BIOCIRCULARCITIES aims at supporting the development of innovative and comprehensive regulatory frameworks and roadmaps aligned with circular bioeconomy principles, centred on ‘bio-based waste’ and based on feedback from multi-actor participatory processes. The project has been designed to i) explore the circular economy potential of unexploited bio-based waste streams generated in 3 European urban contexts around the cities of Barcelona (ES), Naples (IT) and Pazardzhik (BG); ii) identify and analyse circular bioeconomy best practices across the EU that could be used as successful example to use in the pilot areas; iii) detect regulatory and business opportunities and shortcomings for the introduction of bio-based processes and products into local and international markets, and iv) propose proactive instruments and policy roadmaps for supporting the circular bioeconomy and expand it to the European context. The strength of the project lies in the capability to bring together multiple actors belonging to the quadruple helix (businesses, research institutions, public authorities and civil society) to build the collaborative knowledge needed to map the different perspectives about legal and market limits/potentials for developing circular bioeconomy. Having a holistic picture of the legal and market opportunities and barriers in the 3 case study areas will make it possible to check the applicability of the identified best practices and other feasible solutions. The fiscal and economic impact due to the introduction of specific regulations will be considered to foresee the investments needed to support industry in making changes towards a more circular use of bioresources. Results obtained at local level will be a source of contents to develop generic guidelines to be exploited and further developed through communication, dissemination and exploitation actions at local and international levels.

The growing attractiveness of cities leads to increasing population, thus rising energetic and food demands in urban areas. This makes urban waste management increasingly challenging, both in terms of logistics and environmental or health impacts. To decrease the cities’ environmental impacts and to contribute to a better resilience of urban areas towards energy or food supply crisis, waste management systems have to be improved to increase recycling of resources and local valorization. In this context, the DECISIVE project proposes to change the present urban metabolism for organic matter (foods, plants, etc.), energy and biowaste to a more circular economy and to assess the impacts of these changes on the whole waste management cycle. Thus, the challenge will be to shift from a urban “grey box”, implying mainly goods importation and extra-urban waste management, to a cooperative organization of intra- and peri-urban networks enabling circular local and decentralised valorization of biowaste, through energy and bioproducts production. Such a new waste management paradigm is expected to increase the sustainability of urban development by: (1) promoting citizens awareness about waste costs and values; (2) promoting renewable energy production and use in the city; (3) developing an industrial ecology approach that can promote the integration between urban and peri-urban areas, by providing valuable agronomic by-products for urban agriculture development and so improving the balance of organic products and waste in the city; (4) developing new business opportunities and jobs. In order to achieve these objectives, the project DECISIVE will develop and demonstrate, at real scale, eco-innovative solutions addressed to waste operators and public services, consisting in: (1) a decision support tool to plan, design and assess efficient decentralised management networks for biowaste in urban areas; (2) eco-designed solid-state fermentation processes. Moreover in parallel of real scale demonstration sites, an eco-designed new micro-anaerobic digestion process will be developed and tested.

The construction sector is responsible for over 35% of the EU’s total waste generation, and accounts for about 50% of all extracted resources and an estimated at 5-12% of total GHG emissions. WOODCIRCLES will contribute significantly to decreasing these numbers by developing innovative circular solutions for sustainable wood construction to help reduce Europe’s dependence on non-renewable resources, cut GHG emissions, reduce waste generation, and offer long-term carbon sinks and substitution of fossil-based and carbon-intensive products. WOODCIRCLES will combine the considerable innovation power of the expert consortium consisting of key stakeholders from all parts of the value chain to release the full circular and sustainable potential of wood construction. Based on identified needs and market potentials, the consortium will develop new value-added value chains for upcycling of wood waste materials and optimized design-for-disassembly building system solutions to significantly increase recycling rates of wood in construction. An ‘Urban Sawmill’ sorting and production facility capable of turning in-homogenous low value wood construction waste into a standardized homogenous value-added, cost-effective baseline product, will be prototyped. WOODCIRCLES will integrate digital tools and solutions in all developments and create digital twins for the large-scale, real-life demonstrators – the Urban Sawmill and the building system prototypes to demonstrate the benefits of digital technology for circular construction. Active involvement of partner cities and their building ecosystems through technical and thematic co-engagement activities will increase deployment. All developed materials, components and system prototypes will be demonstrated, piloted and fully documented – including sustainability assessment – for immediate market uptake. Based on developments, recommendations for new or updated European harmonised technical specifications and Eurocodes will be provided.