Within the framework of the 19th European Week of Regions and Cities different tools supporting the transition towards more circular economy have been presented.

The circular benchmark tool has been developed within the framework of the Interreg Europe project REPLACE and targets mainly regions and public authorities. It is a practical instrument allowing regions to apply circular economy principles, to evaluate their own current performance and to look at what other regions are doing. Based on the six indicators, the tool tackles aspects such as circular procurement, access to funding, circular society and integrated policy framework, among others.

It is an easy-to-use self-assessment tool that facilitates cross-regional learning”, said Bart Volkers, Managing Consultant in Circular Economy at ProActBlue and partner in the INTERREG Europe REPLACE project.

The video recording from the session is available here.

In another session participants got insights into the EU-funded DigiPrime project that develops the concept of a circular economy digital platform aiming at creating circular business models based on the data-enhanced recovery and reuse of functions and materials. During the online session, the participants got a first glimpse of the platform services that support public authorities and SMEs in the transition towards a more circular economy.

Among the services presented during the session was a mapping tool that aims at identification of circular value chains at regional level. “By filling in this tool regional officers may obtain a dashboard showing a complete overview of the circular economy situation in their region”, said Carlo Polidori, Project Manager, Veltha ivzw - International Not for Profit organization, Belgium. “They will also get notifications on possible regional and cross-regional circular value chains”, he added. Thanks to that, a list of potential synergies can be identified between regions and actors at the level of sectors and value chains.

You can watch the recording of this session on #EURegionsWeek official website.