European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform

CIRCit was a 3½-year research project, spanning the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Sweden. The objective was to help their industry to discover and implement the opportunities of the circular economy.

This project was part of the Nordic Green Growth Research and Innovation Programme funded by NordForsk, Nordic Energy Research and Nordic Innovation.

The project focus areas for the circular economy were:

1. Sustainability screening
2. Business modelling
3. Circular product design and development
4. Smart circular economy
5. Closing the loop for a circular economy
6. Collaborating and networking for a circular economy.

The project webpage contains 101 circular economy case studies in the Nordic region and several scientific publications.

FISSAC is a project seeking to stimulate the coordination and facilitation of work in the construction and demolition value chain. Accordingly, the initiative aims to gather various stakeholders and to encourage the development and adoption of a common methodology and software platform for the exchange of information and best practices.

The overall aim of the project is to help companies with sustainability practices, by creating models that can be used by anyone. The models can be:

• manufacturing processes (such as demonstrations of close-loop recycling processes to transform waste into secondary raw materials)
• product validations (examples of eco-design and eco-innovative construction products)
• industrial symbiosis models (software platforms for example).

Madaster is a platform to register and document a range of materials or products. It offers its services to individuals, companies or public sector institutions that wish to collect and store data about their materials. Madaster stores the data in a secure and efficient way.

Most importantly, the platform offers updated information about the circular values and potentials of the owned materials, thus expanding opportunities for more efficient green management of resources. With the data, Madaster provides the clients with a “material passport” that enables them to use it for moving towards a circular economy.

Madaster has a global focus and operates in several countries (e.g. The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and China).

Circular Berlin is an NGO that focuses on making Berlin circular. Berlin is envisioned as a resilient, citizen-oriented region. Resources are sourced locally and their value is maintained as part of a continuous loop. Circular Berlin operates across areas such as community-building, education, as well as developing knowledge on industries with a high potential for circularity: the built environment, food and biomass, textile and fashion, and materials and products.

Circular Berlin hosts events in which the community meets, debates and exchanges. Topics range from sharing knowledge to collaborative planning sessions, and has built open-source digital tools allowing information to be exchanged more quickly.

For more information on specific projects, consult their website.

The Digital Platform for Circular Economy (CE HUB) recently created by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia showcases circular economy-related information for the business community on:

• possibilities of improving knowledge and practice
• current events in the EU
• potential grants
• financial support
• business models
• possible savings by shifting to a CE business model.

The interactive part of the platform aims to:

• link business people from different sectors,
• present best practice examples, ideas and projects, and
• establish future cooperation and new investments with national, regional and international partners.

The aim is for CE businesses to join the Alliance for Green Transition of Serbia.

EN: The MarketPlace Circular Labs aim to give visibility to good practices and circular economy success stories developed by businesses and entrepreneurs in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula (Castilla y León, Galicia and North of Portugal).

ES: El MarketPlace Circular Labs tiene por objeto dar visibilidad a Buenas Prácticas y casos de éxito de economía circular desarrolladas por empresas y emprendedores en el Noroeste de la Península Ibérica (Castilla y León, Galicia y Norte de Portugal). 

PT: O MarketPlace Circular Labs pretende dar visibilidade às Boas Práticas e casos de sucesso da economia circular desenvolvidas por empresas e empresários do Noroeste da Península Ibérica (Castela e Leão, Galiza e Norte de Portugal).

Forest Sharing is a platform/marketplace for the shared and innovative management of unmanaged or underutilized privately-owned forests according to PEFC standards, a network where exchanges between owners and economic operators within the supply chain are facilitated and organized, thus creating the economies of scale needed for forest activities (sale of wood or derived products, recreational areas, adventure parks, thematic routes, management of Rural Development Plans etc.) to become economically viable.

The platform, online since September 2020, has around 300 registered users for 2 500 hectares of woods in various regions, with a potential of another 2 000 hectares. In 2019 it was selected as best practice/new business idea within Rosewood.

Circular economy marketplaces for reuse and recycling of products exist. The USOdy platform claims outstanding results with respect to its primary objective, the reuse and recycling of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), by contributing to the increase of the reuse of administration’s EEE from 5 % up to potentially 50 %.

Going beyond, the practice also enables vulnerable users and groups to get access to refurbished equipment at an affordable price, which contributes to reducing the overall digital divide in the society and creates jobs at refurbishing organisations for vulnerable persons. The practice is transferable to any region: all necessary resources (code, methodologies…) are available as free software.

Click here for more info.

Fab City Challenge is an initiative launched in 2014 by the then mayor of Barcelona, “challenging” cities to become self-sustainable by 2054. Since then, the project has expanded to a global network of 28 cities and one country (Georgia), cooperating with each other to improve, implement and exchange their urban practices.

The end-goal is for each city to produce everything they consume. In order to reach its objective, the Challenge vividly promotes increased collective action and co-designed solutions for the common well-being of the planet. That is the main idea of its Manifesto, which contains 10 guiding principles for promoting sustainability and liveability – with actions at local and regional levels.

CIRCLES is a platform dedicated to disseminating circular economy solutions in the Eastern Netherlands. It encourages entrepreneurs to participate in the green transition, promoting their sense of ownership in the transition process. It offers a space for stakeholders to interact and exchange views on circular economy – digitally or physically - or simply a space to establish partnerships.

Several organisations – public, private and NGOs – interact in a range of ways, including workshops, publications, opportunities to access finance. One of the initiatives, for instance, consists of a space to submit ideas. If viable, cooperation with regional universities can be established, and entrepreneurs can collaborate to reach solutions.