A few weeks ago, EGEN’s consultants joined the kick-off meeting of the Hubs4Circularity project in Brussels. This Horizon Europe project focuses on Industrial (Urban) Symbiosis and the scaling up of circular practices within large industrial clusters in Europe. EGEN’s role is to develop business models and financing strategies for this.
Efficient knowledge sharing
During the next 2.5 years, the Hubs4Circularity (H4C) project will contribute to the creation of a European Community of Practice on H4Cs. It will target the efficient sharing of knowledge about setting-up and managing H4Cs in Europe, with the aim to promote large-scale demonstration projects on Industrial (Urban) Symbiosis (e.g. circularity in regional, urban-industrial ecosystems).
Industrial (Urban) Symbiosis aims to balance various energy and/or material streams on a regional or cluster level. The H4C project will focus on process industries active in sectors such as steel, chemicals, pulp, paper and refining.
Demonstrating circular practices
The overall objective of this project is to empower the process industries and their surrounding regions to create circular hubs through the exchange, consolidation, and creation of knowledge, thus overcoming existing bottlenecks for regional demonstrators of Industrial (Urban) Symbiosis or other circular practices. H4C will provide a toolkit for the state-of-the-art assessment of Industrial (Urban) Symbiosis within industrial clusters and perform an independent evaluation of the state of play in different regions.
H4C will contribute to spreading the movement towards circular industrial clusters all over the EU and inform the public about the role of the hubs and the process industry on the road towards a sustainable EU and the goal of climate neutrality by 2050.
EGEN’s role within Hubs4Circularity
Within the H4C project, EGEN’s circularity experts will focus on identifying relevant industrial clusters and developing business models for Industrial (Urban) Symbiosis practices.
Furthermore, EGEN will analyse financial barriers for the implementation of Industrial (Urban) Symbiosis and draft funding strategies in order to overcome these financial barriers.
