Symsites engagement in Hubs4Circularity: promoting circular economy and Industrial-Urban Symbiosis with key stakeholders

SYMSITES joined the Hubs4Circularity Community of Practice, a network of partners from industries, regions, and cities, set up under Horizon Europe to facilitate the building, scaling up and replicating of ecosystems of Industrial Symbiosis, Industrial-Urban Symbiosis and circular economy.

Symsites is part of Hubs4Circularity as a demonstrator project. This means that it will share the project model and technologies with a network of organizations committed to our goal. Demonstrator projects are involved in many actions including the Selection and development of assessment methodologies and Key Performance indicators (KPI) to measure H4C performance and demo impacts, the choice of collaboration areas as well as a replication analysis for H4C innovative value chains across Europe. 

The demonstration projects have also contributed to the Region and Cities Advisory Panel (RCAP), which seeks to educate and share experiences from different regions and cities across Europe regarding I-US. 

Assessment methodologies and Key Performance indicators

The demonstration projects were invited to a facilitated co-development workshop to align the various KPI sets that exist for industrial urban symbiosis and develop a common set applicable across all projects. Each demonstration project presented its set of KPIs, together with how they arrived at the particular set they had developed. They further took part in discussions centred on experience and development of a standard KPI set. New KPIs and sector-specific KPIs were developed as needed to improve I-US impact monitoring.

Areas of collaboration

The network cooperates in six areas:

1. Non-technological barriers for exploitation: work with the community of practice to address barriers, share knowledge and develop strategies. 
2. Stakeholders’ engagement and involvement of the local community: map and engage stakeholders, arrange awareness-raising events and adapt the communication to the audience. 
3. Social innovation spin-off action: connect to stakeholders’ training and education actions.
4. Cross-sectorial symbiosis and circularity: facilitate knowledge-sharing and dissemination initiatives. 
5. Social and community improvement through I-US: realise training and education events for communities, including vocational/education events at each demo site.
6. Societal awareness through a participative approach: arrange awareness-raising events for each demo site to bring together convenors, delivery bodies, implementors, solution providers, legitimisers and civil society. 

Replication analysis

Projects involved in Hubs4Circularity can be replicated in different contexts. For this reason, the network will map the potential for replication of around 20 separate technologies by answering the question: “Where can we find in Europe locations with similar sets of industries under similar 

Mapping the potential for such direct replication will inform a strategy based on the true potential of each H4C demonstration project.