CIRCUMAT workshop: Building a regional circular economy
On the 4th of December the Circu-MAT workshop was held, during which practitioners and policy makers could experience the importance and possible uses of circular material databases and tools, such as the ones developed during the Circu-MAT project.
As part of the Circu-MAT project, two of these tools are developed, which were the main topic of the workshop. The Matchmaking tool aims to connect different parties, which could benefit from one another's material inputs and outputs, thereby closing their respective material loops. After a short introduction on the circular economy in general, an introduction was given on this tool during the workshop to explain how it can be used in the future.
A tool that the attendees could experience first-hand was the online CircuMat tool. During an exercise the attending practitioners and policy makers could experience first-hand how this tool, which quantifies the effects policy changes will have on their economy and sustainability, could help them work towards a circular economy.
Not only did this allow the attendees the opportunity to use this tool, it also gave the Circu-MAT team valuable input on how to further develop the tool and make it more practically applicable.
In the future more of these workshops will be held and there is also the possibility of further cooperation in the form of applying this tool to specific scenario analyses. You can experience the power of this tool yourself by going to the Circu-MAT website.
On CIRCUMAT
The CIRCUMAT project aims to helps actors related to cities or city regions in Europe to identify the characteristics of the regions, their consumption and production activities and their relation to the environmental and economic indicators. CIRCUMAT introduces the fundamentals of environmental and economic analyses to the regional practitioners and gives them the eye openers to better understand their region, the sectors in order to assess the priority and the potential for ‘circular’ policies.
CIRCUMAT is financed by EIT Raw Materials, an EU supported programme. The vision of the EIT RawMaterials is to develop economies related to raw materials into a major strength for Europe. Its mission is to boost competitiveness and quality of life through for instance new educational approaches and guided entrepreneurship. The RawMaterials Academy is one of the four centres of activity of the EIT that help realize this vision.