Roundtable
Rethinking Industry: Circularity for a Resilient Europe
1:40 - 2:40PM | 23 October 2025
2:50 - 3:50PM | 23 October 2025
4:30 - 5:30PM | 23 October 2025
Context
Circular Economy: sounds great, but it is not easy!
Today, European Industries are facing growing challenges, from climate change, over raw materials scarcity to shifting geopolitical dynamics and disruptions that underscore the need for more resilient supply chains. These pressures, combined with evolving sustainability regulations and increasing waste management expenses, make circularity both a necessity and a strategic lever for European industry.
The circular economy is a system based on keeping materials at the highest value, eliminating waste by design and regenerating natural systems. Optimizing value over the product life-time and extending the customer relationship also creates opportunities for new business models. At the same time circular models can reduce exposure to volatile raw material prices, strengthen supply chains, cut production costs and unlock new markets, while advancing environmental goals. When adopted strategically, circularity fosters innovation, long-term resilience, and new revenue streams, enhancing overall competitiveness of the EU as an economic entity, key sectors and individual companies.
However, the transition from linear to circular business models requires a paradigm shift causing several challenges, like:
A need for product traceability and supporting data systems
Efficient product and material return systems and infrastructure in which often fragmented value chains need to be aligned
Overcoming current product design limitations and adding service over the entire product lifetime
Implementation of new business models with postponed financial returns
Creating customer acceptance and favourable market conditions
Opposing or disabling regulatory frameworks
To make it work, new business and operational models, data systems, and closer collaboration across functions, sectors and partners are needed. Policymakers also play a crucial role by fostering supportive regulations, incentives, and infrastructure. Companies need to be able to make business cases, review existing ways of working and engage in collaborations that did not exist before. The challenges are significant, but so is the opportunity to build a more competitive, resilient, innovative, and sustainable European economy.
SPEAKERS
Pieter van Os, Programme Manager International, CIRCO (Netherlands)
Who should attend
CSR/Sustainability Managers
Circular economy specialists, startups, or digital solution providers
Public Affairs / EU Policy Managers working on industrial policy & Green Deal compliance
Policymakers and public-sector actors working on circularity, industrial transition, innovation
ABOUT THE ROUNDTABLE
This roundtable will bring together circular economy experts, industry practitioners and other stakeholders to share real-world experiences and insights on advancing circularity in business, the key gaps and challenges in moving towards a more circular business model and how to overcome them. Through open exchange and peer learning, the discussion will focus on three key areas:
1. Strategy and Internal Capabilities
How can companies move beyond linear product delivery toward circular (business) models? What innovations in business models, product and service design and digitation will drive this shift and what organizational changes, capabilities, and processes are needed to integrate circularity into business strategy?
2. Supplier Engagement and Cooperation
How can companies leverage supplier engagement and peer cooperation to improve traceability, enable circular product design, and set up effective collective return and circularity systems?
3. Market Demand, Regulation, and Customer Engagement
What regulatory and market conditions are needed to shift market incentives and structures to a circular economy model? What role do customer relationships play in boosting the demand for circular products and services that are desirable, accessible, and profitable?
The session will be moderated by Pieter van Os, a circular economy expert leading CIRCO’s international activities, a Dutch program supporting industries in 20 countries to integrate circularity into business strategy and product development.
KEY LEARNING POINTS
Identify the key drivers for the adoption of circular business models (e.g., data transparency, supplier engagement, capability building)
Examine the internal enablers required to scale circularity, from organizational alignment and governance to integrating circular design and lifecycle tracking across operations
Best practices, tools, and collaborative models for successful circular transitions across sectors.
How collaborative platforms, collective return systems and supplier engagement strategies can support the circular models.
About the Host
Pieter van Os, Programme Manager International, CIRCO (Netherlands)
Pieter van Os leads the international activities of CIRCO “creating business through circular design”. A Dutch design programme with activities and learnings in 20 countries worldwide that empowers manufacturing industries to embed circular design into business strategy and product development. Through trainings based on design knowledge and tools, CIRCO has facilitated thousands of companies in sectors such as capital goods, consumer products, construction, and packaging to move from awareness to action and innovation.
At the European Sustainable Industry Summit, Pieter will facilitate the circularity roundtables, sharing lessons learned from industrial practice, design-based innovation, and the cross-sectoral collaborations needed to accelerate Europe’s circular transition. His expertise lies in bridging design, policy, and business transformation—ensuring that circularity becomes a strategic tool for competitiveness, resilience, and sustainable growth.
Contact
Lead Facilitator: Pieter van Os, Expert in Circular Design & Transition, Circo.nl
Efthymios Themis Alepakos | Project Manager, CSR Europe | ea@csreurope.org