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This collection features a selection of inspiring examples of the circular economy, compiled in the context of the Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains programme (SWITCH).

Launched in 2020, SWITCH is a five-year initiative that assists EU multinational companies and their suppliers from developing countries to switch to more circular economy approaches and practices in three selected value chains: [Plastic Packaging](https://knowledge-hub.circle-lab.com/switchtocircular/search?collections=832%3D0&framework_elements__5=111), [Textile & Garments](https://knowledge-hub.circle-lab.com/switchtocircular/search?collections=832%3D0&framework_elements__5=99), and ICT and Electronics.

The overall objective of SWITCH is to support the “transformation towards a circular economy”, and to contribute to sustainable growth, low carbon and climate resilient development, decent jobs creation, and a safer, healthier and pollution-free environment.

SWITCH is co-funded by the European Union and the Government of Finland, and implemented by UNIDO, in collaboration with Chatham House, Circle Economy, and the European Investment Bank.
Learn more at www.switchtocircular.eu

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Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains

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Business case

Direct and indirect effects that increase revenues or the potential for new revenues, for example from new products, customer segments, partnerships or business models

Revenue Potential

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Producing textile and leather products and processing them into apparel and accessories

Fashion and Textiles

Producing and gathering crop and animal products from land and water through farming, hunting, and fishing

Agriculture

Using bio-based materials such as bioplastics, mushroom-based materials, etc.

Alternative bio-based materials and inputs

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within other industries

Open loop upcycling

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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    What is it? 
Apple Skin is a leather alternative made from fruit - more specifically from the skin and core waste recovered from the food industry. The result is a cellulose-based material featuring a variety of textures, thicknesses and embossing and laser prints, allowing for it to be used across industry. 


Who makes it? 
Frumat  Leather was founded by Hannes Parth and they are the company behind the Apple Leather.  Frumat received the Technology and Innovation Award in 2018 for their innovative textile technology. Mabel SRL is located in Florence, Italy. Mabel is the company that physically manufactures the AppleSkin material. The process is patented by Frumat. 
How is it made? After making apple juice, the pulp is left, which is usually thrown away. To make the leather, the apple waste, from apples cultivated in Italy, is dried and ground into powder. This powder is mixed with pigments and a binder and spread out onto a canvas, until it turns into a leather-like material, which is PETA-approved vegan.
The material contains a minimum of 50% apple fibre and is created in Bolzano, Italy. 
Using the cores and skins discarded from the industrial food industry, apples are puréed, spread on a solid sheet and dehydrated until almost all of the moisture has been removed. This purée turns into a flexible, leathery sheet that is then combined with Polyurethane to create the vegan leather.   
Which brands use it? Brands such as Happy Genie, Verrah, Womsh, Luxtra London has already opened their eyes towards the innovative material and is using it in their products. 

Environmental impact
Farmers tend to leave up to 40% of their harvest in the fields, because it does not meet the cosmetic standards for the supermarkets. Collecting and recycling this waste and discarded fruits  means less waste from the foodindustry.
No cows or other livestock is involved in developing the vegan leather saving greenhouse gasses and methane emission. The tanning of the vegan leather is a lot cleaner and not as polluting, as the one used in conventional leather production so the toxins used in the tanning process is reduced.  
The leather is vegan which means that it is 100% cruelty free. 

    

 While research into lab grown leather as an alternative to the regular animal-based material carries on, a firm in the north of Italy has been working on an ingenious and versatile plant-based alternative.
Frumat‘s Apple Skin is a bio-based leather alternative derived from the apple industry food waste. Born in the Tyrol region in the north of Italy, a region renown for the production of apples and which every year is faced with a significant amount of waste, Frumat developed a new raw material to answer both the local apple-waste issue and the increasing demand for ecological alternatives to leather. The result is a cellulose-based material featuring a variety of textures, thicknesses and embossing and laser prints, allowing for it to be used across industry and that can easily It can be produced on demand and easily personalised.

The company has two lines of production. Frumat Apple Skin is currently being used in the fashion and furnishing industry due to the product’s ability to be worked into different textures. The softer fibre is ideal for textiles with a direct application in the clothing and apparel industry. The sturdier, thicker version PU leather alternative, made of 50% recycled apple fibre and 50% polyurethane (hence the name PU), is currently being used for shoes and luggage articles as well as furnishing and upholstery. While Frumat Apple Paper, also produced in a number of versions each one with specific properties, is being already widely employed in the production of stationary articles as well as being used as tissue and packaging material.

By using apple skins and cores sourced locally, Frumat offers a versatile, high performing alternative to both leather and paper with a low environmental impact. The company is now one of the most dynamic realities in the field of agricultural and food waste recycling. 


A volte, per risolvere un problema, basta cambiare prospettiva, scoprendo che la soluzione era così banale e vicina da non essere presa in considerazione.
Quando nasce a Bolzano nel 2009, Frumat inizia a lavorare sugli scarti dell’uva e dei mirtilli rossi importati dal Canada per realizzare materiali innovativi provenienti da rifiuti biologici. I risultati, però, sono poco incoraggianti e allora si prova con il frutto di casa, quella mela che è uno dei simboli del Trentino Alto-Adige. I risultati, questa volta, sono eccellenti.
Frumat inizia a stringere accordi con le aziende della zona, recuperando i torsoli e le bucce derivati dal processo di spremitura, per farne una speciale carta denominata Cartamela. Di colore avorio, riciclabile e non patinata, Cartamela viene impiegata per realizzare packaging, buste, agende e fazzoletti. Altro innovativo prodotto di Frumat è AppleSkin, una similpelle sostenibile e cruelty-free, composta al 50% dagli scarti delle mele. Se inizialmente questo materiale veniva utilizzato come rivestimento esterno per agende, oggi AppleSkin viene impiegata anche dal mondo della moda e dell’abbigliamento sportivo. Womsh, azienda calzaturiera veneta, ha infatti scelto AppleSkin per realizzare 6 modelli di sneakers, mentre OneMore, marchio attivo nella produzione di abbigliamento da sci, impiega AppleSkin per piumini e pantaloni.
Per realizzare i suoi prodotti, Frumat recupera circa 30 tonnellate di scarti di mele al mese dalle aziende del territorio, che vengono così sgravate dal costo di smaltimento e addirittura pagate per il materiale di risulta.


Italy

Trentino-Alto Adige

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By using apple skins and cores sourced locally in Trention (Italy), Frumat offers a versatile, high performing alternative to both leather and paper with a low environmental impact. 

Frumat

<p>By using&nbsp;apple skins and cores&nbsp;sourced locally in Trention (Italy), Frumat offers a versatile, high performing alternative to both leather and paper with a low environmental impact. The company is now one of the most dynamic realities in the field of agricultural and food waste&nbsp;recycling.</p>