Boosting Circular Economy Innovation through emerging technologies application

ongoing

While policymakers are yet to actively link digitalisation with wider sustainability efforts when developing policies and financing projects, there is a growing need to align the circular and digital agendas. The Green Deal recognises that circular economy and strong involvement from industry is central to making the EU’s economy sustainable. Digitalization is a driving force behind a number of industries. Circular economy, on the other hand, aims at optimizing resource use within industries. There is a clear connection between these two trends, and in order to accelerate change towards a sustainable circular economy, further coordination is needed. Digitalization can help drive this transition towards circular business. Regions can benefit from exploring and copying digital innovators' achievements, deploying supportive incentive and financing schemes to uphold the implementation of digital innovations in CE thus boosting the change toward more circularity in regions to reach EU's 2050 targets, while ensuring sustainable future. The project aims at improving policies for easing and speeding up the twin transition to ensure that Green Growth and Digital Transformation go hand in hand to drive regions’ recovery and prosperity. It will focus at enhancing policies conditions in 9 countries for boosting the application of emerging digital innovations to support the growth of circular economy at regional,local or national level, gathering expertise from different regions, different levels' policymakers and leading innovation ecosystems' actors. The project will investigate and test approaches and tools to assess, strengthen and support both regional digital and circular innovation ecosystems in non-metropolitan,rural and emerging regions in Europe. It will explore, cross-fertilise, select and adapt for transfer the best-fit intervention approaches for addressing the identified challenges through digital innovations in circular economy, serving as a model to be followed.

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