On this page
What is the circular manufacturing industry?
What is the circular manufacturing industry?
From electronics, machinery and textiles to wood and furniture - all products of the manufacturing industry. An industry that accounts for one-third of CO2 emissions. In the meantime, resources are being depleted and prices continue to rise. Time to step up a gear toward a circular manufacturing industry with closed loops.
How do we go about it? The strategic agenda manufacturing industry is fully committed to collaboration. With a broad partnership - from knowledge institutions and sector federations to civil society organisations and governments - we have undertaken to help increase the number of circular strategies in the Flemish manufacturing industry.
For example, we contribute to the objective of the Flemish government of reducing the materials footprint by 30% by 2030 compared to 2013. Just as important is that a thriving manufacturing industry ensures rising prosperity. For example, 1 job in the manufacturing industry accounts for 1.2 additional jobs in other sectors (Source: ManuMatters study, Agoria5).
Who steers it?
Agoria & VLAIO are the core team for the strategic agenda manufacturing industry. For each of the value chains, different organisations are the initiators in each case
- Consumer electronics: Herwin(collective of social entrepreneurs) and Agoria(sector federation of technology companies)
- Professional electronics and machinery: Agoria (sector federation of technology companies), Sirris (knowledge centre for techology companies) and Flanders Make (strategic research centre for the manufacturing industry)
- Consumer textiles: Creamoda (sector federation of fashion companies), Flanders DC (Flemish innovation centre for fashion and design) & OVAM (Flemish waste company)
- Technical textiles: Fedustria (sector federation of textile and wood companies) and Centexbel (knowledge centre for the textile industry)
- Wood and furniture: wood.be (knowledge centre for the wood and furniture industry) and Fedustria (sector federation of textile and wood companies)
The actions within the strategic agenda are made possible in part by the work of Bond Beter Leefmilieu, VITO, VZW WijDelen, Groep Maatwerk, Recupel, Repair&Share (De Transformisten), Maakbaar Leuven, VVSG, OVAM and Department WEWIS (Work, Economy, Science, Innovation and Social Economy).
What do we want to achieve?
What do we want to achieve?
- Collaborate more across sectors and within the value chain rather than only improving design and production in-house.
- Support many more companies in setting up circular activities and business models, rather than focusing on a small group of pioneers. By 2030, more than half of Flemish manufacturing companies must be on board.
- Use the circular economy to anchor strong value chains and innovate more, rather than seeing it as a strategy for a specific group.
We have defined specific, ambitious work paths for each value chain to achieve these objectives and implement circular strategies in the manufacturing industry. From circular design and extending the life of products to closing material cycles.
Want to know more about the ambitions and commitments of the strategic agenda 'manufacturing industry'? Read our declaration of commitment.
Our approach
Cooperation is the focus of everything we do. As such, we have joined forces with sector federations and civil society organisations to set up initiatives.
We bring together the most important organisations from the manufacturing industry in Flanders in an 'Initiators group', which helps flesh out and monitor the objectives of our strategic agenda. As part of this, we identify bottlenecks and take targeted actions together.
We work toward concrete action. This can be seen, among other things, in the VLAIO Living Labs circular economy and chain projects that were set up to help shape the circular manufacturing industry. These are complex projects with innovation systems which, driven by broad partnerships, provide concrete solutions for the circular transition.
Together with various initiators, we are organising events that will help shape the objectives. Every year, we host a larger broad community event on a specific circular strategy. Last year the event was RE:DESIGN.
We also give nice achievements of circular products, services or projects of entrepreneurs from the manufacturing industry a platform through the various events or through newsletters of members from the Initiators Group and Circular Flanders.