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A purposeful, network of collaborating small to medium sized cities across Europe driving the developing of city scale circular economies.

Topics

  1. Circular economies

Main policy issue to be addressed in relation to the selected topics

Circular Economy is a concept well known at the organisational level. Through URBACT, Peterborough intends to build a collaborative group of cities focused on developing the circular economy at the city scale. Mainstreaming circular economy principles and approaches promises huge economic, social and environmental benefits to the UK by generating jobs, increasing productivity and GDP, encouraging inward investment and driving innovations at the same time as maximising value from resources, protecting natural capital and minimising the environmental impacts of production, use and disposal. In relation to GDP, research has shown that “as the current GVA of Peterborough (alone) is £5.4 billion (Opportunity Peterborough, 2017), the estimated savings for the city (through Circular Economy measures) could be between £37.5 and £105.5 million annually” (Scenario Planning for a Circular Future Peterborough Context, Cranfield University 2018). The scale of potential savings across the area is therefore considerable.The city is a world-class pioneer in the Circular Economy (CE) through its Future Peterborough programme, jointly led by Peterborough Council (PCC) and Opportunity Peterborough (OP).

Have you already been involved in an URBACT network?

No

Useful Information

The overarching aim of the initiative is to create a purposeful, driven linked network of collaborating small to medium sized cities across Europe, and potentially beyond. The focus of the Small Giants initiative is, therefore, on facilitating connected and collaborative approaches designed for small cities through, for example, multiple, linked test beds focussed on smaller cities and developing aggregated business case to engage the market. The initiative embodies what it means to be a “smart city” as, in our opinion, collaborative working is, in itself, inherently smart and will facilitate more efficient development and, where appropriate, procurement of smart solutions to city needs and challenges. Smaller cities can be agile, nimble and deliver faster. Smaller cities can be agile, nimble and deliver faster. They will adopt, adapt, and if necessary create new frameworks, approaches, and tools; and exploit experience to support the community; thus delivering repeatable case examples at collective scale. They are often more incentivised to collaborate in order to influence the market as, individually, they may have little influence. The Small Giants initiative has the following aims:
• Create significant opportunities for small to medium sized cities through skills and knowledge transfer and demand aggregation
• Support a growing network of cites through bespoke collaborative support
• Capture and promote the added value from Small Giants collaboration

Last modified:

06 February 2019

I am looking for

Project Partners
A Lead Expert

Candidate ID

Institution: 
Opportunity Peterborough
City: 
Peterborough
Country: 
United Kingdom
Type of region: 
More developed