“What Europe Can Learn from Ukraine About the Circular Economy” Bart Gruyaert is Project Director Ukraine at NEO-ECO and co-host of the session “Resilience, Reconstruction and Circularity in War – Project Examples from Ukraine” at Circular Week 2026. In this interview, he explains what the rest of Europe can learn from Ukraine’s approach to circularity. Ukraine is implementing circular solutions in extreme conditions. What is this experience teaching us, or perhaps challenging us to rethink, about what we consider possible for the circular economy in Europe? Outside Ukraine, we tend to overcomplicate things and there is less urgency for a call to action. We find too many reasons why not to act and instead of thinking in terms of scaling and making solutions economically viable, we think in funding (grant application) cycles. Ukraine teaches us that circular economy is possible without major public funding schemes and that it can happen at scale. For the circular economy to work in Europe, we need to put the economic rationale at the heart of the transition, alongside sustainability. We also need to think bigger and not approach circular efforts as one-offs. Also, in many European countries, collaboration is often not so smooth between different companies. In Ukraine, you don’t have a choice: you work with your competitors and learn together in the field. What makes this collaboration work, beyond the sense of urgency? Civil society is a cornerstone to all circular economy movements and efforts in Ukraine. They are the driving force for change, not the central or local government. There is a kind of “can-do mindset” in these civil society organisations that we somehow lost in Western Europe. Also, legal frameworks should be seen and used as enablers. Currently, we tend to see them as constraints or safeguards, rather than as tools that can enable the circular economy. How can the innovative approaches to circular construction, material recovery and reuse be transferred to other contexts outside of Ukraine? Due to climate change, it is very likely that more natural disasters will occur across Europe. The agility and methods used in Ukraine can be replicated in many other contexts. For example, as part of Neo-Eco, we are applying solutions developed in Ukraine to support reconstruction in post-earthquake sites in Turkey. What does (the rest of) Europe need to unlearn about the circular economy? To be passive and wait only for initiatives from the government. We tend to look to them for solutions, but before doing so, we should ask ourselves: what did we do ourselves? If you could change one thing about how Europe approaches circularity, what would it be? Be more ambitious and think in bigger terms. Don’t protect the interest groups but enable the innovation. It takes 5 years in a country like France to bring innovation from a Technology Readiness Leve 3 to 7; in Ukraine this is done in 18 months. Bart Gruyaert is Project Director Ukraine at NEO-ECO and co-host of the session “Resilience, Reconstruction and Circularity in War – Project Examples from Ukraine” – register now to join him at the event! Learn more about the Resilience & Infrastructure track here and check out the full Circular Week 2026 programme here. For further questions, please contact Dr. Flandra Syla-Beqiri.