CircularPSP has established a Follower Network with cities like Amsterdam, Göteborg, and Torino, and city collectives like ICLEI and Energy Cities.
On the 7th of December, the first Follower event took place, jointly organised by empirica and ICLEI, a network of cities supporting local authorities in their journey to sustainability. Several members of CircularPSP’s Follower Network were present, and other stakeholders in the field of circularity participated.
Tackling Barriers to the Circular Economy
ICLEI presented the Circular City Declaration (CCD), in which the declaration goals and barriers for cities to the CE transition were discussed. In particular, the latest CCD Report, published in February 2023, highlights four main barriers to tackle on the path towards circularity.
These barriers clearly overlapped with the common challenges identified by the CircularPSP consortium, which is based on the insights from eight procures, and which call for innovative solutions and a systemic approach involving different departments of a local authority, and starting as early as possible in the process, not just at procurement stage. In addition to these challenges, CircularPSP discussed the envisaged city-wide CE solution that support the city operation on all levels, including the main needs and requirements to overcome the barriers. Other insights shared include the standard contractual clauses for the procurement of AI by public organisations.
Opportunities for Followers and Next Steps
Project partners highlighted the benefits of being followers of the CircularPSP project. In particular, they can test the demo platform environment and gather further insights along the process.
The next follower event is scheduled to be organised once the suppliers have been identified, and in the meantime, all are encouraged to connect with CircularPSP and to share the Call for tender with potential interested suppliers as soon as this is launched (January, date TBC).
Finally, CircularPSP invited all the attendees to the open CE Taxonomy Working Group, in which Suppliers and Cities are encouraged to tackle the following issues together, and which results will be published into a white paper:
– Define core terminology (i.e. Taxonomy) in the context of cities.
– Identify a set of core data sources
– Document a core set of data standards and protocols.
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