Objective of the Chair

Analyze the opportunities that the circular economy provides in the industrial field to decarbonize processes along the entire value chain.

Why the circular economy?

The circular economy advocates for efficient use of materials and resources, and its progressive implementation will be essential to achieving decarbonization goals.

Until now, we have applied linear production models, i.e., we extract, produce, consume, and dispose. The society we live in means that the pace of consumption is accelerating. It is a fast model, but one that is not very sustainable for the planet.

The circular economy establishes a more sustainable model of production and consumption, in which raw materials are kept longer in the production cycles and can be used in a recurrent way, thus generating much less waste. As its name suggests, the essence of this model lies in keeping resources in the economy for as long as possible, promoting that the waste we generate can serve as raw material for other industries.

2023 lines of work

• Plastic recycling.
• Waste recovery as secondary materials.

Work team

Division:

Charles Pinto, director of the Bilbao School of Engineering

Working team:

• Estíbaliz Saéz de Cámara, director of Sustainability at UPV-EHU.
• Erlantz Lizundia, professor at UPV-EHU