HOOP: Hub of Circular Cities Boosting Platform to Foster Investments for the Valorisation of Urban Biowaste and Wastewater

Context

In EU27, an average of 96 million tonnes of municipal bio-waste are generated yearly, from which only 33% is recycled and with 143 billion euros in associated costs only for food waste

These figures are far from the targets set by the European Commission. Moreover, current valorisation systems are characterized by low resource efficiency. This means that urban biowaste and wastewater are currently underused and useful resources are being lost.

Better waste management and the production of high value-added products at local level will produce environmental, economic, and social benefits.

Summary and objectives

The main objective of the HOOP project is to provide Project Development Assistance (PDA) to 8 “lighthouse” cities in order to build the technical, economic, financial and legal expertise needed to promote investments and bio-economy initiatives at a local level to obtain high value bio-products from wastewater and from the organic fraction of solid waste obtained at a municipal level. he development of technical assistance will be transformed, after four years of implementation, into investments estimated at 51.7 million euros in urban bioeconomy projects in the participating cities.

The project will also feature the HOOP Urban Circular Bioeconomy Hub, an online platform to demonstrate, replicate and transfer the models and experiences developed in the lighthouse cities in other follower cities.

HOOP continues the work of the VALUEWASTE, SCALIBUR and WaysTUP! projects and will incorporate the results of 15 ongoing pilot projects to produce bio-based products (proteins, lipids, chemicals, bioplastics and biopesticides). This will help lay the foundations for successful tendering, industrialisation, and production in the participating cities.

The project also includes a series of actions that contribute to the main objective:

• The creation and on-going consolidation of a procurers group who, pooling their needs and efforts, contribute to create a new EU market, breaking down the barriers to the adoption of innovative products and services in the field of Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) or Urban Waste Water Sludge (UWWS) and bio-based products.
• Promote engagement of quadruple helix stakeholders through the Biowaste Clubs in the lighthouse cities. HOOP will promote actions to guarantee stakeholder and community mobilization through engagement activities to ensure that all key local actors along the biowaste value chain work together to remove any barriers to local uptake of the new processes offered by HOOP.
• Guarantee a high impact through the replicability of the project actions by creating an extensive network of follower cities that will benefit from the HOOP actions and results to improve their Circular Economy Strategies.
• Develop the HOOP Circularity Label, as an instrument to understand cities’ current position and performance in regard to the implementation of circular measures at city level.

Consortium

The HOOP Consortium covers the whole value chain, from biowaste recovery to valorisation and characterization of the final products and unites complementary stakeholders with the deep multi-disciplinary knowledge crucial to PDA creation and the achievement of project objectives. It includes 23 partners from 10 EU member countries and brings together 6 SMEs, 2 large companies, 7 research organizations and 1 university.

Furthermore, the HOOP Consortium includes 8 municipalities/regions: Kuopio (Finland), Bergen (Norway), Almere (Netherlands), Albano-Lazio (Italy), Oporto (Portugal), Region of Western Macedonia (Greece), Murcia (Spain) y Münster (Germany).

1.   Asociación Empresarial Centro Tecnológico de la Energía y del Medio Ambiente de la Región de Murcia (Spain).

2.   Instituto Tecnológico del Embalaje, Transporte y Logística (Spain).

3.   S.A. Agricultores de la Vega de Valencia (Spain).

4.   Draxis Environmental S.A (Greece).

5.   Nafigate Corporation, A.S. (Czech Republic).

6.   Fundación Centro Gallego de Investigaciones del Agua (Spain).

7.   Research4Life B.V. (Netherlands).

8.   Association of Cities and Regions for Sustainable Resource Management (France).

9.   Greenovate! Europe (Belgium).

10. Science for Change, S.L. (Spain).

11. Sustentepopeia Unipessoal, Lda   (Portugal)

12. Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production gGmbH (Germany).

13. RdA Climate Solutions Unipessoal Lda (Portugal).

14. Bax & Company (Netherlands).

15. Sara Bedin (Italy).

16. Savonia-ammattikorkeakoulu oy (Kuopio, Finland).

17.   BIR AS (Bergen, Norway)

18.   Municipality of Almere (Netherlands).

19.   Associazione Regionale dei Comuni del Lazio (Italy).

20.   LIPOR – Servicio Intermunicipalizado Gestao Residuos do Grande Porto (Portugal).

21.   Cluster of Bioeconomy and Environment of Western Macedonia (Greece).

22.   Ayuntamiento de Murcia (Spain).

23.   Abfallwirtschaftsbetriebe Münster-Waste management department of the city of Münster (Germany).

ITENE ‘s role

The HOOP project is organised in 9 work packages (WP) and ITENE is the technical project leader on behalf of the SCALIBUR project.

ITENE’s contributions will be directed towards the collection of the required information from the lighthouse cities to assess their current status before the implementation of the OFMSW and UWWS valorisation projects.

ITENE will also provide technical support to the lighthouse cities for the selection of the OFMSW and UWWS valorisation projects.

The research centre will help to create a common evaluation framework for public and private investors and to ensure compliance of public procurement with EU legislation. It will also be involved in actions aimed at increasing the involvement and awareness of all stakeholders and the acceptance of bio-based products.

ITENE will support the development of the HOOP Urban Circular Bioeconomy Hub for the exchange of good practices and lessons learned from technical assistance to lighthouse cities, thus ensuring the continuity of the HOOP actions. ITENE will also support the development of the methodology for obtaining the circularity label and will organize and promote the involvement of the follower cities.