The AICE‑T project
The AICE-T research project (Analysing and Identifying the Circular Economy’s contribution to a just Transition), developed since 2023 and formally launched in 2024, brings together the work of five professors and five researchers from different disciplines. The project aims to explore how circular-economy initiatives contribute to a just transition. Its approach is transdisciplinary—that is, it seeks to work with actors, drawing on their experience and knowledge of the field, in order to bring about changes beneficial to all. After several months of data compilation and several rounds of semi-structured interviews, we chose to focus specifically on textiles, and more precisely on the implementation of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
This focus is motivated by how significantly the situation in the textile sector has deteriorated in recent years, and how the difficulties faced by its stakeholders call for deep structural reconfiguration. EPR can offer solutions, provided that it follows a strategy tackling the entire value chain and draws lessons from other European textile EPR systems. To carry this process forward, it appears essential to stimulate a dialogue with decision-makers and experts on these matters, with a view to coordination.
Main research focus
Transdisciplinary approaches to textile circularity
The textile sector is currently undergoing significant transformation: tensions surrounding the collection and sorting of used textiles, the rapid emergence of new business models, and changing consumption practices. Added to this is the upcoming implementation of the EPR for textiles, which will require producers placing products on the market to contribute to their end of life management and will constitute a structuring institutional framework for the years to come.
In this context, we aim to offer a neutral, transdisciplinary space for dialogue, bringing together actors who are often complementary but rarely gathered. The objective is to explore together the levers, barriers, and opportunities to strengthen textile circularity in Belgium, and to foster shared perspectives within a community of practice.
Location factors, access to land and siting politics
When it comes to waste management and the circular economy, access to land is of particular importance. The spatial organisation of the sector is shaped by logistical, ecological, political, and environmental‑justice considerations. Adopting an approach grounded in critical geography, we examine the dynamics through which space is produced within the waste sector. The questions underpinning this line of research concern the factors influencing the location of private firms and public infrastructures, siting decisions, public policy instruments regulating land use and zoning, and the broader logics of the international division of labour. More specifically, we focus on the Brussels metropolitan area and on how, within a context of intense competition for land use, circular‑economy enterprises manage—or fail—to establish themselves.
Waste regimes and access to resources
Rising concerns about resource scarcity are reshaping debates over the supply, availability, and control of materials needed in contemporary economies. In parallel, waste is gaining renewed attention as a potential source of these materials. This shift is reflected in evolving policy frameworks and industrial practices that seek to recover and secure valuable fractions of waste. At the same time, it raises important questions about access: who is able to recover these materials, under what conditions, and with what implications for different actors? This research examines how historical representations, infrastructures, and regulatory frameworks shape access to waste as it is revalued as a resource, and how the benefits and burdens of this transition are unevenly distributed.
More information :
Publications
The team
