Two Interreg projects focus on the circular economy and support CCRI regions, namely Castilla y León in Spain and Guimarães in Portugal. The first project, ‘Circular Challenge’ aims to provide services to SMEs and promote entrepreneurship to create new circular economy business models. The second, ‘Circular Ecosystems’, aims to develop governance models for circular systemic solutions designed within the CCRI methodology framework.

Transitioning to a circular economy can present many challenges. Urban planning for the circular economy requires rethinking infrastructure, and municipal waste management requires companies to develop new ways of working to reuse and recover resources.

By providing a framework for enabling cities and regions to work together, these projects help to solve the logistical problems involved.

The Circular Challenge project aims to provide services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to promote circular entrepreneurship, assessing the region’s existing resources and industrial needs.

The project helps companies by analysing resource efficiency, developing circular transition plans and creating innovative business models.

To do so, SMEs can use the project’s newly developed Material Flow Analysis (MFA) tool. This free resource simplifies the complex ‘material flow methodology’ and helps SMEs analyse their circular productive model.

With it, companies can gain quantifiable and objective data in their initial analysis before work has been done to test the circular models in practice. The tool allows circular processes to be more efficient and can save companies money in the starting stages.

As Interreg-Poctep spans regions across Spain and Portugal, the CCRI region Castilla y León in Spain has developed methodologies for training workshops, supporting the activities developed by other project Partners, especially in those that have taken place in Castilla y León.

Run by the Natural Heritage Foundation of Castilla y León, specific activities included an Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) workshop focused on phosphorus recovery, which regional companies and stakeholders attended.

The ‘Phosphorus Hub’ established in the event will continue working on phosphorus recovery, an issue that has been identified as strategic for the region as part of the food-water-nutrients circular systemic solution of Castilla y León.

Circular Challenge aims to develop the ‘industrial symbiosis’ project of three industrial estates in Castilla y León, which involves identifying waste and unused by-products and sharing them so that they can be reused by other industries instead of critical raw materials.

The objective of this pilot project is to firstly assess the needs of companies and the by-products or waste on offer, and secondly to get them to agree to collaborate through resource sharing. The project has developed a methodology to create the pilot industrial symbiosis plans using the MFA tool to do so.

With data collected, Castilla y León can identify industrial symbiosis opportunities and analyse the viability of success.

Interreg-Poctep’s second project, ‘Circular Ecosystems’, aims to accelerate the transition to zero waste, eliminating pollution problems caused by waste in different value chains.

Jesús Ángel Díez Vázquez, Programme Director of the Natural Heritage Foundation for the Castilla y León, said: “The value of the project is in replicating the CCRI governance model of a circular economy transition based on systemic solutions to other cities and regions that are not current participants of the Initiative.”

The methodology phase allows partners to share experiences and address barriers through peer-to-peer learning. As Jesús explained: “Both the city of Guimarães and the region of Castilla y León are part of the CCRI as Pilots and the city of Matosinhos as a Fellow. But thanks to this project, it has been possible to disseminate the CCRI methodology to other cities (Valladolid) and provinces (Ávila and Ourense) in Spain.”

As an example of the types of ‘Circular Ecosystems’ produced under the project, Castilla y León is implementing a pilot project in the food-water-nutrients value chain, turning used coffee grounds collected from restaurants into substrate to grow mushrooms.

After three harvests, the coffee substrate has completed its nutrient cycle and a natural symbiosis in the growth of the mushrooms changes the coffee grounds into valuable compost.

In a similar way, the pilot has also implemented a community composting programme, enabling the transformation of organic residue into fertiliser. Each added-value product produced by the project (mushrooms, compost and fertiliser) reduces biowaste in the region and helps create a closed loop system that recovers nutrients and avoids other traditional organic waste treatments like burning, reducing air pollution.

In summary, the Circular Challenge project has enabled SMEs across Spain and Portugal to speed up their circular production processes and create material flow methodologies through the MFA tool, transforming waste into valuable resources and fostering a circular economy.

Through systemic solutions and peer-to-peer learning, the Circular Ecosystems project not only addresses environmental issues but also spreads the innovative governance framework to non-CCRI regions, showcasing the potential for widespread adoption of the CCRI’s methodology and ethos.

As Jesús concluded, “The CCRI methodology is the core of the project. It allows the consortium to have a common governance framework and clearly determine the steps to achieve the practical application of the Circular Systematic Solution concept working on strategic value chains.”