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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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This collection is being created to regroup all case studies related to the packaging industry (CAT purpose)

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Packaging collection

Business case

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 basic and specialty chemicals, inks, agricultural chemical such as fertilisers and pesticides, plastics including packaging, and rubber

Chemical and Plastic

Processing and producing food and beverages for consumption

Food and Beverage

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

Designing products so they produce as little waste as possible during production

Design for minimal waste

Designing products that can easily breakdown and degrade in the environment

Design for bio-degradability

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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The blue biotech company CuanTec has produced a solution to address both food waste and plastic pollution using sustainable sources. 
CuanTec takes waste from the fisheries industry and upcycles it into compostable food packaging made of chitin and chitosan. CuanTec sustainably extracts chitin - a naturally occurring biopolymer - from fish processing waste. CuanTec's chitin has a high molecular weight and a high and constant purity. While the company still uses some chemicals in their processes, their volumes are significantly smaller than in traditional methods thanks to the innovative biological steps in the process.

Chitin is then deacetylated to obtain chitosan. CuanTec's odourless chitosan is of high quality, and is also made with a sustainable process. Chitosan is mixed with other biopolymers and natural substances to create a flexible and compostable bioplastic film. This film can be used as food packaging to reduce the plastic pollution ending up in landfills and in nature. Furthermore, the anti-microbial characteristic of the film will extend the shelf-life of fresh food.

 Every year, 8.8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the sea; a third of it has been used only once. Almost a third of food created in Western nations is wasted. 10 % of that loss occurs between farm and supermarket shelf. 
CuanTec processes waste from the fisheries industry biologically and upcycles it with strategic partners into compostable food packaging. The use of CuanTec's products leads to less plastic pollution, less landfill, less food waste and less economic loss.


CuanTec: Applying Chitin to the world's problems WHAT  WE  DO Chitosan has antimicrobial properties. By using this as a key ingredient in our packaging, we can extend the shelf life of fresh seafood, allowing your fresh food to last longer. Chitosan has antimicrobial properties. By using this as a key ingredient in our packaging, we can extend the shelf life of fresh seafood, allowing your fresh food to last longer. We have carefully designed our methods to be a zero waste, circular process. We use waste from another industry as our raw material and ensure any by-products are repurposed.ABOUT  USWe are a biotechnology company based in Oban, on the west coast of Scotland. ​ We’ve developed a gentle, biological method to extract the natural product chitin from different sources of waste from the food industry. ​ Chitin and its derivative, chitosan, have fantastic properties.  We aim to have a zero-waste, circular business and that starts by using waste shells from the seafood industry to create a compostable, antimicrobial material that can replace single use plastic packaging and extend the shelf life of fresh food.

Scotland

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Founded in 2017, CuanTec is a ground-breaking biotech ready to help make incremental changes that positively impact the world we live in. CuanTec's scientists have developed a world-first, propriety technology to biologically separate chitin, proteins, minerals, and lipids from shellfish waste, mushrooms, and the exoskeletons of insects. CuanTec’s proprietary, ultra-pure, full-chain length and high molecular weight chitin is unique in the World, enabling product applications not fully possible before using commercially available chitin including a wide range of applications in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries.

CuanTec

<p>CuanTec is a ground-breaking Scottish company that has developed a prototype of bioplastic from chitin, for use as food packaging. Chitin is the second most abundant naturally occurring biopolymer after cellulose and can be extracted from seafood waste, such as langoustine and crab shells from the food processing industry. Its bioplastic not only returns to the earth after use, but can also extend the shelf-life of food wrapped within it.</p>