Project GENESIS | Circular Economy Month - Enlarged lifespans

Enlarged lifespans webinar
Optimisation, Durability, Remanufacturing: Enlarging Lifespans in Action

The upcoming GENESIS project webinar, Enlarged Lifespans, will take place on 17 March 2026 as part of EU Circularity Month. This session will explore how extending product and component lifetimes can become a powerful lever for Europe’s circular transition, highlighting practical strategies that move beyond performance-driven design toward durability, optimisation, and remanufacturing.

Bringing together scientific expertise and real industrial use cases, the webinar will examine how circular technologies in power electronics, lifespan-oriented equipment design, and maritime remanufacturing contribute to greater resource efficiency and long-term value creation. From industrial automation to ship components, the discussion will demonstrate how extending operational life can generate both economic and environmental benefits.

Enlarged lifespans | Driving Circular Transition Through Lifetime Extension

📅 17/03/2026
🕥 10:30–12:00 (CET)
💻 Online webinar
🌐 Webinar language: English

This session will explore lifetime extension beyond the traditional pursuit of performance and short replacement cycles. Opening with a thematic presentation on circular technologies in power electronics, the webinar will highlight how design approaches can contribute to durability, repairability, and more circular industrial systems. It will then move to concrete SME examples: ICA will demonstrate how optimisation and long-term value are embedded into customised industrial equipment, while AEGIR-Marine will show how remanufacturing can extend the operational life of ship components well beyond their assumed economic endpoint.

Agenda Highlights

Thematic Presentation: Enlarged lifespans | Beyond the quest for performance, contribution toward more circular technologies, application to power electronics
Speaker: Jean-Christophe Crébier, CNRS Senior Scientist and Co-head of the Power Electronics Team, G2Elab

SME Use Case Presentations

• ICA | Optimisation for Long-Term Value
  “ICA designs and manufactures automatic equipment, tailored to the customers’ requirements. Learn how optimisation and the lifespan of industrial equipment are an inherent part of a genuine development strategy.”
  Speaker: Antoine Dobbels,CEO,ICA
• AEGIR-Marine | Remanufacturing for Maritime Longevity
  “The maritime industry currently operates with an average ship age of +/-25 years. Although this is generally assumed to be a ship’s end of economic life, it is not necessarily the end of operational life for all the components inside a ship. Remanufacturing can increase the lifespan of ship components, providing substantial economic and environmental benefits.”
  Speaker: Ruud Muis, Co-founder and CEO, AEGIR-Marine

Interactive Workshop
Moderator: Jan-Henk Welink, Delft University of Technology

Participants will actively contribute to discussions structured around two key questions:

• What skills are missing in organisations to strengthen circular economy and digitalisation?
• What competencies can regions develop to improve collaboration with European partners?

Turning Circular Policy into Regional Action

As part of EU Circularity Month, this webinar moves beyond strategic objectives toward hands-on application. Bringing together policy expertise, practical SME experiences, and interactive exchange, the session will provide organisations with actionable knowledge to strengthen recycling systems and drive circular progress across Europe’s regions.

Register here

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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them