Cities can play a pivotal role in creating an enabling environment through regulations and incentives, but the private sector needs to collaborate and explore the cross-sectoral synergies required to achieve a circular model. There are immense opportunities for public-private collaboration in achieving goals that might not otherwise be possible for cities to accomplish alone.
Cities are embedding circular thinking in their utility processes, placing the onus on the private sector to come up with new business models that are both economically viable and ecologically sustainable. This could potentially result in a situation whereby circular products and services become the new market standard.
In a continued effort to reduce Europe's carbon footprint and to lower energy bills for European consumers, the European Commission has adopted new eco-design measures on 1 October for products such as refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers and televisions.
Over the past couple of years, as companies start to understand the opportunities that lie under the concept of circular economy, the circularity conversation has gained significant momentum. At the same time, national and regional governments are developing frameworks and regulations to promote the circular economy.
Effective policymaking is crucial to accelerate and scale up circular actions in the economy. It supports businesses in overcoming hurdles by stimulating innovative projects and long-term investments in circularity, facilitating collaboration and partnerships, and producing tangible results.
Learning from successful policies can help inform future policies to promote wider actions in other sectors and regions over time.
Public authorities will soon be encouraged to apply the Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) approach to their policies thanks to a new Interreg Europe project, LCA4Regions. The 9 project partners met for the first time in Brussels, on 30 September and 1 October 2019, the with support of ACR+.
From shoemaker to wind energy park engineer: 7.5% of all jobs in Belgium are circular, shows new analysis by the King Baudouin Foundation and Circle Economy. The baseline measurement of employment in the Belgian circular economy provides insights into the nature and number of jobs in the country’s circular economy.
The Ecopreneur.eu landscape review of circular economy policy in the EU Member States aims to inspire these countries to accelerate their circular transition. Combining the EU's Monitoring Framework with other rankings, databases and reports, Ecopreneur presents 28 country profiles using a mix of quantitative data and qualitative information to highlight specific indicators. These range from waste generated per capita to voting behaviour on EU proposals on the circular economy.
The report also describes the current performance, initiatives, most relevant organisations, policies, challenges and examples of good practice for each Member State. The country profiles show 28 unique different trajectories towards the circular economy.
Ecopreneur.eu has created an overview of circular economy policy for all EU Member States, which reveals 28 different paths with inspiring best practices. Countries that lead the way typically have the highest waste production as well.
ACR+, the Association of Cities and Regions for Sustainable Resource Management, celebrated its 25th anniversary in June 2019. At this event, member organisations presented their respective work on the circular economy and committed to continue furthering the circular transition.
ACR+ has made substantial contributions to developing monitoring systems with corresponding indicator sets for urban and regional authorities. Among others, ACR+ has continued its Circular Europe Network projects within the Urban Agenda Partnership on Circular Economy, while also contributing to the CIRCTER final report on sub-national circular economy monitoring.
