News

How can packaging become truly circular? Over the past few years, four VLAIO Living Labs explored how reusable packaging works in practice.

Agoria, together with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Belgium, organised a thematic event on green communication. The key message was clear: communicating about sustainability remains essential, provided claims are clear, substantiated, and credible.

Under the "Reducing Single-Use in Hospitals" call for projects, the FPS Public Health has selected six hospital initiatives aimed at reducing single-use products. With a total budget of 633,000 euros, these projects draw on circular economy principles and will be supported until 2028.

The winners of the first edition of the Boost4Circularity call for interest have been selected. Seven Walloon circular industrial projects will receive tailored strategic support to accelerate their development.

How does circularity translate into practice on the ground? The Circular Design in Plastics initiative offers a series of inspiring videos highlighting good circularity practices implemented by Walloon companies.

How can textiles and footwear become genuinely circular? Over a three-year period, six Living Labs worked alongside companies, researchers, the social economy sector and local partners to explore how reuse, repair, recycling and new business models can work in practice.

Developing a circular economy within businesses faces obstacles at regional and national borders due to fragmented regulations and a lack of logical synergies. A new cross-border agreement is set to simplify matters by uniting the strengths of three major European economic powerhouses.

Choosing a circular upholstery fabric or acoustic panel often feels like looking for a needle in a haystack: too many options, too few guidelines. A new European tool now makes the process much easier for buyers, designers and SMEs in the sector.

On 5 March 2026, a new edition of the Greenlab programme came to a close in Brussels, following four months of intensive support for projects focused on sustainable production.

Agoria and Circular Flanders launch free online courses on the circular economy

The InvestCEC project aimed to develop a replicable model for implementing circular economy projects in European cities and regions. This resulted in the creation of five factsheets providing guidance on how to initiate circular economy projects at local level, with a focus on investment opportunities and barriers, solution areas and regulatory needs.

At the end of 2025, Circular Flanders and OVAM announced that 21 projects will receive financial support for up to two years under the Targeted Call Shared Use 2025. The selected projects, with a total budget of 2 million euros, focus on innovative forms of renting and sharing to accelerate the circular transition in Flanders.

VLAIO’s living labs demonstrate that collaboration and experimentation lead to concrete solutions for growing resource challenges. Their recent impact study clearly shows the breakthroughs that can already inspire SMEs to embrace circular entrepreneurship.

Eleven Walloon SMEs receive strategic support to remove legal, technical and normative barriers to circular entrepreneurship. Their experiences reveal where opportunities lie and which obstacles still need to be addressed.

17 strategies to reduce microplastics by 70% by 2050.

ADEME and Circul’R have developed a practical guide to help businesses communicate more clearly about their circular practices. The aim is to help them avoid the pitfalls of greenwashing and greenhushing in a context where environmental issues are increasingly complex.

The Coordination Group of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ECESP) has finalised its work programme sets out the group's priorities for its current mandate and lists the leadership groups that will contribute to their implementation.

This article helps you identify key EU policies that embed circular economy principles and relevant standards and tools to support effective implementation.