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Moving from a linear to a circular economy means minimising the waste and pollution by reducing, recycling and reusing. The City of Amsterdam aims to redesign twenty product- or material chains. The implementation of material reuse strategies has the potential to create a value of €85 million per year within the construction sector and €150 million per year with more efficient organic residual streams. Amsterdam set up an innovation program on the circular economy; www.amsterdamsmartcity.com/circularamsterdam. By converting waste into electricity, urban heating and construction materials, the Amsterdam Electricity Company generates 900 kWh per 1000 kg of waste. 75% of the sewage system is separated for waste and rain water and the silt which remains after treating waste water is converted into natural gas. Share your innovative concepts and ideas on circular economy here.

Tine van Heerikhuize, Partner at Innomics, posted

In korte tijd jouw circulaire business(idee) boosten?

In oktober start het GO!-NH Accelerator Programma 'Circulaire Economie' met trainingen, tools en professionele ondersteuning om jouw business te boosten. Doe mee als je toe bent aan de 'next level'.

Tegelijkertijd starten ook de Challenge Energie en Ruimte Haarlemmermeer en de Techport Challenge Circulaire Economie.

Meer weten? Kom op 4 september as naar de informatiebijeenkomst bij de Provincie Noord-Holland.

Schrijf je uiterlijk 11 september 2018 in op https://go-nh.nl/inschrijfformulier/.

Tine van Heerikhuize's picture #CircularCity
Ludovica Viva, Project Manager at University of Amsterdam (UvA), posted

Circular Organic Waste in Amsterdam Questionnaire

The project Circular Organic Waste in Amsterdam wants to investigate on the potential of separate collection and treatment of organic waste in improving Amsterdam's circularity. To get data on the social perception on this issue from Amsterdam’s inhabitants a questionnaire has been created. If you live in Amsterdam, answer the questionnaire, you will help the research and you will also get the opportunity of winning a prize! It will take less that 5 minutes! You can access the questionnaire through the link below:

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FlexSol Solutions, posted

Using machine learning algorithms to optimize solar products

Machine learning can be applied on a wide variety of purposes, due to the ability of this technology to improve products and autonomy. The use of machine learning in solar technology is however not common, but has proven to be very valuable.

One of the applications of these tools is to predict how much solar energy can be captured at a specific location, in order for the solar product to function optimally. In this way, the product can be configured and optimized according to the needs of each client. Predicting the amount of generated solar energy is not easy, since solar irradiation varies a lot all over the globe and is subjected to local climates. These effects can be analysed and products can be optimised accordingly, by making use of dedicated machine learning algorithms.

Continue reading here:

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Anna Docter, Online Communications Advisor at Amsterdam Economic Board, posted

Circulair inkopen: hoe KPN het doet

Circulair is de wereld waarin alles eindeloos opnieuw gebruikt kan worden. Elk einde is een nieuw begin. Om naar die wereld te komen is inkopen een beslissend moment, het moment waar je het verschil kunt maken. Door circulair inkopen bepaal je wat je aanschaft, hoe en waarvan het gemaakt is, dat het weer uit elkaar gehaald kan worden, en dat het deel kan blijven van de keten. Veel partijen gingen je al voor. Gemeentes, bedrijven en kennisinstellingen. Zo ook KPN.

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Audrie van Veen, Director Strategic Partnerships at Amsterdam Economic Board, posted

Amsterdam region aims for 50% Circular Public Procurement in 2025

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Last month, 32 municipalities, 2 provinces and the Vervoerregio (the regional transport authority) in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area committed to work towards making 50% of their procurement activities fully circular in 2025.
This ambition will be fulfilled with an action plan, assembled by the regional coordinator of resource streams.

The commitment is a valuable step in achieving the region's circular economy goals. In the EU, public procurement spending is around 14% of the EU GDP, so converting a considerable part of this spending to investments in the circular economy will accelerate the transition towards a circular region.

Audrie van Veen's picture #CircularCity
Anonymous posted

Huge circular economy opportunities for Rotterdam

Metabolic recently helped produce a report on what Rotterdam could gain from a circular economy. Among other things, we found the city’s construction sector could harness the waste it generates in one year to build the equivalent of 38 Erasmus Bridges! How many bridges over the Amstel could Amsterdam construct with its waste?

#CircularCity
Anna Docter, Online Communications Advisor at Amsterdam Economic Board, posted

Johan Cruijf ArenA broedplaats voor duurzame innovatie

Op 29 juni nam de Johan Cruijff ArenA een superbatterij in gebruik, gemaakt van accu’s van elektrische auto’s. De batterij van 3 megawatt dient als reserve-opslag van de energie die wordt gewonnen uit 7200 vierkante meter zonnepanelen. De batterij is slechts één voorbeeld van hoe het stadion dient als living lab voor innovatieve en duurzame oplossingen. Directeur Henk Markerink vertelt over de verschillende thema’s waar de Johan Cruijff ArenA de komende jaren op inzet.

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Gijs Boerwinkel, Head of communications at Waag, posted

What is (not) digital social innovation?

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Over the last ten years, a growing international movement of practitioners, policy makers, activists and researchers has been coming together to propose a concrete and radically different vision for how technologies could help shape our common future.
These people believe that technology should contribute to the common good, rather than just delivering huge profits to a handful of giant tech corporations. They want to use the opportunities offered by digitalisation to address societal challenges such as environmental devastation, and to build alternative economic and political models. We call this movement "digital social innovation" (DSI).

At first glance, however, it might not be easy to detect how the movement’s conception of "social innovation" is radically different from the one hyped by many tech gurus and political consultants to actually mean more business as usual, with a touch of tech on top. As the DSI field is growing in size and, healthily, diversity, and beginning to enter the mainstream of public and policy consciousness, there is a real need to take stock of what its core principles actually are.

When should we really be speaking about DSI? And what falls outside the realms of DSI?

The recent Manifesto for Digital Social Innovation (2017), published last year, has begun to answer this question by compiling a succinct list of the core values of DSI

Continue reading here >> https://waag.org/en/article/what-not-digital-social-innovation

(Authors: Valeria Graziano, with Zoe Romano and Serena Cangiano (WeMake).)

Gijs Boerwinkel's picture #CircularCity
Joanne Lin, posted

Apply now to win a mentoring session with Prof. Walter R. Stahel!

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The Circular Economy Club has teamed up with Prof. Walter R. Stahel in a #CECMentors opportunity. If you get to be the winner of this exclusive opportunity, Prof. Stahel will be able to point you in the right direction, helping you to tackle specific circular-related challenges in a 40 minute-long video-conference mentoring session.

Considered one of the fathers of the circular economy movement, Prof. Walter R Stahel is a full member of the Club of Rome. Credited with having coined the expression “Cradle to Cradle” in the late 1970s and developed the Performance Economy approach, Stahel worked at developing a “closed loop” approach to production processes and founded The Product Life Institute in Geneva in 1983.

For more information, please visit the website: https://www.circulareconomyclub.com/cec-mentors-program/

Joanne Lin's picture #CircularCity
Reinier Siderius, Director at Sidcon B.V., posted

Waste compacting underground , all advantages at a glance

In our country more and more large cities are running into the same waste problem: a lack of space. The waste mountain is growing, but the capacity is running at its upper limit. Every won meter is often received with cheers. It is therefore not surprising that more and more municipalities are paying attention to innovative, underground solutions. One of these innovative solutions is an underground waste compactor

Reinier Siderius's picture #CircularCity
Kay Winters, Blogger , posted

Living Zero Waste in Amsterdam

A key part of achieving a circular economy is finding shops and services that offer goods with less / no packaging. I've highlighted a key list of resources that may help you to produce less day to day waste. Let me know what you think, or if something else should be added to this ongoing (constantly updated) list.

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Yasmina Lembachar, Research Analyst at Circle Economy, posted

Introducing 1,000 examples and articles on the circular economy, now openly available on Circle Lab!

Information on the circular economy is currently spread across many organisations and industries or gated behind members-only communities. This defeats the very basis of a circular approach and makes it very hard to disseminate, and even harder to implement such strategies. By bringing all circular economy insights, best practices, and research into one place in Circle Lab for everyone to openly explore and learn from, we want to break down these information silos and accelerate knowledge transfers across sectors and borders.

You can learn more about Circle Lab and start exploring all 1,000+ cases here: https://www.circle-economy.com/circle-lab-biggest-global-open-access-innovation-platform-for-the-circular-economy-launches-1-000-new-case-studies/#.WwVegFOFNE4

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Robin Neven, Business Intelligence & Analytics Engineer , posted

Revolution instead of Transition: circular festivals

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"Don't I know him from somewhere, didn't I see that name on a festival headline once?" This was the kind of chatter buzzing around the room when Milan Meyberg, former DJ turned Festival Revolutionist, took the stage and did a great showcase on the future of festivals and displayed how his organization, DGTL, is pursuing this future: through becoming fully circular and self sufficient. All in Pakhuis de Zwijger, where, together with Amsterdam Smart City, the event 'Smart Beats' was organized on April 24th.

Of course, there were also other presentations, from overarching approaches of the Gemeente Groningen to pitches of parties all wanting to contribute to making festivals in and around Amsterdam more sustainable. Term of the evening probably was 'hard cups', as apparently this is one of the most impactful components of festivals. Therefore, new constructions are explored by experimenting with a 'lease plan' for hard cups for example. Luckily, nine festival organizations already joined forces in a Green Deal, as many of these plans work only when executed on a large scale.

But what about the smaller events then? For that we had KAREL take the stage. Ok not really, because KAREL is an energy producing electric van that functions as a cultural stage for, well, basically anyone who wants to use it. But Noud Verhave was very well equipped to get the message across. For more information on this, search under projects on amsterdamsmartcity.com.

As for DGTL, they are on track to reach there goals of becoming fully circular one year earlier than planned: in 2019 already probably! That's something our national politics can learn from as well, although local politicians who were present won't be the ones stopping them, as they were very willing to help in any possible way.

All in all a very interesting evening sketching a bright green future of festivals!

Robin Neven's picture #CircularCity
Herman van den Bosch, Curator at Amsterdam Smart City; professor in management education , posted

Becoming circular: tough work and promising results

In 2015, Amsterdam explored opportunities for a circular economy, which have been published in Amsterdam Circular: Vision and Roadmap for City and Region. Dozens of projects have been started, albeit mostly on a small scale and starting from a learning-by-doing perspective. This blogpost focuses on circular building and reveals that significant progress has been made.
Last year, the city deservedly won the World Smart City Award for Circular Economy for its approach – facilitating small-scaled initiatives directed at metropolitan goals.

Herman van den Bosch's picture #CircularCity
Arjan Hassing, Circular Innovation Strategist at City of Amsterdam: Digitalization & Innovation, posted

Kick off GO!NH Accelerator Circular Economy 2018!

The GO!-NH Accelerators, organised by Provincie Noord-Holland, put SMEs and start-ups on the fast track to development. In a 3-month programme you’ll go from concept to a business offering innovative solutions that’s ready to take the market by storm. Training sessions, tools and professional support from experts will help you develop your business in a sheltered environment.

We happily invite you for the Kick Off of the ‘GO!-NH Accelerator Circular Economy 2018’ and the ‘Challenge Energy Transition Haarlemmermeer 2018’, April 18th at Blu-Me @ Pharos-building in Hoofddorp.

During the Kick Off event the admission for the Accelerator and the Challenge will be opened festively!

Programme:

15.00 uur
Walk in

15.30 uur
Presentations, discussions and concrete action on working with the Circular Economy and Energy Transition.

Opening GO!-NH Accelerator and Challenge Energietransitie Haarlemmermeer (5 min)
Michiel de Klein, Innomics

Circular economy: how to concretely activate (20 min)
Marjolein Brasz, Amsterdam Economic Board

Maximizing impact! (20 min)
Jack Stuifbergen, social entrepreneur Breedweer
Merijn Bot, CEO & co-founder Blu Me
Bas de Ruiter, CEO & founder Sign language coffee bar

Beer with positieve impact (20 min)
Robert Willem Dol, founder BeeBlue

GO!-NH Accelerator circular economy 2018 and Challenge Energy Transition Haarlemmermeer 2018 (15 min)
André Knol, CEO & founder Innomics
Vincent Bakker, gemeente Haarlemmermeer

Entrepreneurs taking the stage about the GO!NH Accelerator (15 min), Q&A (10 min). Short pitch and guided discussion with different participants from the previous accelerator round.

17.15 uur
Drinks

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Amsterdam Smart City, Connector of opportunities at Amsterdam Smart City, posted

Join the conversation - a perspective on Amsterdam as circular city

Amsterdam is circular in 2050. In the Sustainability Agenda and in the Circular Innovation Program, the municipality of Amsterdam has identified guiding principles. The guiding principles have not yet been translated concretely. As a result, the principles still provide insufficient guidance on the choices that we now have to make about the transition to a circular city.

A translation to concrete ambitions is necessary. What these ambitions mean for choices about the role, behavior and approach of citizens, governments, companies and knowledge institutes is explained in this position paper. The Amsterdam Smart City network calls for a discussion about how and how quickly we can reach a circular Amsterdam. The attached note offers a start for this conversation.

The paper can be found below in English and Dutch.

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Kate Black, Communications Director at Metabolic, posted

Urban Mining and Circular Construction: What, Why, and How it Works

How can we continue to build while minimising negative impacts on the environment? The answer lies in urban mining and circular construction – but what is it and how does it help cities and developers?

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Herma De Walle, Creative Strategist I Storyteller at City of Amsterdam, posted

Circular economy is a realistic and profitable concept

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In 2017, the city of Amsterdam carried out two circular programs: Amsterdam Circular, Learning by doing and the complementary Circular Innovation Program (2016-2018). At the beginning of 2018, the evaluation of these programs show that the circular economy is a realistic and profitable concept. Article in English and Dutch.

Below in Dutch / Lees onderaan verder voor Nederlands

Full evaluation in Dutch can be found here

Amsterdam is seen (inter) nationally as frontrunner
The approach to learning by doing, in which the municipality, market parties and knowledge institutions share their experiences with each other, appears to be successful. There has been active and interdisciplinary cooperation in the preparation of the programs, in their implementation and in the validation of the evaluation. 73 projects were evaluated and more than 100 market parties were involved in the validation. The evaluation and market validation show that Amsterdam continues to cement its international reputation as a pioneer and leader in the field of circular economy. There is evidence that a circular economy is realistic and profitable. The current municipal approach to Learning by Doing and the commitment to the value chains for construction and biomass is successful.

Transition to a circular economy more commonplace The transition from a linear economy based on the 'take, make and throw away principle' to a model of 'reduce, reuse and / or recycle' is becoming increasingly common. Started from the Sustainability, Innovation and Economy portfolios, the principles are now being dealt with more broadly in their own organization and in the city. However, the transition is still in the phase where a group of front-runners is implementing the system changes. Sharing knowledge from both the municipality and market parties is of great importance for accelerating the transition. The municipality of Amsterdam shared, among other things, knowledge as chairman of the circular economy task force of Eurocities, an international partnership of large cities. The pioneering role of the municipality of Amsterdam was appreciated. This is evident from winning the international World Smart City Award in November 2017. And the requests they receive from other cities to support them in shaping their programs.

Action perspectives It is important that as a next step a larger group will be involved. Simply by sharing knowledge and simply by doing it. The evaluation provides five tools for this in the form of concrete action perspectives:

  • Scale value chain construction

  • Scale up the value chain biomass and food

  • Upscaling the value chain for consumer goods

  • Expand the purchase of purchasing instrument

  • Expand deployment research, information provision

    It is up to the next board to determine what the next steps are and to make priorities and or a choice from this.


In 2017 heeft de gemeente Amsterdam twee circulaire programma’s uitgevoerd: Amsterdam Circulair, Leren door te doen en het complementaire Circulair Innovatieprogramma (2016-2018). Begin 2018 heeft het College deze programma’s geëvalueerd en ze komt met een voorstel voor de inzet voor 2018. Doel van beide programma’s was al doende aan te tonen dat de circulaire economie een realistisch en rendabel concept is. Uit de evaluatie komt naar voren dat dat inderdaad het geval is.

Amsterdam wordt (inter)nationaal gezien als koploper

De aanpak van leren door te doen, waarbij gemeente, marktpartijen en kennisinstellingen de ervaringen breed met elkaar delen, blijkt succesvol. Er is actief en interdisciplinair samengewerkt bij het opstellen van de programma’s, bij de uitvoering daarvan en bij de validatie van de evaluatie. Er zijn 73 projecten geëvalueerd en bij de validatie zijn meer dan 100 marktpartijen betrokken. De evaluatie en marktvalidatie tonen aan dat Amsterdam (inter)nationaal wordt gezien als koploper. Er is bewijskracht geleverd dat een circulaire economie realistisch en rendabel is. De huidige gemeentelijke aanpak van Leren door te Doen en de inzet op de waardeketens bouw en biomassa is succesvol.

Transitie naar een circulaire economie meer gemeengoed

De transitie van een lineaire economie gebaseerd op het 'neem, maak en weggooi principe' naar een model van 'verminderen, hergebruiken en/of recyclen' wordt steeds meer gemeengoed. Gestart vanuit de portefeuilles Duurzaamheid, Innovatie en Economie, worden de principes nu breder in de eigen organisatie en in de stad opgepakt. De transitie zit echter nog in de fase waarin vooral een groep koplopers de systeemveranderingen doorvoert. Kennisdeling zowel vanuit gemeente als marktpartijen is van groot belang voor versnelling van transitie. De gemeente Amsterdam deelde onder meer kennis als voorzitter van de task force circulaire economie van Eurocities, een internationaal samenwerkingsverband van grote steden. De voortrekkersrol van de gemeente Amsterdam werd gewaardeerd. Dit blijkt uit het winnen van de internationale World Smart City Award in november 2017. En de verzoeken die ze van andere steden krijgen om hen te ondersteunen bij het vormgeven van hun programma’s.

Handelingsperspectieven

Het is zaak dat er nu een volgende, grotere groep bij wordt betrokken. Simpelweg door kennis te delen en gewoon door het te doen. De evaluatie reikt daarvoor vijf handvatten aan in de vorm van concrete handelingsperspectieven:

  • Opschalen waardeketen bouw
  • Opschalen waardeketen biomassa en voedsel
  • Opschalen waardeketen consumptiegoederen
  • Uitbreiden inzet inkoop instrument
  • Uitbreiden inzet onderzoek, informatievoorziening

Het is aan het volgende bestuur om te bepalen wat de volgende stappen zijn en hieruit een keuze te maken.

Lees de volledige evaluatie hier: <https://www.amsterdam.nl/wonen-leefomgeving/duurzaam-amsterdam/publicaties-duurzaam/amsterdam-circulair-1/>

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Beth Massa, Ozarka B.V. , posted

Take Away With No Throw Away: Ozarka seeking participants for our pilot!

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Hi everyone,

In the middle of June, We're launching a delivery-only pilot for our low-waste traiteur and prepared foods store where ALL the packaging is return-for-deposit (statiegeld).

Our menu ranges from healthy-ish to incredibly healthy, is always filling, and irresistible and we will make it really convenient to get your packaging picked up and your deposit returned (or at least, that's what we're testing).

We are going to turn Amsterdam on its head with our truly sustainable offering and we need your help, input, and feedback in the first phase.

Here are the requirements to join the pilot:
- Live inside the ring in Amsterdam.
- Be in town at least part of the time the pilot runs, from June through August.
- You are under no obligation to buy anything, but we assume if you want to join the pilot you will want to order at least once.

This is invitation only, limited spaces available. Please email me at beth@ozarka.biz to join.

By all means, share this announcement with your friends who might be interested.
To share the pilot announcement find the post at: www.facebook.com/ozarkanl

Thank you!
Beth

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