By Make Mothers Matter
CIRC4Life is a project funded under the Horizon 2020 programme with 17 partners from across 8 EU countries. It aims to develop 3 business models in 4 sectors based on the circular economy. It will include:
- co-creation of products and services,
- sustainable consumption, &
- collaborative recycling and reuse.
The co-creation of Products/Services model will bring end-users closer to the design and manufacturing phases by identifying consumer preferences via big-data online mining product reviews and evaluating product specifications and prototypes via Living Labs to customise end-user requirements.
The sustainable consumption model will develop a method to calculate the eco-points of products based on the outcome of FP7 myEcoCost project, assess product environment footprints (PEF), provide a traceability solution to monitor product’s sustainability along the value chain, and support end-users and stakeholders to actively implement the circular economy via awareness raising and knowledge sharing activities.
The collaborative recycling/reuse model will develop a system for stakeholders to interact with each other to facilitate the use/reuse of end-of-life products and reduce waste, and implement the eco-credits awarding scheme to encourage people to recycle/reuse.
This project will be demonstrated at a large scale in 4 sectors: domestic and industrial lighting products, vegetable farming and food, meat supply chain, and recycling and reuse of computer tablets. Demonstrations will be developed in the UK (Cornwall and Berkshire Counties) and Spain (the regions of Murcia, Basque Country and Valencia).
This project has received funding under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant agreement No. 776503.