Circular Economy Stories

Awareness and networking tools about circular economy

Client: Consorzio Ecodom

Period: 2017-2019

The Circular Economy Stories project deals with the design and implementation of awareness and networking tools about circular economy. Through the exchange of experiences and the participation in the proposed initiatives, the project aims at activating the awareness of companies, NGOs and other actors of the transition towards circularity, supporting the promotion of new economic models based on a full environmental and social sustainability.

The project is promoted by Ecodom (the largest Italian Household Appliance Recovery and Recycling Consortium) and by CDCA (Documentation Centre on Environmental Conflicts).

Our role

Poliedra participates in the project’s Scientific Committee as expert in environmental assessment methods and instruments. As scientific partner of the project, Poliedra assumed a particular role in the definition of the criteria and tools for the identification of the circularity characteristics and of the environmental and social sustainability of the initiatives carried out by the companies and other organisations.

The activities

Two main tools have been designed and implemented: the Circular Economy Italian Atlas and the Circular Economy Stories Award.

In order to build the Atlas structure and implement it, the project partners have been involved in the following activities:

  • Development of the methodology for mapping and elaborating the evaluation criteria of circularity and environmental and social sustainability of the mapped initiatives;
  • Design and implementation of the mapping tools and of the web interactive platform, in which the participative mapping application is integrated;
  • Organization of the launch event of the platform and of the initiatives for its dissemination.

Poliedra, starting from the traditional environmental evaluation method, was in charge of the elaboration of the criteria for the identification of the circularity characteristics and of the environmental and social sustainability of the initiatives carried out by the companies and other organisations, developing in particular the environmental dimension.

During the first phase after the launch of the Atlas, Poliedra carried out a coherence analysis of the mapped initiatives, that led to the identification of some proposals for the revision and the improvement of the Atlas structure and the mapping tool; such proposals have been implemented into the project web platform.

Results

The main outputs of the project are:

  • the Circular Economy Italian Atlas, web interactive platform launched in December 2017 that collects and describes more than 150 experiences carried out by economic and associative organizations committed in the application of circular economy principles;
  • the Circular Economy Stories Award dedicated to the storytelling of virtuous circular economy experiences in Italy; 118 competitors taking part in the award have been voted by tens of thousands of web users and by a technical jury of experts in the fields of information and culture.

A Guideline that includes the criteria for the assessment of the circularity and of the environmental and social sustainability of the stories collected by the Atlas has been published on the web platform.