LOOP-Ports aims to facilitate the transition to a more circular economy in the port sector, providing an innovation ecosystem around port activity fostering circular economy initiatives, and facilitating the exchange of experiences and good practices. This network will focus on high-emitting materials, mainly metals, plastics, cements and biomaterials and has begun the following activities:

• Compilation of a wide range of examples of circular economy activities already implemented in the port sector at EU level as well as some additional best practices around the world;
• Analysis of the main drivers (legal, policy, finance, market structures,...) to identify the opportunities for intervention and to formulate specific recommendations in order to boost the development of circular economy activities in port ecosystems;
• Preparation of tailored training materials and development of training pilots to improve skills, knowledge and innovation capacities both within and among different port clusters;
• Establishment of a database with all the information collected from the EU ports (following the variables considered relevant to map EU ports in terms of circular economy);
• Developing a web tool for circular economy showing project results, enabling the exchange of information among the members of the network, stakeholders and the general public;
• Creation of a pan-EU network of ports focused on circular economy activities, including workshops/roundtables with stakeholders to gather interests, points of view and expectations;
• Development of business models - real-use cases selected during the project - analysing their replicability in other ports with similar characteristics.

All port stakeholders are welcome to join the Circular Economy Network of Ports, which is funded by the EIT under its Climate-KIC Programme.