Plateforme des acteurs européens de l'économie circulaire

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.

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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.

BauKarussell is a consortium supported and co-run by industrial actors and the City of Vienna. It seeks to establish circular loops in the city's construction sector, with an emphasis on large-scale demolition. The platform focuses on compliance with new regulations and ensuring that reusable components are dismantled and made available for reuse through partnerships with large property developers.

Green practices are becoming standard practice in the construction sector in Austria, and this initiative is in line with that trend. Workers from social enterprises actually prepare material for reuse. It is estimated that the consortium could create around 9 000 jobs in Austria.

Som Mobilitat is a non-profit cooperative working for a more sustainable mobility model. It seeks to promote the use of public transport, cycling and walking.

The cooperative also offers an electric carsharing service if none of the other options are available for certain routes. The cooperative is structured around communities where the shared electric vehicles can be used by individuals and private and public organisations.

ACCEZ is a platform which aims to foster circular economy practices in the southern Netherlands. It pools initiatives by several regional universities and public and private actors in the following fields:

• area development
• circular agriculture
• manufacturing industries
• plastic.

The platform bolsters cooperation between partners to develop solutions for knowledge-intensive issues. To do so, they oversee and fund triple-helix research projects. The end-goal of the platform is to enhance the regional knowledge base and networks, with a view to substantially accelerating the transition to a circular economy.

The Sustainable Procurement platform is managed by ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability with the aim of disseminating information to the public with case studies, events, guidance, and other resources about sustainable and circular procurement at the world level.

According to the platform, circular procurement refers to a range of ways of acquiring goods and services, taking into consideration the whole lifecycle of products throughout their supply chain.

Through circular procurement, it should also be guaranteed that the products and services acquired get value for money and generate benefits not only for the buyer, but also for the environment, society and the economy.

The Mercado Organizado de Resíduos (MOR) is a Portuguese online platform that can be used to trade different types of waste for recovery (with the exception of waste classified as hazardous by the general waste management scheme).

MOR provides the space for waste of all categories to be traded, whether for recovery or for disposal under the country's general waste management scheme. This includes transactions and exchange of by-products and recycled materials.

The Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (Portuguese Environment Agency) has licensed MOR Online as the first integrated management platform in the waste market.

The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra is a future fund collaborating with partners to research, trial and implement bold ideas that shape the future. It aims to make Finland a pioneer in sustainable well-being.

Since 2015, Sitra has been working to lead the way to a circular economy – a new kind of society in which everyday lives and well-being are no longer based on excessive consumption and fossil fuel use.

Currently, Sitra’s work focuses on supporting a fair transition to a circular economy and investigating how business can be based on sharing instead of ownership. Sitra is also working to advance circular trade policies, to increase the understanding of environmental effects of digitisation and to explore the potential of the circular economy to safeguard biodiversity.

CIRCULAR CHANGE

Specialized in establishing and nourishing dialogue between different stakeholders particularly in the process of creation of circular economy (CE) roadmaps, it is promoting new narratives, orchestrating interests, exchanging knowledge and enabling innovation. 

References

CIRCULAR STRATEGIES

• Strategic consulting in the field of CE and innovation
• Sustainable and circular brand, product and service development
• Stakeholder mapping, orchestration and circular collaboration

ROADMAPPING PROCESS

• Co-creation, development and implementation of CE roadmaps on national or local level

EXPERT CONTRIBUTION

• Research, reports and scenarios
• Coaching for circular frontrunners
• Keynote speeches, moderating, workshops, lectures.

MEDIA REFERENCES