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This collection features circular practices across several industries in Taiwan: Agriculture & Food, Textiles and Fashion, Buildings, Furniture and Appliances, Vehicles, Packaging and Containers, Electronics and Chemicals, etc. 

Circular Taiwan Network (CTN) is a leadership initiative in Taiwan that brings together governments, businesses, universities, and NGOs to facilitate the transition to a circular economy. CTN aims to enhance understanding and implementation of the circular economy across Taiwan. We catalyze collaborations in the hope that more circular policies and sustainable business solutions may be created and that the circular economy may flourish in Taiwan. CTN has published two books, ‘Circular Economy’ and ‘Circular Taiwan’, along with several specialized reports, to promote awareness and practices of circular economy in Taiwan.

To learn more about Circular Taiwan Network visit [https://circular-taiwan.org/en/](https://circular-taiwan.org/en/)

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Circular Taiwan Network

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Business case

Providing residential and non-residential construction services, such as architectural, engineering, planning, real-estate, contracting, and inspection services

Construction and Real Estate Services

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within the same industry

Closed loop upcycling

Providing products through leasing, rental, or pay-per-use models instead of sales

Leasing, rental, pay per use

Designing products of multiple parts that can be easily exchanged

Design for modularity

**Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns**

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The world is seriously off track in its effort to halve per-capita food waste and losses by 2030.The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on consumption and production patterns, with disruptions to global supply chains and changes in consumer behaviour. 

Responsible consumption and production must be an integral part of the recovery from the pandemic. 
But the global economy also needs to speed up the decoupling of economic growth from resource use by maximizing the socio-economic benefits of resources while minimizing their negative impacts. 

Reporting on corporate sustainability has tripled since the beginning of the SDG period, but the private sector will need to significantly improve reporting on activities that contribute to the SDGs. 

This primarily entails environmentally sound management of "toxic chemicals" A substantial use of chemicals is essential to meet the social and economic goals of the world community, and these can be used with a high degree of safety when best practices are followed.  Gross chemical contamination, with grave damage to human health, genetic structures reproductive outcomes, and the environment, has been continuing within some of the world's most important industrial areas, and restoration will require major investment as well as the development of new techniques.
Effective control of the generation, storage, treatment, recycling and reuse, transport, recovery and disposal of hazardous wastes is another similar challenge. 
In addition,  solid wastes include all domestic refuse and non-hazardous wastes such as commercial and institutional wastes, street sweepings construction debris, and, in some countries, human wastes. As hazardous waste is frequently intermixed with other waste, this poses particular management challenges.
Finally, this target ensures that radioactive waste is safely managed, transported, stored and disposed of, with a view to protecting human health and the environment. 

To deliver SDG12, it is crucial to implement policies that support the shift to sustainable practices and decouple economic growth from resource use.

Sources: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/chemicals-and-waste](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/chemicals-and-waste)

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12. Responsible consumption and production

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

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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**These 17 Goals recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.**

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN, and especially on the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000 at UN Headquarters in New York which let to the elaboration of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed. A major blueprint came out of this: The Sustainable Development Goals: 17 overarching goals—and 169 targets—that governments are aiming to meet by 2030. Significant progress has been made in terms of poverty, health and inequality, but there's still a way to go. This is where the circular economy comes in: by circulating resources multiple times, the circular economy tackles issues of scarcity and allows all to access what they need—without overburdening the earth. If it's implemented in a holistic way—affording attention to social considerations and the fair distribution of resources— it also offers a pathway for achieving the SDGs; and the link between the two is ever-growing. To read more about the link between the SDGs and the circular economy, click [here](https://www.circle-economy.com/blogs/how-the-circular-economy-can-help-us-reach-the-sustainable-development-goals).

It is the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) which provides substantive support and capacity-building for the SDGs and their related thematic issues. TheDSDG plays a key role in the evaluation of UN systemwide implementation of the 2030 Agenda and in advocacy and outreach activities relating to the SDGs. In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals. DSDG aims to help facilitate this engagement.
Alongside this, the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development serves as the central UN platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs.
In addition, the UN Secretary-General presents an annual SDG Progress report, which is developed in cooperation with the UN System, and based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected at the regional level.

To read more information: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals](https://sdgs.un.org/goals)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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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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      TCI Co., Ltd. has been reutilizing agricultural by-products which are usually considered as useless in order to exploit the resources and discover the nutritional and effective ingredients in plants. We have identified the novel values of by-products by our exclusive extraction technologies for the effective ingredients, and developed high-performance products by these by-products. ( English provided by company. )“Sustainability” is one of the essentials of competitiveness in the future. Based on the concept of sustainability, TCI is scoping out the business operation to cover social responsibility, environmental protection, and business development simultaneously. We are looking forward to the balance between business development and sustainability. We have been simplifying and automating our operation and manufacturing by our profession, biotechnology. We improve the process of resource recycling and reuse, and provide benefits to human health. We are creating the irreplaceability with this circular economy model. We are an ODM manufacturer for developing and producing functional beverages, dietary supplements and facial masks. Based on the development and the manufacturing technologies focusing on agricultural biotechnology, we have established the business model which features the concept of the “Circular Economy for Agricultural Materials”. We have developed functional beverage and food products made by by-products such as banana peels, banana stamens, unripe jujube fruits and unripe ponkan fruits (thinning fruit), peanut skin, longan shells, and red quinoa shells etc. We have been creating high additional values for by-products with our state-of-the-art extraction technologies. For instance, we have developed the coffee product with additional iLiver® Longan Shell Extract which has abundant content of flavonoids that can improve liver detoxification. In 2018, TCI has obtained the Excellent Manufacturer of Circular Economy recognized by the Industrial Development Bureau, MOEA (Taiwan).We exploit red quinoa shells by “four consecutive processes” to fulfill comprehensive circular economy and re-utilization. First, red quinoa after hulling is edible and can be used as a staple food. We cultivate red quinoa by organic farming in TCI Sunrise Park. Second, red quinoa shells can be used to make red quinoa extract which can be added to make the functional drink with pomegranate enzymes and red quinoa extract. This product can facilitate the synthesis of collagen and provide the effects of anti-aging and anti-wrinkles. Third, the dregs of red quinoa can be re-utilized. We add the dregs of red quinoa to make organic noodles with red quinoa. The dregs have been used as the source of dietary fiber added in a staple food that can improve digestion. Fourth, the dregs left after the manufacturing process for noodles can be fermented by microorganisms to make organic compost. The compost will be used as the fertilizer for the farmlands for red quinoa in TCI Sunrise Park. The circular economy has been established. Benefits We re-utilize 800 tons of agricultural by-products every year and have created the product value equals to 200 times of the by-product cost. We spend about NT$27 million purchasing agricultural by-products every year.


Taiwan

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Taiwan Sugar Corporation

Transitioning towards a more circular worldTaiwan Sugar Corporation(TSC) is devoting in taking an initiative to experiment with the new economic model. In response to the issue of circular economy, Taisugar Circular Village(TCV) designed by Bio-architecture Formosana adopts the regenerative concept where the outputs of one system are the inputs of another. This project is the first residential case of this theme in Taiwan.

Circular Architecture-Sells Residential Services and Does Not Sell Houses

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

Agriculture

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within other industries

Open loop upcycling

      TSC has actively introduced the circular economy and is committed to the sustainable recycling of sugar resources. The products and processes have been redesigned through material flow analysis, and the resources from the process have been effectively reused and value-added to avoid excessive waste of limited resources. Hence, circular economy has transformed the sugarcane industry to be more profitable and more "green" than ever.( English provided by company. )Sugarcane is the world's largest C4 Poaceae crop with the highest biomass production. Not only is it an important source of sugar, fuel, chemicals, feed and fertilizer, but it also has a carbon capture and storage efficiency several times higher than that of ordinary economic crops, which has a significant contribution to reducing the greenhouse effect. However, the sugar industry is affected by the low international sugar prices; the domestic sugar production scale is gradually decreasing. TSC, nevertheless, still retains an annual yield of about 500,000 tons of sugar cane and 45,000 tons of self-produced sugar.Friendly Land Treatment and Environmental SustainabilitySugarcane varieties that are resistant to climate change, promote friendly planting, and maintain the ecological environment in which sugarcane fields retain biodiversity are cultivated. Bagasse is used as a green energy fuel for combining heat and power (CHP) and supplying the steam and electricity to sugar factories. Bagasse is also used as a substitute medium for mushroom cultivation and deforestation avoidance. Recycling of wasted mushroom spore bags, sugar filter sludge, and ashes for producing organic compost and soil amendments, are to return resources to farmland and environmental sustainability. Sugar cane contains 70% of water, which can be recycled and reused, reducing the crisis of over-pumping groundwater and effectively slowing the subsidence of the stratum.Green Production Cycle BonusRedesigning products and processes and using the crude sugar syrup and molasses of the sugar factory for the production of the high-value brown sugar and flavor syrup, not only are to retain the special flavor and nutrition of sugar cane, but also to implement "zero waste" and green energy conservation. TSC actively extend corporate social responsibility to meet the needs of downstream clients, reduce waste from the source, and achieve an infinite loop of full sugarcane value-added utilization.Benefits The carbon captures and storages capacity per hectare of sugarcane field is 15.16 tons (three times that of rice); annual production of about 10 million kWh of green energy from bagasse; annual production of 45,000 tons of sugar.15,000 tons of bagasse per year for organic composting materials. 30,000 tons of filter cake is returned to field as fertilizer every year. Reduce the amount of groundwater pumped by 92% per year.


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Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC) has actively introduced the circular economy and is committed to the sustainable recycling of sugar resources. The products and processes have been redesigned through material flow analysis, and the resources from the process have been effectively reused and value-added to avoid excessive waste of limited resources. Hence, circular economy has transformed the sugarcane industry to be more profitable and more "green" than ever.