New EU-funded project targets organic, construction and demolition waste

As part of CityLoops, seven European cities are testing solutions to achieve material circularity

Over 30 new tools and processes that tackle eradication of construction and demolition waste and organic waste with the aim of achieving material circularity are being tested as part of CityLoops, a new EU-funded project that will run until September 2023.

The series of demonstration actions are piloted by seven European cities: Høje-Taastrup and Roskilde (Denmark), Mikkeli (Finland), Apeldoorn (the Netherlands), Bodø (Norway), Porto (Portugal) and Seville (Spain).

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) – including soil – and organic waste (OW) are two of the most significant urban material flows with a remarkable environmental impact in European cities. The CityLoops project will develop a series of innovative procedures, approaches and open access and open source tools to embed circularity within planning and decision-making processes for CDW and OW in cities. The ultimate goal is to drive the transition to a circular economy.  

The solutions and actions go from instruments for predicting future excavated CDW and soil production, to awareness-raising campaigns, circularity decision-making support tools, simulation of impacts 3D visualisation tools and procurement guidelines for OW products.

A sector-wide circularity assessment and an urban circularity assessment will be carried out in each of the cities.
Additionally, the seven demonstrator cities will explore how public sector purchases can create markets for innovative circular economy products and solutions – from more circular design and increasing the use of recycled content in products, to ensuring reparability, reuse and appropriate recycling of products and materials, and promoting servicisation models.

“CityLoops aims to provide a tested blueprint for promoting circularity which other local and regional governments across Europe can follow,” said Simon Clement, coordinator at ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, a city-network responsible for leading the CityLoops project.

Circular Cities Declaration

Political representatives from the demonstrator CityLoops cities, as well as from Vallès Occidental (Spain) – one of the ‘followers’ of the project together with Murcia (Spain) – have signed a ‘Circular Cities Declaration’. Through their signatures, they commit to enhancing the circular economy through policy and regulatory levers; to initiating a series of innovative pilot and demonstration activities to help identify the most promising solutions; to sharing knowledge with peers, and to building a wider circular cities coalition with key stakeholders and initiatives across Europe.