Practitioners since 2012
Circulab has helped companies and public bodies with their circular strategy since 2012. The corpus comes out of that field work.
Janine by Circulab
Circular Economy insights for your AI.
The circular economy knowledge base curated by Circulab since 2012, plugged straight into Claude and other MCP-compatible AI tools. Every answer is backed by sources you can check.
Works with Claude today, guides for ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot coming soon. Access activated automatically.
What is Janine by Circulab?
Janine by Circulab is an MCP server that gives your AI assistant read-only access to a circular economy knowledge base curated by Circulab since 2012. When you ask Claude a question, it can search Janine and return results with their title, organisation, year and a link to the source. It is sold as a monthly or yearly subscription, with a 14-day free trial.
The problem
Your AI always has an answer. Its sources rarely hold up.
Ask a general-purpose AI which circular business models exist for refurbishing electrical equipment and you get a plausible answer, with sources that are weak, impossible to check or simply made up. Before any of it goes into a client deliverable, you check everything again by hand. That takes hours.
| Option | The catch |
|---|---|
| A general-purpose AI on its own | Unchecked sources, sometimes invented. Not usable as is in a deliverable. |
| AI with web search | Results dominated by SEO content. Little professional literature or field experience. |
| Document libraries (international institutions, public agencies) | Reliable, but outside your AI. You dig by hand, one library at a time. |
| A consulting firm | Real expertise, but not a day-to-day working tool. |
| Janine by Circulab | A curated knowledge base inside the AI you already use. Every result comes with its source. |
How it works
Ask your question in Claude. Janine brings the sources.
Connect Janine once
Add Janine as a connector in Claude with the step-by-step guide and the access token we email you.
Ask as usual
Your AI searches the Janine corpus whenever it helps answer your question.
Check every source
Each result comes with its title, organisation, year and a link to the document.
You
I run an SME that makes plastic packaging for the food industry. Search Janine for 3 inspiring examples of reuse, then write a one-page note for my leadership team: opportunity, risks, first questions to dig into. Put the sources in footnotes.
Searched Janine: reusable packaging, food industry
Your AI
Leadership note: reuse and our plastic packaging
Three inspiring examples
- Pandobac: reusable crates for food producers and distributors, collected, cleaned and reused, with tracking.1
- CLUBZERØ: a returnable packaging system run end to end (collection, washing, redistribution), with partners such as Wimbledon and Evian.2
- Loop: deposit-based reusable packaging in the food industry.3
Opportunity
- Pressure on resources keeps rising: global demand for materials has surged.4
- Reuse is growing in professional packaging too, where flows are more regular than in consumer packaging.5
Risks
- Per unit, a reusable pack costs more: the case rests on total cost (avoided costs, customer loyalty).5
- Single-use packaging has been optimised for decades: convenience remains the main hurdle.5
First questions
- Which of our food-industry customers already run returnable flows we could plug into?
- Could we offer a service (collection, washing, tracking) around a more durable pack?
Sources
- 1. Reusable Crates: A Waste-Reducing and Cost-Effective Solution for the Food & Beverage Industry · Inspiring example · Pandobac · pandobac.com
- 2. Smart Returnable Packaging System Reducing Single-Use Waste · Inspiring example · CLUBZERØ · clubzero.co
- 3. Single-use plastic is no longer fantastic · Circulab · 2021 · circulab.com
- 4. Global Resources Outlook 2024: Bend the Trend · UN Environment Programme, International Resource Panel · 2024 · PDF
- 5. #81 Comment passer le réemploi à échelle européenne ? avec Fernando Rodriguez-Mata · Podcast · Radio Circulab · youtube.com
What's inside
A selection, not the whole internet.
Janine draws on resources chosen by Circulab for their reliability and their use in real projects. Most sources are in French and English.
- Reports from international institutions (OECD, UN Environment Programme, European Commission) and academic publications
- Field reports on circular projects
- Inspiring examples: documented circular business models
- Entrepreneur interviews from Circulab's podcast
- Circulab articles, newsletter and training material
Since 2012
Corpus curated by Circulab
Weekly
Sync of newly published resources
2,600+
Published resources you can search (October 2026)
Why Circulab
Curated by practitioners, not scraped from the web.
Curated since 2012
Every resource is selected and described before it is published: title, organisation, year, theme, summary.
A community in a dozen countries
70 members of the Circulab Community, practitioners trained in the Circulab method, in a dozen countries.
Plain and simple
What Janine is not
Not a tool that stores your documents
MCP access is read-only. Janine does not keep your files or your conversations.
Not an exhaustive library
A selection of resources, and we own that choice.
Not a substitute for your expertise
Janine brings the sources, your AI drafts, you check and decide.
Pricing
Simple plans, per person.
Prices in euros, excluding VAT.
Free trial
Free14 days
Shared corpus and 5 talents.
Solo
€49per month, or €490 per year
Shared corpus, searches under fair use, 10 talents a month.
Pro
€99per month, or €990 per year
Everything in Solo, with 50 business talents a month instead of 10: business model synthesis, vulnerabilities, product circularity (PCDS).
See plans and FAQ
Teams of 10 or more, or specific needs? Contact us
Give your AI sources you can check.
14 days free. Access activated automatically, with a step-by-step connection guide.