Asker aims to develop a holistic system enabling different municipal departments to reuse materials for circular construction that works. Asker has created a storage facility and an online marketplace for circular materials, which enables material reuse and therefore limits CO2 emissions by reducing transportation and decreasing consumption of new materials.

Similarly, Tampere Region aims to change linear operational models to circular ones focused on sustainable housebuilding, infrastructure and industrial material flows. The region works to improve circularity at strategic, ecosystem-development and operational levels through its publicly owned circular economy development centre, ‘Kiertotalous Pirkanmaa’ or ‘Circular Pirkanmaa’.

However, Asker’s reuse centre and Tampere Region’s Circular Pirkanmaa faced similar issues with logistics, profitability and demand for reused construction materials across the municipalities’ circular construction value chains.

The Tampere Region consulted the CCRI to find out what kind of improvements could be made to help them improve circular building (infrastructure and housebuilding) and industrial material flows.

In their respective final reports, the scheme identified 8 recommendations for Asker and 11 recommendations for Tampere Region.

Although the CCRI’s additional support was targeted directly at the Pilots’ respective local challenges, many of the recommendations can be applied in other CCRI city and regional authorities across Europe.

Read on to discover these replicable recommendations!

The support guidance advised Asker to:

• Establish a task force to mandate for the reuse of construction materials.
• Establish infrastructure to store these materials.
• Set goals and value propositions for the reuse of construction materials, including KPIs for environmental and social metrics like CO2, waste quantity, inclusion, basic education, and more.
• To further develop the circular economy, use procurement as a strategic tool to increase material reuse.
• Establish a plan for getting as many as possible to use reusable material marketplaces like ‘Loopfront’ to save on costs, CO2, and waste.

These align strongly with the recommendations to Tampere Region, which should:

• Annually review the effectiveness and value proposition of Circular Pirkanmaa’s key themes of infrastructure building, housebuilding, and industrial material flows.
• Continue to assess if these priority themes should be changed if Circular Pirkanmaa’s activities expand to a wider area.
• Actively seek project funding for emerging circular economy themes so the industry can continue to develop.

The guidance recommended Asker should:

• Create learning programmes to improve competency on reuse and the circular economy.
• Build a culture of collaboration and co-creation by ensuring knowledge sharing and consistent testing throughout the value chain.
• Be transparent and communicate early with reuse mapping reports.

Similarly, the scheme emphasised transparency for Tampere Region, recommending they:

• Clearly communicate the concrete benefits of services and ensure customer needs are met.
• Clearly package its key activities and services to make Circular Pirkanmaa’s value more tangible and apparent to customers.
• Strengthen the circular economy network by identifying new partners and clients.
• Use AI tools to identify customers’ needs, personalise services to them and develop future operating models.

A few recommendations given to Tampere Region focused on ways to ensure that Circular Pirkanmaa delivers long-term results for the circular economy through sensible financial sustainability plans.

These included that Circular Pirkanmaa should:

• Review its current fixed and variable costs using historical and zero-based budgeting.
• Assess if membership network fees are still useful as a source of income.
• Even if these fees are useful, consider defining target ratios for other revenue streams and monitor them to ensure a stable funding base.
• Provide core funding to ensure continuity of activities, including circular economy strategies as a service, and enable long-term development of the region’s circular economy. This core funding model could include providing circular economy strategies to all of Tampere Regions’ municipalities and other relevant regional stakeholders as standard.

The circular economy expert guidance to CCRI Pilots has now concluded.

Pilots could apply for free, tailored advisory guidance from external experts, which included investment and financial assistance, regulatory support, theme-specific capacity development and knowledge transfer support, technology-related advice, public procurement, and more.

Are you interested in receiving project development assistance, financial support, or advisory services to advance circular practices in your city or region? CCRI support services exist to help you!

Explore the CCRI Support Compass today to discover all of the support the CCRI offers!