The first Circular Opportunity Day inaugurated the Circular Business Academy with a seminar and workshop tackling “The challenges of circular transformation”.

The day was kicked-off with a presentation on circular economy regulation and organization on the national level by Dragica Marinič, the Coordinator of the Strategic Research and Innovation Partnership for Circular Economy (SRIP). An outline by Bart Stegeman, the CEO of Plastika Skaza, of the company’s specific challenges on their road to circularity served as the case for practical workshop later in the day.

Jasna Suhadolc, Founder and Managing Director of Actuado, elaborated on the importance of engaging and communicating effectively with stakeholders, particularly in the field of sustainability and circularity. Janez Križan, Director of new business development & innovation at A1, sketched our smart and circular future and how A1 is moving towards circularity by employing emerging technologies.

Christiaan Kraaijenhagen, expert consultant on circular transformation from Innoboost, introduced new business frameworks and deployed tools to support companies transitioning from linear to a circular business model, which were applied on a real-life business case of Plastika Skaza. The workshop exercises were aimed at re-thinking product design, manufacturing processes and how to approach these new concepts through collaboration. Kraaijenhagen explained that a company has to examine its system, identify all of the stakeholders and prepare to collaborate with them in a much more extensive manner. Foremost, however, the circular transformation process starts with oneself.