New circular economy knowledge hub set to guide European cities and regions

The K-CCRI project, launched in January, aims to set up a knowledge hub to help cities and regions to adopt the circular economy.

It comes as part of the European Union's efforts to bring together research and innovation projects that share the same vision over climate change, pollution, soil consumption, and loss of biodiversity.

The global economy is only 7.2% circular today, so the transition to a circular economy has become a central feature of the EU's policy agenda. However, the transition is slow, and big differences exist across member states and sectors. Although some of these are already experiencing the circular economy, many practices are still limited in scale, depth, and speed of adoption.

"We look forward to helping European cities and regions to turn to circular principles. To do this, K-CCRI will set up a knowledge hub that draws on the insights and experience of existing circular economy initiatives and projects."—stated the project's coordinator Mireia Ferri from the Spanish partner Kveloce (an international consultancy firm specialised in research, development, and innovation).

The overall aim is to make the European Commission's Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) have greater impact. More specifically, the project's goal is to overcome technical, policy, knowledge, and business barriers to the adoption of the circular economy. Easy access to systematised workable knowledge, tailored mentoring, and awareness-raising are the three principles on which K-CCRI bases its action.

K-CCRI's consortium of 12 partners seeks to achieve these goals by enlarging the stakeholder network and bringing together the knowledge and critical mass already developed. This will involve the project partners working closely with the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative.

In doing so, communication and dissemination of the project's activities will be crucial, as stated by ICONS Project Management Officer, Marcello Bardellini: "With K standing for Knowledge, our role in KCCRI is to enhance the impact of systemic circular economy solutions through targeted science communication formats, spreading tangible knowledge and solutions for further replication in other EU cities and regions".

Contacts:
Project coordinator:

Mireia Ferri

Kveloce
mferri@kveloce.com

Communication Project Management Officer:

Marcello Bardellini

ICONS Foundation
marcello.bardellini@icons.it

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