Presentation

The Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) supports circular economy solutions at local and regional level. It aims at fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing between the EU cities and regions. It is an important instrument put in place by the European Commission to  achieve the objectives of the Circular Economy Action Plan and wider strategic ambitions under the European Green Deal. works to increase collaboration and knowledge sharing between EU cities and regions. The CCRI also aims to boost innovation and upscaling.

CCRI is part of the new European Circular Economy Action Plan adopted in March 2020 and will focus on the implementation of Circular Systemic Solutions (CSS) at local and regional scale. The CCRI will also provide a local contribution to the implementation of the European Green Deal and the European Bioeconomy Strategy.

The CCRI aims to support Europe’s green transition by boosting circularity at local and regional level. In order to build capacity and drive economic growth, it works to increase collaboration and knowledge sharing between EU cities and regions. The CCRI also aims to boost innovation and upscaling, which are essential for making the circular economy more widespread and mainstream. Delivering concrete solutions can prove challenging, given that economic sectors, value chains and services vary greatly across Europe’s cities and regions. The CCRI therefore aims to share replicable best practices to help cities and regions find concrete Circular Systemic Solutions (CSS) that suit their own needs.

THE CCRI COORDINATION AND SUPPORT OFFICE

The CCRI Coordination and Support Office (CCRI-CSO) is the heart of CCRI and supports the overall implementation of its activities. ACR+ is part the consortium which will implement the CCRI-CSO for the duration of the project. Over the course of four years, CCRI-CSO will provide practical and tailor-made support to a group of circular cities, regions and territorial clusters to develop Circular Systemic Solutions (CSS), with a multidisciplinary team of experts in the field of circular economy.

CIRCULAR SYSTEMIC SOLUTIONS

A Circular Systemic Solution (CSS) is a project aiming to achieve an overall net sustainability-added-value in a local context by applying innovative circular models. Several CSS can make part of a Circular Economy Action Plan. They are systemic in a sense that they involve different actors and value chains, address a variety of circularity issues and consider all causal factors that may enable or hinder a transition towards circular economy at the local level. Circular Systemic Solutions should address the major challenge of effectively applying the circular economy concept beyond resource management and recovery in the waste and water sectors.

Activities

The CCRI-CSO will provide tailored support a Pilot group of twelve cities, regions and territorial clusters to improve their Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) and Circular Economy Investment Plan (CEIP) and focusses on the implementation of their Circular Systemic Solutions (CSS). The CCRI-CSO will furthermore facilitate cooperation, synergies and complementarities between these cities, regions and territorial clusters. A second group, the Fellows made up of 25 cities, regions and territorial clusters, will cooperate and exchange with the Pilot group, experts and other CCRI projects. The CCRI-CSO will collect relevant knowledge and lessons learned from their activities for further dissemination, communication and awareness raising activities.

ACR+ is involved in many activities of the project. Mainly ACR+ is leading the thematic working group on Circular Resource Management with a number of cities, regions and territorial clusters with a shared interest in the following topics: reuse/repair initiatives, circular public procurement and managing textile flows. Further, ACR+ is accompanying two Pilot cities, Helsinki-Uusimaa and Capannori in their journey to design and implement CSS. All CCRI–CSO activities emphasise learning from each other and creating synergies between the ongoing projects and initiatives.

Get involved!

Cities, regions and territorial clusters from the 27 Member States of the European Union and to Horizon 2020 Associated partners can join the CCRI community in many ways.

In general, every city, region or territorial cluster can be part of the CCRI community by subscribing to the CCRI newsletter. The newsletter will inform you about upcoming events and news that might be of interest to cities and regions who want to move forward in the field of circular economy implementation on local and regional scale.

The initiative is entering its second year with lots of activities already carried out such as Needs Assessment of Pilots and Fellow cities selected to participate in the initiative, webinars on topics related to circular economy and creation of four Thematic Working Groups. ACR+ is leading one of them, focusing on Circular Resource Management. It gathers CCRI stakeholders, experts as well as cities and regions working on topics such as circular public procurement, reuse/repair initiatives and material flows.