The first steps of the Circular Economy Partnership presented during the EUROCITIES Environmental Forum in Amsterdam

The Urban Agenda for the EU Partnership on Circular Economy presented its work on the last day of the EUROCITIES Environment Forum on 6 April 2018 in Amsterdam. Håkon Jentoft from Oslo, a city-coordinator of the Circular Economy Partnership and the Chair of the EUROCITIES WG waste presented Partnership’s activities and its action plan.

The Partnership on Circular Economy has reviewed the whole circle, starting with the extraction of raw material, design, production, transportation, consumption and finally the waste recycling with residues for final disposal. Eight actions are proposed touching upon some of the most important barriers and give pieces of advice for cities in their work towards a strategy for the circular economy. But how cities could find the information on a circular economy? Following two actions were presented:

The Circular City Portal action is a web-based portal that serves as a central point of access to information dedicated to the promotion of the circular economy in cities and that promotes the further development, dissemination and sharing of new bespoke information, tools and know-how by and between cities. The remaining questions are will cities use such a portal and who should host this portal and keep on alive?

The Collaborative Economy Knowledge Pack for cities action was presented by Jan Harko Post from The Hague, a city partner of the Circular Economy Partnership: “It’s broadening the concept of a collaborative economy to more social aspects of it. We want to see how collaborative economy has been used as a vehicle for the circular economy.” The collaborative economy has the potential to be a driving force or vehicle behind many Circular Economy initiatives, empowering circular consumption and CO2 reduction. It also fosters social cohesion and social inclusion.

The audience was expressing the concern of the possible bureaucratic and accessibility issues that might come in the way of the functionality of these action plan instruments (Circular City Portal). Also, it was noted that it is necessary to take into consideration the crosscutting links through the collaborative economy to create progress.

See the Circular Economy Partnership's presentation: