On 18 October, 13 partners from 6 EU Member States conducted the kick-off meeting of the European Project ‘LOOP-Ports – Circular Economy Network of Ports’ in Valencia. The main goal of the LOOP-Ports project is to facilitate the transition to a more circular economy in the port sector, where products, materials and resources are maintained in the economy for as long as possible, and the waste generation minimized.
This project, coordinated by the Port of Valencia and funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) through the EIT Climate-KIC initiative, will run for 26 months, ending in November 2020.
This project is expected to contribute to the transition of the European economy towards closed-loop systems through the creation of a circular economy network of ports, which will provide an innovation ecosystem around the port activity and stimulate circular economy initiatives in ports. The network will focus on high-emitting materials, mainly metals, plastics, cements and biomaterials.
This network of ports will facilitate the exchange of experiences and good practices, provide policy recommendations and foster the training, as well as new business opportunities both in port clusters and other industries related to this environment.
In particular, the main expected results from the project are:
- Mapping of EU ports showing their suitability to launch initiatives linked to the circular economy according to different criteria as well as the selection of relevant use cases.
- Analysis of the main drivers (legal, policy, regulation, market structures, finance, etc.) that can boost the development of circular economy activities at port ecosystems.
- Elaboration of training materials and development of training pilots to improve skills, knowledge and innovation capacities both within and among different port clusters.
- Organisation of workshops/round-tables on circular economy with key stakeholders to collect their interests, points of view and expectations.
- Development of business models – real use cases selected during the project -, analysing their replicability in other ports with similar characteristics.
- Identification of financing opportunities to promote circular economy in the port sector.
- Creation of a tailored web tool on circular economy showing the project results, enabling the exchange of information among the members of the network, stakeholders and general public.
LOOP-Ports involves 13 partners from 6 EU Member States (Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Denmark and Netherlands): Fundación Valenciaport (coordinator); EIT Climate-KIC S.L.; Climate-KIC S.r.l.; Climate-KIC GmbH; Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU); NTU International A/S; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO); Università di Bologna; Universität Hamburg; Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; Universitat de València; Eco Environnement Ingenièrie (2EI) and Veolia Innove.
