We have been key advisors for FORENV, the EU’s annual foresight process for the Directorate-General for Environment (DG-ENV) since 2018 and recently led the design and facilitation of two workshops to discuss signals of long-term change that may represent risks or opportunities to Europe’s environment.
As part of FORENV, each year a policy-relevant topic is chosen to be explored. For the 2024-25 cycle, our experts Rolands Sadauaskis and Owen White ran sessions in Copenhagen at the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra near Milan focused on emerging issues relevant to the circular economy in Europe.
Two more sessions in Brussels were led by our partners on the project, Cranfield University and Milieu Ltd. Approximately 60 experts were involved across the four workshops, largely from the European Commission (EC), JRC, and EEA, with some external experts from businesses, research institutions, and NGOs.
Across these four workshops, around 200 weak signals of change were discussed, clustered through a participatory exercise, and prioritised by the participants to identify potential emerging issues.
This work will provide insights into potential emerging risks and opportunities related to the circular economy and ultimately will identify key uncertainties and questions for EU environmental policymakers to consider. The focus on circular economy is particularly timely as it will form part of the evidence base in which the European Commission will prepare the Circular Economy Act, expected to be published in 2026.
Owen said: “A huge range of potential future directions and developments in the circular economy were discussed in the workshops, from technological, to consumer and social changes, to wider geopolitical and environmental influences. Many of the barriers to achieving a circular economy are systematic, not technical, and the takeaways from these discussions are critical to make the case for new business models like reuse systems, refill stations, rental, and sharing platforms.”
