Eco-tone

The Luxembourg Circular Economy Hotspot was held to bring together stakeholders of the government, private sector and experts related to the European Union’s circular economy policies to promote and share circular economy activities and best practices.

In an effort to increase 30% of resource efficiency by 2030, the EU Commission has set up a strategy for transforming into a circular economy and is actively promoting various support programs for this purpose. Specifically, the EU Commission and European Investment Bank are jointly supporting an EU funding program of EUR 24 billion for businesses that want to transition into a circular economy model.

Luxembourg is bordered by Germany, France and Belgium and is the hub of logistics, ICT, life sciences, clean-tech and intellectual property. The country’s low-rate tax system also serves as an attractive location for business activities. Moreover, the Luxembourg government is making efforts to support environmental technology and technology development in long-term, sustainable areas by such initiatives as creating an industrial cluster (EcoDev) in 2009 and supporting eco-friendly technology R&D.

The 7 Korean SMEs that participated in the event includes a firm with industrial materials for 3D printing (3DControls Co., Ltd.), a firm that designs and manufactures eco-friendly footwear without any chemical additives (Innus Korea Co., Ltd.), a firm that produces entirely recyclable and readily compostable food packaging paper (rePAPER Inc.), a firm that produces eco-friendly bio-degradable material (PLA) for medical devices, baby products, cosmetics and chemistry (Dowonbiotech Co., Ltd.), a firm that manufactures eco-friendly, functional detergents and water treatment agents (GoldStar Chemicals Co., Ltd.), a firm that manufactures functional, environment friendly construction materials (INECO Co., Ltd.) and a software engineering firm that provides high-quality services and content that provide environmental solutions (SmartCityGrid Co., Ltd.).

The 3-day event included company visits to Luxembourg’s major circular economy production sites and community, providing participants with opportunities to closely examine and learn circular economy and eco-friendly best practices of Luxembourg. The Korean SMEs also engaged in Business-to-Business (B2B) meetings of the B2fair event and discussed possibilities for technological cooperation with firms mainly from the Benelux countries.

ASEIC is an intergovernmental agency of ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) member countries which supports eco-innovation of SMEs in Asia and Europe.