This year’s JEC World (Paris, 10-12 March) once again offered EuCIA a perfect platform to showcase its activities, connect with members and partners, engage with industry colleagues, and forge new collaborations.
A key objective was to communicate the progress of the European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA), a sectorial alliance of EuCIA launched at JEC World 2025 with the support of founding partner JEC. During its first year, ECCA has gained strong industry backing and now unites more than 200 members, including companies, universities, research centres, government departments, and NGOs. The strength of ECCA’s network lies in its representation of all areas of the value chain, from materials producers to recyclers.
As well as being promoted on EuCIA’s booth, a dedicated ECCA booth in the new Circularity Village exhibition zone provided a central point for distributing information about the alliance’s activities, including the Design for Circularity Directory currently under development.
ECCA is now widely recognised as an effective platform for advancing composites circularity at European level. Industry leaders including Airbus, Daher, and Suez have now joined the alliance. During the week, we were delighted to welcome so many visitors to the booth, from materials, technology and part manufacturers, to waste collectors, and investors and OEMs. Actions to transform technical circularity into a business case are now in progress.
ECCA’s members are also actively promoting the alliance and its work. Those exhibiting at JEC World proudly highlighted their ECCA membership.
Thank you to everyone who helped us spread the word about the alliance throughout the week!
Building circular value chains
ECCA’s activities are focused through five Working Groups: Aerospace & Defence, Automotive & Public Transportation, Industrial & Recreational, Construction, and Crossover. The Crossover group’s role involves identifying barriers and shared topics among the other groups, and presenting a unified position to external stakeholders, particularly the European Commission. In-person meetings during the week served to strengthen connections and advance progress on the Working Groups’ 2026 roadmaps.
For ECCA, 2025 was the year of getting together. 2026 is the year of team consolidation, with the launch of dedicated sub-groups and tasks aiming to create circular value chains within, and across, the working groups. During 2027 and 2028 we will transform these value chains into real-world business cases to truly demonstrate the circularity of composite materials.
The power of collaboration
ECCA is one of four sectorial alliances operating under EuCIA. The European Rebar Council, launched in September 2025, and Carbon Fiber Europe, launched in November, are also gaining strong industry support.
Both alliances launched their new websites prior to JEC World: europeanrebarcouncil.eu and carbonfibereurope.eu. Representatives from both groups were available during the week to discuss their objectives and action plans. During the event, the European Rebar Council also announced a partnership with software provider ASDEA to provide advanced design tools to enable engineers to design reinforced concrete structures using composite rebar, while Carbon Fiber Europe welcomed new member Aksa Carbon.
The European Alliance for SMC and BMC celebrated the winners of the SMC BMC Design Award 2026, the fifth edition of this competition promoting design excellence in SMC and BMC composites. This year’s theme was Live Better, Live Green – SMC Solutions for Improving Quality of Life.
EuCIA in action
JEC World provides EuCIA with a valuable opportunity to meet in-person with international colleagues.
The Sustainability Forum, a meeting of the Global Composites Sustainability Coalition, was organised by the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA) and JEC. Speakers highlighted regional trends, developments and activities, and EuCIA’s Managing Director, Raphaël Pleynet presented ECCA’s progress. At the Gathering of Associations, organised by EuCIA and JEC, 18 associations from around the world came together to share experience. It’s clear that whatever the region, national associations have similar challenges and common goals. We must continue to promote the unique value of composite materials to society, advocate for the composites industry in future regulations, share knowledge to establish standards, facilitate links with the academic community to stimulate research programmes and attract talent to our industry, manage competitiveness through innovation, and increase circularity.
Through meetings such as this, we continue to strengthen the global composites community and make progress towards our shared objectives.
The JEC World conference programme explores the forces shaping the future of the composites industry and circularity was a key topic this year. At the panel discussion Closing the Loop with Circular Composite Materials, EuCIA’s President, Professor Roberto Frassine, participated in a wide-ranging discussion exploring the many aspects of circularity highlighting technological innovations, regulatory drivers, economic benefits and supply chain security, and the need for greater industry acceptance of recycled materials. The debate was moderated by Malcolm Forsyth, Sustainability Manager at Composites UK (a member of EuCIA). Watch a recording of the session on JEC Composites Web TV.
EuCIA also promoted the three EU-funded projects where it leads the communication and dissemination activities – REFRESH (circular solutions for wind turbine blades), EOLIAN (next generation blades based on vitrimer composites), and PLEIADES (advanced composites aerostructures). The REFRESH project’s circular wind turbine blade demonstrator was also on display at Innovation Planet 5.
Moving ahead
EuCIA remains at the heart of Europe’s composites industry and through our ongoing partnership with JEC we continue to consolidate our international network and influence.
