Circular Economy Research Center (CERC), Paris, France.

Circular Economy Research Center

The team of the Circular Economy Research Center would like to welcome you to our website. We invite you to navigate through our work, connect with us and provide us with  your feedback as well as ideas that can help us become even better in researching the fascinating domain of Circular Economy. As a team we try through credible research and data driven outputs to produce knowledge that can add value to the initiated transition towards a circular and sustainable future. A fundamental goal for the Circular Economy Research Center is to be able to translate the scientific research into knowledge and education that can be infused through structured educational or vocational curriculums. This time we cannot afford to do it wrong, and in this respect the effort must be inclusive with all the productive members of the society and the economy engaged. It must also be a people-centric endeavor, that is why as an educational establishment and a research center we will strive to contribute to the generation of a broad spectrum of skillsets that can enable citizens and professionals to be better equipped for the planet saving transitional journey ahead of us. You can read here, simply put, some thoughts and reflections on the importance of Circular Economy.

CERC acknowledged as good practice

CERC has been acknowledged by the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform as one of the good practices in the domain of Circular Economy. The acknowledgment has been made public on the website of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ECESP) enabling us to be part of a very unique network hub of active stakeholders in the field. We are very proud and motivated to be supporting and working with the ECESP being a joint initiative of the European Commission and the European Economic and Social Committee in making the circular economy a reality.

CERC supports the European Green Deal

Circular Economy Research Center is a firm supporter of the endeavor of the European Union for A European Green Deal as announced by the European Commission. Our work will have a special focus on the domain of research, education, and skills generation and we will work hand in hand with our strong network of educational, industrial, and institutional collaborators to also support the implementation of the new Circular Economy Action Plan.

CERC and Circular Plastics Alliance

The Circular Economy Research Center (CERC) is one of the 231 signatory parties to the Declaration of the Circular Plastics Alliance. The signatories take action to boost the EU market for recycled plastics up to 10 million tonnes by 2025. The Circular Plastics Alliance is an initiative under the European Strategy for Plastics (2018), in particular under Annex III related to voluntary pledges by industry. The European Commission launched the Circular Plastics Alliance in December 2018 to help plastics value chains boost the EU market for recycled plastics to 10 million tonnes by 2025.

CERC part of Shared Green Deal project

We are proud to partner in the new SHARED GREEN DEAL project in which we are contributing from the diverse angles for the creation of a scientifically evidence-based Circular Economy framework, which will support the overall EU effort. This project will work directly with families in fuel poverty, as well as with schools, housing associations and businesses. Skill-sharing workshops, toolkits for other local networks, and accessible training videos will be developed which focus on sharing energy-saving know-how between generations.

CERC Pledge under the European Climate Pact

CERC is taking a decisive step for the climate by supporting the shift to a circular economy and implementing the European Green Deal through education, training, and research. CERC aims to inform, inspire, and support climate action, environmental protection, and the upcoming transformation. CERC also aims to lead by example and become a bridge between civil society, interested stakeholders, and the European Commission by offering research-based knowledge to enhance the collective efforts to upskilling and reskilling the workforce in Europe.

Circular Economy and the future of business

We want to enable everyone to sharpen their knowledge on the transformation and to be enabled to understand it, embrace it, and prepare for it. Circular economy is an alternative to the traditional linear economic model of “produce-consume-waste”. Circular Economy is a “make-use-enrich” model that allows the economic ecosystem to do ‘more with less’ and transition to sustainable growth that fosters innovative practice and thinking. Students, researchers, experts, and executives will benefit and rapidly expand from this growing body of cutting-edge knowledge.

CERC

EU Funded Research at CERC

At the Circular Economy Research Center, we strive for excellence and have already taken action in supporting this transformation process through education, training, and research. The Circular EconomyResearch Center (CERC) is participating in numerous EU-funded research projects under Horizon 2020 which embed multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral applications of the circular economy principles. Moreover, in serving the Circular Economy Research Agenda and in contributing to a science-based, data-driven Circular Economy transition the Director of CERC serves as a review editor for the Frontiers journal which is one of the most reputable journals globally. A dedicated journal created by Frontiers in Sustainability with a focus on Circular Economy provides an outlet for research covering all aspects of Circular Economy; from individual business or industrial zones to national, international, or global policies that will make feasible the effective application of circular economy principles for achieving sustainable growth. Read more about our projects below:

CE-IoT is a EU H2020 project funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie RISE action. The overall aim of  CE-IoT is to develop an innovative framework of interplay between Circular Economy and IoT. CE-IoT has a budget of 1,692,000€ and a duration of four years, from July 2018 to June 2022. Our vision blends the paradigm of Circular Economy and Internet of Things to explore novel ways in which this interaction can drastically change the nature of products, services, business models and ecosystems.

CEIOT

IDEAL-CITIES is an EU H2020 project funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie RISE action, with a budget of 1,611,000€ and a duration of four years, from July 2018 to June 2022. The aim of  IDEAL-CITIES is to provide a novel, open and extensible platform to enable secure, resilient acquisition and sharing of information with the goal to improve the well-being and inclusivity of citizens, produce a more effective response to crime or other emergencies, and make Smart Cities feel more secure and safe to the citizens living in them.

IDEALCITIES

SmartShip aims to offer a multi-layer optimization in the fields of fuel consumption, energy efficiency, and emissions control management, in full respect to the implementation of the requirements of maritime sector regulations and taking into account applications of circular economy concepts in the maritime as well. SmartShip will capitalise on available COTS technologies and will deliver an ICT & IoT-enabled holistic cloud-based maritime performance & monitoring system, for the entire lifecycle of a ship, aimed to optimise energy efficiency, emissions reduction, and fuel consumption.

SMARTSHIP

BIO-PHOENIX is a EU H2020 project funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie RISE action and a duration of four years, from July 2019 to June 2023. BIO-PHOENIX aims to develop a fundamentally novel computational model for reconstructing complex software systems, following some massive internal failure or external infrastructure damage. BIO-PHOENIX aims to develop a bio-inspired paradigm for reconstructing nearly extinct complex software systems based on a novel computational DNA (co-DNA) oriented systems modeling approach. The BIO-PHOENIX approach will bring a breakthrough in the current software system design and engineering paradigm.

BIOPHOENIX

I-BiDaaS aims to empower users to easily utilize and interact with big data technologies, by designing, building, and demonstrating, a unified solution that: significantly increases the speed of data analysis while coping with the rate of data asset growth, and facilitates cross-domain data-flow towards a thriving data-driven EU economy. As a first step, it has guaranteed access to real-world industry big data. I-BiDaaS will proceed with breaking inter and intra-sectorial data-silos, and support data sharing, exchange, and interoperability. Having done so, it will support methodical big data experimentation by putting in place a safe data processing environment.

BIDAAS

SHARED GREEN DEAL brings together 22 leading organisations across Europe. The partners cover core elements of the European Green Deal cross-cutting priorities such as civil society, democracy, gender, energy, environment, circular economy, and innovation. SHARED GREEN DEAL directly addresses European challenges to share actions, understandings, evidence, insights, responsibilities, and benefits across stakeholders including policymakers and civil society. Issues of inclusivity and diversity are at the project’s heart to account for disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups.

SHAREDGREENDEAL

Circular Economy Certifications

Circular Economy Alliance’s certificate in Circular Economy is a unique research-driven effort jointly led by the Circular Economy Research Center (CERC) of the École des Ponts Business School and the Circular Economy Alliance (CEA). This certification emerged as a response to the Pact for Skills and the Circular Economy Action Plan launched by the European Commission. It is a catalytic enabler for upskilling and reskilling the global workforce servicing the transformative purpose-driven agenda of the Circular Economy. The goal of CEA and CERC is to unite practices, principles, skills, and strategies under a single, constantly evolving, research-driven certification. CEA certification provides professionals, students, and organizations with comprehensive, reliable, actionable skills and knowledge to become Circular Economy agents of change. 

Certified Circular Economy Professional

  • Content: 4 chapters
  • Provider: CEA & CERC
  • Language: English
  • Total dedicated effort required: 10 hours
ENROLL

Certified Circular Economy Expert

  • Content: 8 chapters
  • Provider: CEA & CERC
  • Language: English
  • Total dedicated effort required: 20 hours
ENROLL

Certified Circular Economy Specialist

  • Content: 12 chapters
  • Provider: CEA & CERC
  • Language: English
  • Total dedicated effort required: 28 hours
ENROLL

CEA certification bundles offer targeted, short, and flexible training to upskill and reskill for a greener future. Each chapter is structured in short sections that focus on a key aspect of the Circular Economy, including illustrative case studies and examples. After each section, brief challenges help you ensure that you have assimilated the content and learnings. The chapters include dynamic multimedia content designed to make the learning feel enjoyable and effortless. The online and on-demand learning model makes it easy for even full-time professionals to complete and validate the material. Access the courses and materials from your desktop or smartphone whenever and wherever it suits you and at your own pace.

Why get certified?

CE certification helps organizations

  • Acquire the skill, insight, and expertise to incorporate circular economy principles to their advantage.
  • Translate emerging research and practice into real societal and environmental change.
  • Create new business models and data-driven applications advantageous to people, the planet, and profit.
  • Get access to a global network of CE experts, research institutions, and partnerships.
  • Identify, evaluate and hire more skilled talent to lead their green transformation.
  • Collaborate with environmental organizations to take action and drive systemic change.
  • Accelerate the successful adoption of circular and sustainable business practices.
  • Become market leaders in sustainable business practices. 

Getting certified helps individuals

  • Prove their expertise in the Circular Economy domain for employers undergoing or planning a sustainable transformation for their organizations. 
  • Increase their career opportunities by aligning their skills and qualifications with the increasing job trend in the domain of Circular Economy. 
  • Acquire and promote a common language and understanding of Circular Economy.
  • Learn to manage and adapt successfully to the rapidly changing landscape.
  • Expand their profile with the knowledge and skills organizations need to reach their corporate sustainability goals. 
  • Enhance the credibility of their environmental knowledge and of CE in general.
  • Join a growing global community of change leaders.

The certification demonstrates that you

icon 1

Possess an advanced understanding of Circular Economy concepts and practices related to business,

governance, industry, and policy.

icon 2

Are uniquely qualified to promote new business models, propose innovative circular solutions, and

help lead the transformation process.

icon 3

Can apply tools and techniques to identify and implement circular solutions to a wide range of

corporate processes and industries.

icon 4

Are familiar with and aware of CE best practices that can be leveraged to achieve societal, economic,

and environmental advantages and advance circularity and sustainability profitably.

icon 5

Can elaborate circular strategies applicable to your own industry and/or organization. 

A few words from the Director of CERC

The team of the Circular Economy Research Center would like to welcome you to our website. We invite you to navigate through our work, connect with us and provide us with  your feedback as well as ideas that can help us become even better in researching the fascinating domain of Circular Economy. As a team we try through credible research and data driven outputs to produce knowledge that can add value to the initiated transition towards a circular and sustainable future. A fundamental goal for the Circular Economy Research Center is to be able to translate the scientific research into knowledge and education that can be infused through structured educational or vocational curriculums. This time we cannot afford to do it wrong, and in this respect the effort must be inclusive with all the productive members of the society and the economy engaged. It must also be a people-centric endeavor, that is why as an educational establishment and a research center we will strive to contribute to the generation of a broad spectrum of skillsets that can enable citizens and professionals to be better equipped for the planet saving transitional journey ahead of us. You can read here, simply put, some thoughts and reflections on the importance of Circular Economy.

Meet the CERC team

Giorgos Demetriou

Director of CERC

George Alexandris

Research Fellow

Joyce Halloun

Project Coordinator

Ushma Upadhyaya

Communication Officer

Walter R. Stahel

Senior Research Fellow

Alessio Franconi

Research Fellow

Sofia Hamika

Project Coordinator

Ghassane Bouhia

Research Fellow

Daniel Chicksand

Senior Research Fellow

Sofia Alexaki

Research Fellow

Panagiota Savva

Project Coordinator

Stephanie Pilavaki

Stakeholder Engagement Officer

Jonathan T. Scott

Senior Research Fellow

Vlatka Katusic

Research Fellow

Georgia Solomou

Project Coordinator

Hernan Ruiz

Research Fellow

Matthew Greenley

Research Fellow

Saman Sarbazvatan

Senior Advisor of Technology and Business Modelling - Senior Research Fellow

Anastasia Vayona

Research Fellow

Ilma Jabeen

Research Fellow

Chrysostomos Adamides

Research Fellow

Meet our research partners
iclei
alda
aalborguni
slowfoodyouthnetwork
metropolitanresearchinstitute
cea
mio
acento
greeneconomycoalision
barcelonasupercomputingcenter
bankwatch
tuwien
nuigalway
zrcsazu
fraunhofer
ieep
lisboa
energycities
drift
bluesoft
karnten
manchesteruni
tub
telefonica
software
nodalpoint
uniofcambridge
itml
ibm
atos
novijsad
forth
epsilon
deloitte
danaos
fiat
caixabank
cablenet
BU

CERC publications

The Industrial Internet of Things as an enabler for a Circular Economy Hy-LP: A novel IIoT protocol, evaluated on a wind park’s SDN/NFV-enabled 5G industrial network.

Smart interconnected devices, including Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), permeate our lives and are now an integral part of our daily activities, paving the way towards the Internet of Things (IoT). In the industrial domain, these devices interact with their surroundings and system operators, while often also integrating industrial cloud applications. This 4th Industrial Revolution guides new initiatives, like the introduction of 5th Generation Mobile Networks (5G), to implement flexible, efficient, QoS- and energy- aware solutions that are capable of serving numerous heterogeneous devices, bringing closer the vision of a sustainable, Circular Economy. However, the lack of interoperable solutions that will accommodate the integration, use and management of the plethora of devices and the associated services, hinders the establishment of smart industrial environments across the various vertical domains. Motivated by the above, this paper proposes the Hy-LP – a novel hybrid protocol and development framework for Industrial IoT (IIoT) systems. Hy-LP enables the seamless communication of IIoT sensors and actuators, within and across domains, also facilitating the integration of the Industrial Cloud. The proposed solution is compared with existing standardised solutions on a common application, working around the protocols’ intrinsic characteristics and features to produce each variant. The developed systems are evaluated on a common testbed, demonstrating that the proposed solution is around 10 times faster for the same CPU usage level, while consuming 7 times less memory. Moreover, the applicability of the proposed solutions is validated in the context of a real industrial setting, analyzing the network characteristics and performance requirements of an actual, operating wind park, as a representative use case of industrial networks.

More about the paper at sciencedirect

Review of Security and Privacy for the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)

Day-by-day modern circular economy (CE) models gain ground and penetrate the traditional business sectors. The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is the main enabler for this interplay of CE with healthcare. Novel services, like remote sensing, assisting of elder people, and e-visit, enhance the people’s health and convenience, while reducing the per-patient cost for the medical institutions. However, the rise of mobile, wearable, and telemedicine solutions means that security can no longer be examined within the neat, physical walls as it was considered before. The problem for a healthcare system further increases as the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) reality, affects the way that the health services are accommodated nowadays. Both patients and healthcare staff utilize their personal devices (e.g. smart phones or tablets) in order to access, deliver, and process medical data. As the IoMT is materialized and the underlying devices maintain so valuable data, they become a popular target for ransomware and other attacks. In the CE case, the problem is further emerging as several of these assets can be used over-and-over by many actuators. However, medical users and vendors are less aware of the underlying vulnerabilities and spend less on the IoMT security. Nevertheless, the risk from exploiting vulnerabilities can be drastically reduced when the known and relevant controls are placed. This paper presents an overview of the core security and privacy controls that must be deployed in modern IoMT settings in order to safeguard the involved users and stakeholders. The overall approach can be considered as a best-practices guide towards the safe implementation of IoMT systems, featuring CE.

More about the paper at IEEE

Towards Specification of a Software Architecture for Cross-Sectoral Big Data Applications

The proliferation of Big Data applications puts pressure on improving and optimizing the handling of diverse datasets across different domains. Among several challenges, major difficulties arise in data-sensitive domains like banking, telecommunications, etc., where strict regulations make very difficult to upload and experiment with real data on external cloud resources. In addition, most Big Data research and development efforts aim to address the needs of IT experts, while Big Data analytics tools remain unavailable to non-expert users to a large extent. In this paper, we report on the work-in-progress carried out in the context of the H2020 project I-BiDaaS (Industrial-Driven Big Data as a Self-service Solution) which aims to address the above challenges. The project will design and develop a novel architecture stack that can be easily configured and adjusted to address cross-sectoral needs, helping to resolve data privacy barriers in sensitive domains, and at the same time being usable by non-experts. This paper discusses and motivates the need for Big Data as a self-service, reviews the relevant literature, and identifies gaps with respect to the challenges described above. We then present the I-BiDaaS paradigm for Big Data as a self-service, position it in the context of existing references, and report on initial work towards the conceptual specification of the I-BiDaaS software architecture.

More about the paper at IEEE

The CE-IoT framework for green ICT organizations

The growth of the global middle class provokes significant increment in product consumption. As the available resources are limited, Circular Economy (CE) raises as a promising initiative towards the sustainable development. Except from the traditional approaches of reusing or recycling products, the current trend utilizes modern computer technologies and involves a data-driven aspect. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the main enabler for the integration of CE with technology. This paper proposes a framework for implementing the cooperative vision of CE and IoT. Via this solution, a pilot system is developed in a medium size telecommunication company for administrating the lifecycle of the deployed electronic equipment and the management of the related supply chains. Mechanisms and devices are maintained/repaired/fabricated in a regular basis, green computing techniques are efficiently applied, and the productive period is prolonged. When the business upgrades the system, the retired counterparts can be sold in start-ups or gifted in third-world countries. The overall approach extends the working period of the well-maintained electronic assets not only for the examined business but for the collaborating organizations as well. Recycling companies can then trace this supply chain and the assets’ status in order to define their investment strategy at the end-consumer, contributing in the reduction of the electronic waste problem in the third-world.

More about the paper at IEEE

Blockchain-enabled Intelligent Asset Exchange for a Circular Economy

As the notion of circular economy gains momentum, intelligent assets increasingly form the backbone of sustainable ecosystems. Although these assets can supply the necessary knowledge for fueling the value drivers of a circular economy, the generated value will be significantly amplified by allowing third parties to manage them and profit from better asset utilisation. However, for an everchanging networked environment consisting of numerous assets, ownership needs to be dynamic, granular and adaptable in order to maximise gains. Blockchain-based mechanisms can effectively serve this need by enabling transfer of asset ownership directly between parties participating in the circular economy while introducing trust, efficiency and automation in asset exchange contracts.
The term “circular economy” refers to an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design, aiming to keep resources at their highest utility and value at all times. Its value drivers include extending the useful life of finite resources, maximising the utilisation of assets and creating new use cycles for end-of-life assets. Simultaneously, assets leverage advances in IoT, thus creating an emerging class of “intelligent assets”[1] governed by three underlying attributes enabling circularity: location, condition and availability. These properties sufficiently describe the state of the asset for operating under a certain role in the ecosystem, but at the same time raise two fundamental questions:• How do these properties affect the value generated by the asset?• Who defines the role (s) of the asset?

More about the paper at ERCIM

A Trustworthy and Sustainable Framework for Circular Smart Cities

Reflecting upon the sustainability challenges cities will be facing in the near future and the recent technological developments allowing cities to become” smart”, we introduce IDEAL-CITIES; a framework aiming to provide an architecture for cyber-physical systems to deliver a data-driven Circular Economy model in a city context. In the IDEAL-CITIES ecosystem, the city’s finite resources as well as citizens will form the pool of intelligent assets in order to contribute to high utilization through crowdsourcing and real-time decision making and planning. We describe two use cases as a vehicle to demonstrate how a smart city can serve the Circular Economy paradigm.

More about the paper at IEEE

MobileTrust: Secure Knowledge Integration in VANETs

Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANET) are becoming popular due to the emergence of the Internet of Things and ambient intelligence applications. In such networks, secure resource sharing functionality is accomplished by incorporating trust schemes. Current solutions adopt peer-to-peer technologies that can cover the large operational area. However, these systems fail to capture some inherent properties of VANETs, such as fast and ephemeral interaction, making robust trust evaluation of crowdsourcing challenging. In this article, we propose MobileTrust—a hybrid trust-based system for secure resource sharing in VANETs. The proposal is a breakthrough in centralized trust computing that utilizes cloud and upcoming 5G technologies to provide robust trust establishment with global scalability. The ad hoc communication is energy-efficient and protects the system against threats that are not countered by the current settings. To evaluate its performance and effectiveness, MobileTrust is modelled in the SUMO simulator and tested on the traffic features of the small-size German city of Eichstatt. Similar schemes are implemented in the same platform to provide a fair comparison. Moreover, MobileTrust is deployed on a typical embedded system platform and applied on a real smart car installation for monitoring traffic and road-state parameters of an urban application. The proposed system is developed under the EU-founded THREAT-ARREST project, to provide security, privacy, and trust in an intelligent and energy-aware transportation scenario, bringing closer the vision of sustainable circular economy.

More about the paper at ACM

Towards An Operating Model For Attribution In Circular Economy

In this paper we explore the social dimension of sustainability in Circular Economy. Considering that the three known pillars of sustainability (social, environmental and economic) may have competing agendas and priorities, we argue that Circular Economy has a potential to act as a mitigation mechanism and offer a common ground so that these orthogonal pillars will be able to coexist in a corporate setting. We conject that attribution is a key concept in understanding the antecedents and factors affecting the adoption of Circular Economy strategies and policies within an organization. Following a review of the current state of research in attribution theory, we develop an operating model proposition in the context of Circular Economy.

More about the paper at IEEE

Nicolas Lapalu (France)CEO - Osborn-Unipol France

Jadwiga Gajda (Poland)IT Service Manager – Metanext

Shaleish DixitHead of Consulting & Sales Solutions - Wipro

READY TO MOVE FORWARD?

Take the Leadership & Career Quiz
""