Joining The European Circular Cities And Regions Initiative

A new tool is born to help European Union in his way towards climate neutrality. It is called the European Circular Cities and Regions Initiative and Agro2Circular is part of that.

Agro2Circular is now part of the European Circular Cities and Regions Initiative. This initiative was launched by the European Union as part of the Circular Economy Action Plan and focuses on the implementation of a circular economy across Europe’s cities and regions.

One of the most ambitious objectives of the European Union is to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. It may seem a goal distant in time, but it is not. Europe needs to rethink its economy and production system to reduce its emissions and environmental impact to achieve complete neutrality.

To reach this goal, this new EU initiative is targeting European cities and regions and supporting them in improving circularity in their economic sectors, value chains, and services. However, many cities and regions already started their path toward a circular and more sustainable economy before the European Circular Cities and Regions Initiative was created. These communities have been integrated into the European initiative as pilots.

There are 12 pilots involved in the European Circular Cities and Regions Initiatives and they all show high circularity potential. Their innovations will be replicated by the 25 fellows to drive Europe’s circular economy transition.

In this plan, there is room also for research and innovation projects, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, that generate innovative knowledge, create specific skills, and demonstrate systemic solutions. Agro2Circular became one of these projects in November 2022 because of its circular approach to the food and vegetable residues sector.

Agro2Circular will develop the first recycling value chain for post-industrial multilayer films based on a synergistic approach. At the same time, the project also tackles the upcycling of fruit and vegetable waste through advanced extraction techniques. The third pillar of Agro2Circular is to address the lack of digitalisation in the agri-food sector. To solve this problem the project will employ a Data Integration System as a digital tool to ensure traceability and as a predictive decision tool.