The InvestCEC project, which was tested in the city of Klagenfurt, Austria, will showcase its main achievements in developing a replicable model to initiate circular economy projects in regions and cities. Part of the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI), InvestCEC aims to bridge the gap between local action and EU-wide ambition, offering investment readiness support for entrepreneurs, and raising a fund to enable public private partnerships around the pilot city of Klagenfurt. The event will bring EU policymakers and local policymakers, investors, and companies together to discuss how to foster the circular economy at the local level with particular focus on public procurement.
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- Circular economy | Climate and environment | Cohesion | EU/ European | Governance and Public administration | Local and regional | Sustainable | Territorial | Urban
- Code: Side253636
- Rue Wiertz, Brussels, Belgium
Practical information
- When
-
Tue 14/10/2025, 14:30 - 16:30 CET
- Where
- Rue Wiertz, Brussels, Belgium
- Type of partnership
- EURegionsWeek close to you
- Format
- Side
- Theme
-
Cities building tomorrow
- Language
- English
Partners
Enspire Science Ltd
Venionaire Capital
Stadtwerke Klagenfurt AG
CARTIF Foundation
Reporting
Session summary
Rene Cerne
• Public Procurement (PP) is not just about buying good things, but it is about buying change
• PP can be one of the strongest levers for EU for the twin transition; now it’s very hard to implement circular PP practices, because we look at the lowest price
• PP 40% of the GDP across Europe, so a lot of potential to make a big difference in the market
• Really looking forward for the EU framework on public procurement
• In Klagenfurt, we focus on local and small business, bringing research institutes together and make joint projects for them, we have PP models for electric cars, recycling, trying to focus to bring SMEs together in regional clusters with Italy and Slovenia
• We need also to invest in the system itself, to scale solutions: we must change the system to buy the best technologies for our society, not the cheapest
Kathrina Rieger:
• Much awareness that PP is a leverage, 17% of GDP connected to PP, 1/3 of it goes to the construction sector
• Public sector is very aware of the potential of CE through PP
• The barrier comes when designing criteria: we need to simplify things and lower the barriers because we are always competing with the linear system
• Need to provide people with real solutions and metrics to implement the process
• 2nd obstacle: PPP, construction sector 40% of CO2 emission and 50% of resource use. Much need of transformation of the sector. Need for PPP to scale up solutions and be competitive with the linear system
• Need to be connected locally, because it’s a lot about trust and getting to know each other
Maya Poncelet
• Biggest bottleneck: capital to fund the solutions faster
• Problem of perception of circular economy businesses from investors
• Matter of identifying the good and profitable solutions and bring them forward to scale them up
• Growth opportunity of the CE is massive and is not fully understood or talked about
• From the EU resilience point of view, CE is a phenomenal solution to stay resilient and not to be so impacted by volatility of prices of raw materials
• Opportunity driven circularity not only compliance driven circularity
• How can policy support? We need financial incentives that hold true. We need to be rewarded for having independent material and reliable metrics (tax credits for reusable material and so). It needs to be an opportunity and not a restricted set of rules
• Need to learn to be system thinkers, collaborate and trust public to private world, and work less in silos
• Hope to start shifting and get excited about the opportunity
