f you are following our blog, you already know that the transition to a circular economy is changing the traditional economic models, which can be an overwhelming process for companies. As general opinion among companies is that circular economy is mostly tied to waste and waste management, it is our duty to show the companies how they can take out the greatest value from resources whilst in use.

Submitted by Antonia Bozic Cerar, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia

Most EU state administrators are still finalising the implementation of the set of changes to the waste directives published at the end of May in 2018, envisioned to support the transition towards a circular economy, as was anticipated in the 2015 published Circular Economy Action Plan titled “Closing the loop”.

In recent years, we have witnessed a rising number of initiatives promoting a circular economy. Several of them have gathered stakeholders representing the public sector, academia, companies, and NGOs, declaring voluntary commitments to take action towards a circular economy.

In the MOVECO project, we identified three country groups as innovation leaders, moderate innovators and modest innovators. Innovation leaders include Austria, Germany and Slovenia, moderate innovators are Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia, while Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia are modest innovators. (These three innovation groups were established by MOVECO using the European Union’s (eco)-innovation scoreboards and index.) In the present article, we are dealing with innovation group no.2: Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia.