This project was demonstrated at a large scale in electrical and electronic products and farming/agri-foods sectors, provide an effective means to communicate with wide communities to disseminate the project outcome, and involve a large number of stakeholders along value and supply chains throughout the project lifetime, including end-users, producers, researchers and civil society. An ICT platform has been developed to support the development, implementation, demonstration, communication and dissemination. The overall project objectives include:
• develop three new circular economy business models that underpin new services based on performance/functionality.
• support the realisation of the business models through development of a vendor-neutral, open source-based information logistical infrastructure.
• demonstrate the economic and environmental feasibility of the new circular economy business models and exploit EU eco -innovative solutions in electrical and electronic and farming/agri-foods sectors.
• provide support for end-users to be actively involved in developing, testing and implementing the circular economy models, by awareness raising and knowledge sharing in effective ways.
• make effective impacts on designing new sustainable products and services by creating new markets, shortening supply chain length, reducing consumption of resources and materials, and recovery of raw materials from WEEE.
• communicate and disseminate the project's activities and results to stakeholders, EU decision makers and wider communities in effective ways such as conferences and workshops, exhibitions, and association networks.
• produce cross-cutting policy recommendations on circular economy, based on the integration of lessons learnt in conducting this project, which is aligned with European Circular Economy package.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In this reporting period (months 1 – 18), the work conducted and main results achieved are as follows:
(1). Development of three new circular economy business models (CEBMs): (i) CEBM1 ‘Co-creation of products and services’ includes product design specification with eco-constrains, sustainable production scoping, environmental and social LCA, eco-point method and eco-accounting platform, online LCA and impact assessment tool, consumer and supply chain interaction, and production by integration of sustainable design and manufacturing tools/methods. (ii) CEBM2 ‘collaborative recycling/reuse includes a strategy of reuse and recycling for agri-food sector based on food waste and for Electric and Electronic Equipment such as tablets and LED lamps, method to calculate eco-credits, incentive schemes for reducing/reuse/recycling. (iii) CEBM3 ‘Sustainable consumption’ includes eco-shopping, sustainable consumption awareness and informative campaign, big-data method for online mining consumer views, and consumer satisfaction survey. A tool was developed to boost recycling and reuse with an ICT system by means of intelligent bins, trace ability technique and an ICT platform, and awareness campaigns regarding circular economy principles in schools.
(2). Development of an ICT platform for implementing the CEBMS, and related databases and services provision, access management layer, integration activities with traceability module, recycling module and end-user applications. Provision of support to all the partners on technical aspects and Quality management of the project, a simplified marketplace to be used by the project participants and possibly external stakeholders, and a matchmaking logic into the brokerage system based on the maturity level of the stakeholder in circular business models.
(3). Development of Traceability solutions for implementation of the CEBMs, including EPCIS method for capturing traceability data of eco-impacts in product lifecycle. Design and development of core EPCIS tools, capture services to collect process data into EPCIS events, data models and interfaces between the traceability components as well as with the ICT platform and Improved peer to peer Data Access Model to enable access control to the EPCIS data. Implementation of the developed tools into the CEBMs and validation of the traceability solutions.
(4). To support the development of the CEBMS, in addition to the ITC platform and traceability solutions, a set of living lab activities have been conducted, involving a large number of end-users and stakeholders along product supply chain. The first Innovation Camp was organized with over 80 participants of high-level CE experts.
(5). A plan has been made for demonstration of the CEBMs in industrial sectors of lighting products, vegetable farming and food, meat supply chain and recycling/reuse of tablets. The project outcome has been disseminated and communicated to the public and a wide range of external parties. The exploitation plan has also been developed.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The CIRC4Life project will enable the transition towards a circular economy through the development of a systemic and eco-innovative circular economy approach for sustainable products and services, supported by an ICT platform and trace ability techniques to connect and share data among a large number of stakeholders. The three new CEBMs will be demonstrated in industrial sectors of industrial/domestic lighting products, vegetable farming, meat supply chain, and computer tablets.
The main expected impacts are as follows:
(1) An approach is developed to bring the end-users close the early stage of product development, to effectively collect consumer preferences, and, hence, to facilitate the incorporation of environmental considerations in product design and manufacture, resulting in new types of LED lighting products with lower environmental impacts.The new approach developed will support sustainable decision-making processes (e.g. it will inform about the environmental credentials of each luminaire) and hence enhance their sustainable consumption patterns.
(2) Existing ethical food markets will be expanded. The trustworthiness of the gathered data, statistics and business analytics will increase by using an EPCIS based traceability system, which is capable of tracing the life cycle information of food ingredients and food production processes. End-users will be able to take full responsibility for their resource consumption and sustainability footprint, which will alter their buying habits towards low impact food choices.
(3) Trace ability techniques will be efficiently integrated into the processes of production, logistics, retail and recycling/reuse whist including sustainability impact data at the same time; this associated sustainability impact data supports new market opportunities for companies involved. It helps European retailers in choosing a successful sourcing and vending strategy.
(4) New markets will be created for digitised farms offering digital twin products (traditional goods + digital information), which fosters the position of the European food sector – especially SMEs – in global competition.
More statements about the expected impacts can be found in the Description of Actions of this project.

CIRC4Life Project Logo

CIRC4Life Project PERT diagram