This webinar on Monitoring the Transition to Circular Economy will provide an introduction to the concept of monitoring frameworks within the context of circular economy initiatives. Drawing on experiences from the ground, it will discuss practical examples from cities and regions and related challenges.
A brief presentation of the Self-Assessment Tool, which is being developed by the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative Coordination and Support Office (CCRI-CSO), is also on the agenda.
The Taranto Circolare project aims to create an impact on the city of Taranto in the Apulia region (Italy) by triggering its ecological transformation. The project is driven by the Tondo association, which aims to develop and consolidate sustainable and circular projects in this urban area, particularly the Old Town.
The project focuses on creating a platform that will give companies, authorities and organisations the opportunity to be part of a network implementing circular projects, provide specific tools and help actors measure the circularity of services and products.
In addition, through data collection and analysis, material and energy flows in the city will be calculated in order to identify the areas that should be at the centre of circular projects.
Are you involved in a local circular economy activity? Join the Hubs4Circularity Community of Practice launch event on 24 February to learn about our opportunities in advancing circular value chains, and help us shape our new knowledge platform to meet your needs.
The World Circular Economy Forum 2023 will be held in Helsinki from 30 May to 2 June 2023. This global collaboration forum is co-organised by Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and Nordic Innovation, with international partners. It will attract more than 2 000 leading circular economy players in the world to Finland to find circular solutions that can help our economies fit within the boundaries of nature. Part of the programme will also be accessible online.
The Digital Product Passport (DPP) promotes sustainable production. The passport lists all materials and components used in a product or a building and the information on their location. Providing this information could increase the product circularity and contribute to reaching the net-zero objective.
What are the challenges ahead? What are the initiatives in place at the European level? Join us online on 8 July from 09:00 to 10:30 CEST to learn more from frontrunner stakeholders that have already conceptualised digital product passports and are operating them on the EU market.
Urban agriculture comes with its own share of environmental impacts. Circular strategies promise to reduce these impacts, but not all strategies are resource efficient and environmentally effective.
This paper finds that the most eco-friendly and circular strategies for urban agriculture, taking a Mediterranean tomato crop as a case study, include:
Struvite (phosphate mineral recovered from wastewater treatment) instead of non-renewable phosphate fertiliser to conserve freshwater
Recycled steel and materials for urban agricultural infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions, toxicity and freshwater pollution
Closed-loop irrigation to minimise ocean and freshwater pollution. However, if new infrastructure is required, it could lead to an increase in carbon emissions.
Policies are focusing on halving food waste to help conserve increasingly strained food resources. However, expanding their scope of action to include dietary changes and complement targets with resource footprints has greater potential to save resources while avoiding trade-offs.
This paper shows that in Germany:
Healthy, plant-based diets are more effective at reducing land and biomass use than halving food waste
A combination of more plant-based food consumption and food waste reduction in distribution and consumption is most effective at saving resources
Focusing exclusively on food waste reduction as a policy target can be detrimental to the overarching goal of saving resources because it deflects attention away from more effective alternatives.
The circular economy (CE) is gaining momentum in cities. To ensure a sustainable CE, it is crucial to measure the environmental performance of CE strategies. However, environmental assessments overlook several strategies that are a key feature of urban CE practice. These include reuse and repair, sustainable built infrastructure and urban land use, green public procurement, smart information and access technology.
To provide insights into the environmental performance and potential of these strategies, industrial ecologists and municipalities should:
collaborate with urban systems experts
quantify the environmental impacts of entire urban systems
combine environmental assessments with social and economic feasibility ones.
