Announcing winning solutions from The Circular Events Challenge!
Scottish Events Campus — Scotland’s largest exhibition centre — will support the incubation phase over the coming months and pilot projects will be showcased at the Circular Economy Hotspot Scotland 2018 event in October!
What a rollercoaster it’s been!
The Circular Events Challenge has kept the Circle Lab and Circular Glasgow teams on our toes over the last couple of months!
This first challenge was not only a test to see just how agile both our teams had to be– from adapting our marketing strategy to meet quick turnaround times to incorporating learnings on-the-go — it’s also been an encouraging experience in open collaboration and trust.
The ideation phase has introduced us to fascinating new organisations, innovators, and individuals that are leading the way in bringing the circular economy to life. It’s also paved the way for Scottish Events Campus (SEC) — Scotland’s largest exhibition centre — to pledge to incubate the winning solutions and lend their venues as testing grounds for the participants’ implementation efforts, and we’re hopeful to see more partnerships come out of this next phase.
Today, we’re really excited to announce the top three solutions that will move forward to incubation:
The winners
Of the 10 solutions that came out of the challenge, these are the three that provided the most potential for local implementation, cross-border scalability, and impact, and will receive support from the SEC during the incubation phase:
Goodbye, plastic!
A venue-wide reuse system for bottles, containers, and cutlery >
Single-use, disposable plastics are commonplace at large events and often serve useful but short-lived purposes. Other materials such as paper and glass also often find their way to the landfill. In order to harness this waste, or bypass it altogether, venues can set up a deposit-based reuse system and swap out all single-use plastic bottles, containers, and cutlery for reusable or compostable alternatives.
From waste to value
Repurposing organic waste into new foods, energy, or fertilisers >
According to an Ellen MacArthur Foundation study, consumer waste is responsible for up to 11% of all food lost on average. In order to not only thwart this figure but also to retrieve and maximise the value of food scraps and leftovers that will go uneaten at any given event, venues with consistent organic waste streams can transform and repurpose them into energy, fertilisers, water, or even new foods, and provide new opportunities for local businesses.
Circular branding
Digitising, repurposing, and designing marketing materials for cyclability >
From the flyers, stickers, banners, and merchandise used to advertise and cultivate an event’s identity through to the lanyards and tickets used at the gate, disposable materials often permeate creative efforts and the bins they end up in. Introducing event organisers and exhibitors to the right technologies and suppliers and engaging the creative community in circular design principles can positively transform event marketing and branding practices.
Join the incubation phase!
We now invite organisations, entrepreneurs, individuals, consultants, and investors in and around Glasgow with relevant expertise to these solutions to come forward and help translate the bold vision that emerged out of the ideation phase into actionable and measurable pilot projects.
You will be supported by the SEC and working together with Circular Glasgow on preparing the pilot projects to be showcased at the Circular Economy Hotspot Scotland 2018 — a great opportunity to position yourself or your organisation as a front-runner in the circular economy and meet over 300 of the world’s leading decision-makers, trade representatives, investors and circular economy entrepreneurs!
We also invite other venues in Glasgow interested in making their own spaces more circular to get in touch with us and join us as we explore this milestone together.
To get involved in the incubation phase, contact us at circularglasgow@glasgowchamberofcommerce.com or hello@circle-lab.com
Circle Lab has been made possible in part by a grant from the eBay Foundation, a corporate advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
