Estonia is in the process of developing its circular economy roadmap. The goal for Estonia is to be a smart country driving a circular economy. However, as for today, everyone in Estonia is lacking data because it simply has not been collected or existing indicators have not been set to measure the development of the circular economy (Technopolis Group, 2019).
Meanwhile, there are several governmental initiatives to help boost the circular economy: Accelerate Estonia, for example, has a special program in the accelerator dedicated to Green turn (read more: https://accelerateestonia.ee/green-turn/ ). The task of the Innovation Team is to make Estonian public services more user-friendly and people-oriented in cooperation with public, private and third sector partners. The latest project, where EMU team members Kristiina Kerge and Kadi Kenk participated, was dedicated to the challenge – how to make reusable solutions the first choice for cafes and takeaway food businesses in Estonia by 2026.
The benefit of different EU projects, such as CIRCLE is to help investigate the already existing practices in agriculture, forestry and aquaculture that we can hope will also inspire the regulators and funding institutions to boost the circular economy in these sectors and enhance cross-sectoral collaboration.
In CIRCLE project, media analysis showed that in Estonian media term “circular economy” (“ringmajandus”) is mostly tied with waste management. Discussions about other possibilities that circular economy offers were undervalued and less discussed or discussed in smaller media channels which does not reach to many readers.
Authors: Kristina Hiir, Kristiina Kerge, Kadi Kenk
