COLOR CIRCLE, a tool to accelerate the implementation of the regional circular economy roadmap in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region

The Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region has taken part in the COLOR Circle project to accelerate the implementation of its regional circular economy roadmap. The action plan aimed at helping research actors and local territories to connect and encouraging new circular economy projects to emerge using existing operational tools, such as the circular economy project booster (accélérateur à projets économie circulaire).

The action plan implementation indeed helped identifying local actors actively engaged in circular economy. These networking efforts resulted in 40 projects selected in the project accelerator involving research actors, and 9 new partnerships set up in the framework of the target sectors: low tech, sobriety, bulk, reused wood. In total, since it has been set up with in 2018 with the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME), the circular economy project booster supported 188 projects (46% from private companies and 31% from associations), with 38 million euros granted. The implementation of the action plan also emphasized the difficulties to match the different priorities and agendas of local partners, researchers and of the regional circular economy roadmap. It also raised the need to identify funding sources to encourage researchers to build new partnerships with local authorities, by securing emerging projects.

Finally, the region pursues its work with their local stakeholders, including NGOs, to boost the implementation of circular economy projects around the regional territory. The Region also works together with the Bourgogne Franche-Comté University to promote the development of new interfaces for dialogue between science, research, and territories. Both actors will be organizing in September the first edition of scientific-political cooperation workshops around waste valorization.