A fully circular economy in 2050, that is the Dutch and EU target. There is little debate about the necessity to use less resources, to reuse and to repurpose. Yet, according to a recent report from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), limiting or even decreasing the use of resources and increasing circularity is proving to be hard.

In the session Maturing circular materials, part of our upcoming ERC event DEVELOPING VALUE CHAINS, we will discuss why it is so difficult to go circular. Taking plastic as an example, we will look at how to build a chain of circular materials, looking at production, processing and the key role of demand creation. We will also pay attention to viewing waste as resource, which is surrounded by regulatory challenges.

We look forward to what our experts have to say:

• Carlijn Röell, Program Manager Circular Plastics Netherlands
• Kim Meulenbroeks, Manager Innovation Netherlands Renewi 
• Paul de Hoog, Business Opportunity Manager Shell
• Willem Manders, Innovation Orchestrator TNO Vector

Carlijn Roëll is Strategy Advisor and Program manager System Integration for Circular Plastics NL. After 10+ years as strategy consultant at Kearney, Carlijn spent a year at Unilever on the plastic packaging strategy and entered the field of circular plastics. After this experience she wanted to continue in the field of circular economy and started for herself as a strategy consultant.

Since then, Carlijn worked for several large programs in the field of circular plastics, including Het Schone Noorden, Plastic Pact NL and Circular Plastics NL. As a strategist, she was involved in the creation, strategy development and further implementation. For Circular Plastics NL she works as a strategy advisor and is co-responsible for the program line System Integration.

Kim Meulenbroeks is Manager Innovation and Development at Renewi - A waste to product company. Kim has been working in developing markets such as agricultural biotechnology, biobased economy and the circular economy for over 20 years. The past 10 years she has been involved in multiple projects to produce new product from waste and reduce the amount of waste going to incineration and landfill. Forming strategic alliances with partners in Waste-to-Product value chain. Selecting and specifying waste streams that can serve as feedstock for new processing opportunities, i.e. solvolysis, pyrolysis and gasification. Building Renewi’s Plastic Strategy based on both Mechanical as Chemical recycling.