New CICERONE report aims to help European stakeholders approach circular economy systemically
CICERONE, a Horizon 2020 project coordinated by Climate KIC whose mission is to bring national, regional and local governments together to jointly tackle the circular economy transition, has published the new Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda (SRIA) on Circular Economy.
Global consumption of materials such as biomass, fossil fuels, metals and minerals is expected to double in the next forty years, while annual waste generation is projected to increase by 70 per cent by 2050. Moreover, half of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and more than 90 per cent of biodiversity loss and water stress come from resource extraction and processing.
Circular economy is a system that leverages reuse, sharing, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling to create a closed-loop system, minimising raw material extraction as well as waste, pollution and GHG emissions.
It’s a major component of the European Green Deal, as detailed in European Commission’s Circular Economy Action Plan published earlier this year: “Scaling up the circular economy… will make a decisive contribution to achieving climate neutrality by 2050.”
CICERONE’s SRIA supports this aim by helping owners and funders of European circular economy programmes in aligning priorities and approaching the circular economy transition in a systemic way.
SRIA was developed based on eight priority themes (biomass and biotechnologies, chemicals, construction and demolition, food, plastic, raw materials, waste and water) and builds on four societal areas that face sustainability challenges (urban areas, industrial systems, value chains and territory and sea) to identify priority areas to tackle EU region-wide issues and facilitate the circular economy transition.
Based on the innovation priorities identified across Europe, four joint programmes were developed in the SRIA to support stakeholders with the design and implementation of systemic circular economy programmes:
- Circular Cities
- Circular Industries
- Closing the Loop
- Resource Efficiency on Territory & Sea