After the Action Plan has been signed by the Mayor of the Municipality of Kozani, the implementation of the Actions has started and the first year activities have been developed according to timeline. The Action Plan for Circular Economy of the Municipality of Kozani is consisted from three actions:
Action 1: Development of human resources competences on elaborating Green Public Procurement
Action 2: Support for the development of collaborations in circular economy and industrial co-operation
Action 3: Mitigation of Actions for the National Fair Transition Fund
For Action 1 we started by organizing 3 closed workshops with employees from different departments of the Municipality who work on procurements, so as to explain to them the scope of the action and to agree which products and services will be used as pilot procurements for achieving the final targets. After the meetings we decided to proceed with preparing Green Public Procurements for (a) gardening machinery, (b) forestry machinery, (c) textiles and (d) street lighting. Afterwards, by taking into account the European specifications and the conclusions of consultation workshops/seminars with suppliers, two of the four Green Public Procurements have been completed and will be replicated in the end of 2020. Also, together with other public authorities (local Ministry of Forestry, geotechnical chamber and others) we have expressed our interest to the Training Institute of Local Administration in participating to a series of courses on Green Public Procurements. The Training Institute answered positively and has included a new course of seminars on this topic at its official programme and the first seminar will be organized in September 2020.
For Action 2 we have decided to organize close business briefing meetings concentrating on two issues: (a) the organization of a co-operation group concerning the management of gardening and wood by-products and (b) the organization of a co-operation regarding the management of Excavation Construction & Demolition Wastes.
So far we had the necessary meetings regarding the management of gardening and wood by-products with (a) the Municipality gardening services, (b) the supplying enterprises of gardening services and (c) Waste Management Company of Western Macedonia (Photo 1). During the meetings all the involved parts were informed about the targets of the Action Plan and a recording of opinions on practical issues such as an initial estimation of produced by-products, necessary procedures and needed infrastructure for managing the by-products and the necessary procedures for recording and counting results. They were also informed about the match-making platform created by the Waste Management Company of Western Macedonia and the necessary steps for registering in and using the platform were presented.
For Action 3 a Municipality internal meeting took place, in which the Directory of Environment and the Development and Planning Bureau participated (Photo 2). During the meeting the main problem encountered for the implementation of the action, the delay of the opening of the National Fair Transition Fund for proposals was discussed. Also, ideas of the proposals on circular economy were discussed. Finally it was decided to start searching for other available financing tools and to conduct stakeholders for sharing ideas and start preparing the proposals.
