The European Economic and Social Council (EESC) and the European Commission have jointly launched a European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform. The aim is to provide a platform to facilitate the exchange of good practices and thus support local governments and civil society (including NGOs, trade unions, private companies, etc.) in accelerating the transition towards a circular economy.
The platform isn’t on-line yet but will soon be accessible here (expected by the end of October 2017): http://circulareconomy.europa.eu/platform
The kick-off meeting of this initiative was organised last March 2017 and 700 stakeholders, including Euromontana, were invited to participate and co-construct the frame of the platform. The platform is designed in such a way as to foster circular economy at the local level while highlighting differences across the EU (cultural for instance). The platform is open to all types of stakeholders, including non-EU.
There will different sections in the platform: good practices depository (both successes and failures), knowledge section, policy statements, Circular Economy strategies, etc. This platform will have a multiplier role to enable interest groups to reach out, communicate about policy priorities and share roadmaps at local / regional / national level – but the platform will not be a European helpdesk.
The coordination group for this platform is composed of 24 organisations drawn from 4 groups:
- Businesses, civil society organisations, trade unions
- Multi-stakeholder organisations specialised in the circular economy
- Local governments
- Academia, think tanks.
The coordination group will start its work soon. All the results will channel upwards in the platform. An annual conference will be organised to animate this initiative and include more and more stakeholders. The first edition will be on 20-21 February 2018, in Brussels.
The EESC and the EC particularly insisted on the importance of stakeholder involvement, the platform can only take off if stakeholders take part. To take part, stakeholders can:
- Connect to the platform – you just need to fill in an on-line form
- Contact CEStakeholderEU@eesc.europa.eu to ask to be kept informed
- Participate in the annual conference
- Become an ambassador of this initiative by communicating and disseminating
For more information, please read the EC working document on the aim and structure of the platform here.
30 October 2017
