Italy’s circular economy is building networks and consolidating thanks to the Italian Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ICESP), the network promoted by Enea (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) with the support of institutions, organizations and companies, including Enel, which is playing leading role.
Established less than six months ago as the Italian counterpart of the ECESP (European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform), on 3 December the Platform presented the first results of its activities to the Italian Senate. It was an opportunity to take stock of the current state of affairs concerning the circular economy in Italy and also to launch the website www.icesp.it, a tool intended to serve as a point of reference, exchange and contact for all public administrations, associations, research institutions and companies that are interested in promoting and adopting circular economy practices.
The conference included a presentation of the results of the five ICESP Working Groups (WGs), in which several Italian stakeholders participated.
Luca Meini, Head of Circular Economy at Enel, outlined the activities carried out by the fourth of the five WGs, dedicated to the best Italian practices on sustainable and circular design, production, distribution and consumption systems and coordinated by Enel together with Intesa Sanpaolo and Enea.
Meini explained that the group's activities focused on industrial supply chains at all stages of the value chain: design, production and distribution, and end use. In particular, the analysis revealed four areas of application: electric mobility, plastics (bio-plastics, reuse and recycling both from an industrial point of view and for design objects), disposal-regeneration of industrial assets (the repurposing or conversion of industrial sites that have reached the end of their productive lives); and finally, industrial symbiosis, i.e., the interconnection between different production cycles and integrated management of activities through platforms. As stressed by Meini, “these four areas are of particular interest both because they show how the circular economy can be applied to different sectors, and because they offer a snapshot of the current dynamics of Italy’s economy.”
These include also important business case studies concerning our company, such as the commitment to the creation of a large and widespread network of charging infrastructure for electric mobility, which sees our division Enel X at the forefront and the circular procurement initiatives involving our supply chain worldwide.
Next year, concluded Meini, ICESP working group 4 will endeavour to ensure that the platform is increasingly a place for sharing best practices, for discussions between different stakeholders and dialogue between all the supply chains. For this reason, the aim will be to involve more SMEs and startups in this process.
Attending the conference were: Italian Senator Patty L’Abbate, member of the Environment Commission; the President of Enea Federico Testa; the President of ICESP Roberto Morabito, as well as the Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Environment Salvatore Micillo and the President of the Senate Environment Commission Vilma Moronese.