Within the framework of TREASoURcE project, FinEst Centre’s team together with other project partners conducted a series of circular economy workshops during late spring 2023 in the replication target areas of the project: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. The topics of these workshops focused on three main key value chains (KVCs) of the project: biowaste and side streams, plastics, and Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries.  

TREASoURcE team analysed the input gathered from workshops utilising PESTLE framework (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors that might have an impact on any organisation, company, or industry). This analytical framework enabled us to categorize the input we received during workshops and examine in which fields the change is expected to occur.  

Political and economic factors

When it comes to political and economic factors, participants mentioned the importance of deposit systems for the reuse of plastic packaging (EE; LT), the need for regulation in the battery industry (EE, LT, PL) and simplifying regulations relating to biowaste.

Financial incentives (both subsidies and taxes) were found to be common discussion points for all three KVCs: incentives to use recycled plastics (EE; PL) taxes on non-recycled and single-use plastics (LT), subsidies to balance competition with new batteries (EE), rewards (EE) and taxing (LT) of households to separate biowaste.

Furthermore, establishing regulations and policies to support circular practices in general on the national and municipal level (LT, PL) and promoting green procurement (LV) was mentioned. 

Legal factors

The legal factors affecting circular economy are closely related to political ones. Some aspects worth outlining concern all KVCs and the need for legislative acts to support the circular economy needs (LV) as well as to be more flexible for innovative circularity (LV, PL). The workshop in Poland emphasized the need for flexibility in laws considering bio-based side and waste streams circular innovation (PL).

Specific environmental factors were not discussed much during conducted workshops apart from the workshop in Lithuania outlining the prospects of lithium to be cheaper to recycle than to mine as a raw material.  

Summarizing analysed input from the workshops, we can outline four main topics that were relevant to all target areas: 

• Awareness raising & better communication 
• Financial incentives & motivation  
• Regulation and policies to support circular practices
• Technological development and advancements

These themes will be considered when analysing replication needs and opportunities of TREASoURcE circular economy solutions in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Northern Germany.

The summary of the workshops is part of the TREASoURcE Deliverable 6.1. The full report is accessible HERE.

TREASoURcE is a four-year project (2022-2026) receiving funding from the European Union under the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. TREASoURcE aims to initiate systemic change by developing systemic circular economy solutions in cities and regions for currently underutilised or unused plastic waste, end-of-life electric vehicle batteries and bio-based waste and side streams. Implementing these solutions together with companies, societies (including citizens, consumers, communities, and regional actors) and experts in the field is expected to significantly increase product and material circulation in the Nordic and Baltic Sea Regions.