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sustainable built environment

The LIFE SMART Waste project – Smarter Regulation of Waste in Europe – set an innovative pan-European partnership between key bodies involved with addressing waste crime.

The project was funded under the LIFE+ programme and it runs from June 2014 until May 2020.

Highlights

During nearly six years, the LIFE SMART Waste project developed and demonstrated innovative ways of understanding, tackling and reducing the issue of waste crime. For an highlight of this work, read the project’s final newsletter featuring the Layman's report summarising LIFE SMART Waste’s work, results and recommendations; INTERPOL’s strategic analysis report on global plastic waste management; the project’s final conference… It also gives a glimpse of the capacity-building resources that can be used to help predict emerging criminality in waste markets, detect problematic waste operators and enable more effective collaboration to address waste crime. All the resources will be available on the project's website (until May 2025).

THE PROJECT IN BRIEF

THE PROJECT IN BRIEF

The goal of the LIFE SMART Waste project was to demonstrate innovative ways of understanding, tackling and reducing waste-related crime.

LIFE SMART Waste:

Developed innovative intelligence gathering and analytical approaches to identify and understand significant waste crime issues (current and future) associated with “challenging” waste streams, problem waste operators and illegal waste activities;
Targeted the environmental, social and economic problems created by waste crime;
Analysed and reported on the difficulties that enforcement agencies face in identifying, understanding and tackling waste crime;
Developed new and innovative ways of working to ultimately reduce the impact of waste crime in European states.

A Layman's report, suitable for both technical and non-technical audiences, summarises the work, results and recommendations of the LIFE SMART Waste project.

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH AT WORK

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH AT WORK

The project developed, tested and applied new and modern ways of working, and demonstrated direct interventions to assess and target illegality in waste streams. The innovative aspect lied in the “collaborative approach”, where environmental bodies set intelligence and investigatory objectives using common tools around shared areas of concern, then together identify and tackle illegality.

For certain interventions, collaborations involved non-environmental bodies, such as the police, customs or financial authorities.

RECOMMENDATIONS

RECOMMENDATIONS

The project’s findings led to a number of recommendations that could assist EU Member States and UK administrations with efforts to address and reduce waste crime. Key themes for the project’s recommendations are: Mandatory electronic waste tracking; Consistent waste carrier registration requirements; and Consolidation of enforcement best practice.

A brochure summarises the recommendations, together with the project’s objectives and outputs.

The detailed recommendations are gathered in three reports providing context and justifications for the project’s recommendations at EU, national (UK) and local (Scotland) levels.

They are available only upon request to policy makers, legislators and other interested parties. To access these resources, please e-mail Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser..

REPORT ON GLOBAL PLASTIC WASTE

REPORT ON GLOBAL PLASTIC WASTE

INTERPOL published an open-source strategic analysis report on global plastic waste management that highlights an alarming increase in illegal plastic pollution trade across the world since 2018.

Funded by the LIFE SMART Waste project, the report indicates that there has been a considerable increase over the past two years in illegal waste shipments, primarily rerouted to South-East Asia via multiple transit countries to camouflage the origin of the waste shipment.

RESOURCES

RESOURCES

Key resources developed by the project are available until May 2025 on the project’s website.

In particular, the LIFE SMART Waste's capacity-building resources can be used to help predict emerging criminality in waste markets, detect problematic waste operators and enable more effective collaboration to address waste crime.

The project’s work is explained also through videos, available here. A video of the final conference is also available.

PARTNERS

The DECISIVE project – A DECentralised management Scheme for Innovative Valorisation of urban biowastE – aimed to help with the reform of urban waste management systems for our ever-growing cities and populations.

Project co-funded by the European Commission, under the Horizon 2020 programme. 2016 - 2020

Highlights

The DECISIVE final conference took place in September 2020, the developers and practitioners of the DECISIVE scheme for decentralised biowaste management shared their experiences, conclusions and suggestion for the way forward. One way of learning more on DECISIVE is to watch the series of webinars.

THE PROJECT

THE PROJECT

This project aimed to alter the current urban metabolism for organic matter, energy and biowaste, to a more circular economic model and to assess the impacts of these changes on the whole waste management cycle.

The project thus contributed to change the management of urban organic material fluxes from a linear paradigm (import of goods without thoughtful interaction between external, peri- and intra-urban area, consumption, external disposal of waste) to a circular paradigm. It helped moving waste management towards a "Zero-Waste" strategy and to achieve the objectives of the European Resource Efficiency Roadmap.

ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITIES

The objective of the DECISIVE project was to demonstrate the ability to decrease the generation of urban waste (from household or assimilated) and increase recycling and recovery by focusing efforts on decentralised management and valorisation of the organic fraction of waste, i.e. biowaste, in a short cycle.

The consortium developed new processes allowing to treat municipal bio-waste in urban and peri-urban context, namely micro-scale anaerobic digestion units allowing to treat the bio-waste production of a district and solid stade fermentation plants to produce valuable bioproducts out of the micro-AD’s digestate.

PARTNERS INVOLVED

PARTNERS INVOLVED

DECISIVE’s project coordinator was Irstea (Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l’environnement et agriculture, FR) and its project partners were:

Aeris, Aeris Tecnologías Ambientales S.L. (ES)
ARC*, Agencia de Residus de Catalunya (ES)
AU, Aarhus Universitet (DK)
ENT*, Fundació ENT (ES)
GEOMAR, Helmholtz Zentrum Fur Ozeanforschung Kiel (DE)
ACR+, Association of Cities and Regions for Sustainable Resource Management (BE)
ITS, Innovative Technological Systems SRL (IT)
PSUtec, PSUtec SPRL (BE)
Refarmers (FR)
SE*, SUEZ Environnement (FR)
TUHH, Technische Universitaet Hamburg-Harburg (DE)
UAB, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (ES)
* ACR+ member

The C ircul ar Europe Network (CEN) is a specific initiative on circular economy launched by ACR+ in order to support local and regional authorities in being ambitious on circular economy and will, therefore, support and help them to adopt aspiring circular economy strategies.

Highlights

As part of the Coordination Group of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ECESP), and more specifically as leader of a Leadership Group dedicated to Cities and Regions, ACR+ has been actively involved in the organisation of the Platform’s annual conference, which took place online on 3 and 4 November. In particular, ACR+ co-organised two workshops on the second day of the conference, in cooperation with some of its members and other ECESP partners.

THE PROJECT

THE PROJECT

The Circular Europe Network is a specific working group on circular economy planning which gathers ACR+ members committed to improve their resource strategies and strengthen the sustainable development of their territory.

The Circular Europe Network builds on the expertise of European front runners within the ACR+ network in order to gather, analyse and exchange information on efficient circular economy strategies implemented by cities and regions.

Based on ACR+ vision for circular economy, the Circular Europe Network aims to work on the priorities defined by its members, delivering methodological tools and access to good practices on those priorities.

ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITIES

The Circular Europe Network offers access to factsheets focusing on the governance of local or regional circular economy strategies, as well as the different instruments and actions implemented on this territory.

In addition, the Circular Europe Network delivered guidelines on circular economy planning that aim to clarify the circular economy concept and to propose key steps and elements to include in a local or regional circular economy strategy.

This general guidance material is followed and progressively complemented by sectorial guidelines focusing on public procurement, sustainable food and sustainable construction

Interested in joining the Circular Europe Network? It is simple, become an ACR+ member and benefit from the CEN work and results!

More information:

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The LIFE TACKLE project – Teaming-up for A Conscious Kick for the Legacy of Environment – aimed to increase the awareness and to improve the practices of sports events key actors in order to improve waste management during football events.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s LIFE programme under grant agreement LIFE17 GIE/IT/000611 TACKLE. 2018 - 2021

Highlights
The LIFE TACKLE event organised by ACR+ and EURACTIV, presented the project’s achievements in Roi Baudouin stadium, one of the project’s the 11 pilot stadiums, and open the doors to future collaborations and follow up of the project. The event highlighted the new waste management plan at Roi Baudouin stadium and which is one of the outcomes of the TACKLE activities in Brussels.

THE PROJECT

THE PROJECT

The main objective of TACKLE was to increase awareness and to improve the practices of sports events key actors in order to improve waste management during football events.

Grounding on the shortcomings that characterise the current governance of these sports events, in order to prevent and reduce waste production during football matches, the project focused its activities on the whole sports event life cycle (conception, organisation, staging, closure).

ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITIES

Best practices on waste management during sports events were collected, assessed and tested aiming to realise guidelines as the basis for the awareness actions. The project engaged all the relevant contractors in enduring efforts to prevent and reduce waste during football matches (e.g. food and beverages providers, stadium cleaning operators, tickets sellers etc.). Within National Football Associations (NFAs), adequate competences and organisational structures were developed to guide the diffusion of best practices in the related football leagues and stadiums.

Project activities and results were replicated in non-participating NFAs through the establishment of a specific Replicability Management Board (RMB) coordinated by UEFA.

PARTNERS INVOLVED

PARTNERS INVOLVED

LIFE TACLE’s project coordinator was SSSA (Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento Sant’Anna, IT) and its project partners were:

ACR+, Association of Cities and Regions for Sustainable Resource Management (BE)
AMIU*, Azienda Multiservizi d’Igiene Urbana Genova SpA (IT)
FIGC, Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (IT)
EURACTIV, EURACTIV.COM PLC (BE)
Municipality of Heraklion (GR)
FRF, Federatia Româna de Fotbal (RO)
LIPOR*, Servicio intermunicipalizado de gestao de residuos do grande Porto (PT)
SvFF, Svenska Fotbollförbundet (SE)
* ACR+ member

LIFE FUTURE – Sustainable Urban FUrniTURE: Tool design to perform environmental assessments in the green procurement framework – was a 2.5 year European project that started in 2015, co-funded with support from the LIFE financial instrument of the European Union. It was led by a consortium of 6 partners, including ACR+, representing both public authorities and research institutes.

Project co-funded by the European Commission under the LIFE+ programme, 2015 - 2018.

Highlights

Did you know that the GUF Tool has been used for real green public procurement? In València (Spain), 71 benches were bought after a tender generated with the GUF Tool. Similarly, Koprivnica (Croatia) purchased with the GUF Tool 2 benches, 3 flower pots, and 2 waste bins.

The GUF Tool is now open and available to all. Public authorities, manufacturers can use it to make their own tender or submit environmentally friendly products.

TO THE GUF TOOL

THE PROJECT

THE PROJECT

LIFE FUTURE project involved the development and validation of the GUF Tool, which is an online tool to support public bodies on the decision making related to the purchase of more environmentally friendly urban furniture.

LIFE FUTURE aimed to promote green public procurement, focusing on the urban furniture sector. The project allowed to overcome the difficulties encountered by persons in charge of public procurement procedures when they have to include environmental clauses in call for tenders and assess the offers received, due to their limited knowledge on environmental matters.

METHODOLOGY

METHODOLOGY

The following actions have been carried out during the project:

Technical updating to identify the legislation in force and to collect environmental information available for urban furniture;
Identification of the products of interest falling under the category of “urban furniture”;
Development of a database with green public purchase criteria and environmental profiles for these urban furniture products;
Graphical design and functionalities implementation of the GUF Tool;
Developing an environmental assessment multiple criteria decision-making method for obtaining single scores to evaluate award criteria for green public procurement using TOPSIS;
Demonstration and validation of the tool through virtual and real tenders: benches and play-grounds were the selected products for the virtual tendering process.

OUTCOMES

OUTCOMES

The main result of the project is the GUF Tool. However, other documents have been produced during the project:

It has been showed that the project had positive environmental impact, with a reduction of waste generated and a contribution to decrease global warming. It also had positive socio-economic impacts as the tender generated by the GUF Tool should aim to minimize the impact produced by the transport and distribution of urban furniture products which means that local businesses are favoured. Some of the social impacts are directly targeted by tenders, such as the participation of companies that could employ disabled persons or the fight against illiteracy.

THE GUF TOOL

THE GUF TOOL

The GUF Tool is an online tool to support public bodies on the decision making related to the purchase of more environmentally friendly urban furniture. It guides users throughout the whole tender process, from the generation of the environmental requirements that they must include in the call for public tenders to the comparative environmental assessment of the products offered by different suppliers.

It offers two levels of bidding:

“Silver GUF”: for public administrations willing to merely perform a Green Public Procurement process. The products offered by suppliers only need to comply with the selected mandatory “Specifications” criteria for being accepted in the bidding process.
“Gold GUF”: for public administrations that want to show a higher level of environmental commitment in the Green Public Procurement process. In addition to fulfil the mandatory “Specifications” criteria, products offered by suppliers are environmentally scored and compared to others using voluntary “Awards” criteria. The results of this comparison allow public administrators to identify those products with better environmental performance.

A video-tutorial on “How to use the GUF TOOL” is also available online.

PARTNERS

More information:
https://life-future-project.eu

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