Circular Economy Hotspot Dublin 2023
In May 2023 the Circular Economy Hotspot came to Dublin under the leadership of the Rediscovery Centre and with the support of CIRCULÉIRE, Department for the Environment, Climate, and Communications, Dublin City Council, and the Eastern & Midlands, Regional Waste Planning Office.
This week-long event, which ran from Monday 29th of May until Thursday 1st of June highlighted the ground-breaking circular economy initiatives, best practices, and innovation on display in Ireland to an international audience.
CIRCULÉIRE were delighted to support the organisation of this hotspot and to participate in events and activities throughout the week.
On Monday the 29th of May CIRCULÉIRE/IMR hosted a delegation of representatives from the Catalonia Government in our IMR offices in Rathcoole prior to the Dublin Circular Economy Hotspot opening ceremony in the Mansion House, Dublin.
At the Mansion House delegates heard from key speakers, including The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Caroline Conroy, Minister of State with Responsibility for the Circular Economy, Ossian Smith TD, and Owen Keegan, Chief Executive of Dublin City Council and celebrated the announcement of Slovenia as the future Circular Economy Hotspot 2025 host.
On Tuesday the 30th of May an exhibition and conference was hosted in Croke Park, at this event the CIRCULÉIRE team showcased it’s services to hotspot delegates and facilitated the exhibition of four of our CIRCULÉIRE Innovation Fund Awardee Projects C-SUP by Novelplast, CESI by WEEE Ireland, MEDAL CRM by Offerre, and Circular By Design by DCCI and NCAD.
Head of Circular Economy and CIRCULÉIRE project lead Dr Geraldine Brennan also presented CIRCULÉIRE’s impacts over 2020-2022 and participated in an international panel exploring how to scale-up Innovation & Collaboration for circularity alongside Prof. Andre Martinuzzi, Director of the Institute for Managing Sustainability, Associate professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business, Anna Brussa, EIT CKIC’s Industrial Value Chain Lead, and Joël Mestres Lobez, Financial Engineering Manager, CINEA.
To conclude the second day of the Dublin Circular Economy Hotspot CIRCULÉIRE in association with the Dublin Chamber of Commerce hosted a ‘Circular Matchmaking’ Industry Networking event.
The third day of the Hotspot was dedicated to Deep Dive Workshops, the CIRCULÉIRE team co-designed and delivered a Design and Manufacturing workshop in collaboration with Mike Townsend of Earthshine Group. This workshop was attended by over 80 international attendees from industry, policy and academia and included company case studies from businesses who are embodying circular design in their organisational plans, including CIRCULÉIRE member Kevin Cronin of Freefoam Building Products, Marion Briggs of Health Beacon, Richard Brennan of Revolve Fleet, Jean René Skjelbred of Norsk Ombruk AS, and Peter Corcoran of MBio. Expert contributions were also offered by Gwen Cunningham, NCAD + Circle Economy (Textiles); Donal Healion, NCAD (Med Tech); and Frank O’Connor, Anois (Systems Design).
On Thursday 1st of June, the final day of the Dublin Circular Economy Hotspot, CIRCULÉIRE supported one of our founding members Farrell Furniture and their CIRCULÉIRE Innovation Fund winning ‘Do More with Less’ project partners the Office of Public Works Furniture Division (OPW), and Atlantic Technological University (ATU). This was a truly unique opportunity to get insight behind the scenes of the incredible product life extension endeavours undertaken by the OPW in collaboration with Farrell Furniture & ATU through the Do More with Less project.
This was a fantastic week-long international showcase and knowledge sharing event for the circular economy industry in Ireland and we were incredibly proud to be a part of it.
