BME researchers work with the German Environment Agency on a project about circular economy within the confines of the INTERREG Central Europe Programme.

The kick-off meeting of the INTERREG CENTRAL EUROPE project called „NiCE: From Niche to Centre - City Centres as Places of Circular Lifestyles” will be hosted by the Budapest University of Technology and Economics between 25 and 26 May, 2023. The supervisor of the project is prof. Dr. Gyula Zilahy, professor, head of the Department of Environmental Economics and Sustainability at BME, who was elected last year as the Vice President of the International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS) since 2022.

The consortium of nine partners is led by the German Environment Agency. Austrian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Slovak, and Slovenian partners with a background in science, consultancy, policy-development, local administration, and business are involved in the implementation of the project.

The aim of the three-year project is to promote sustainable consumption patterns related to circular economy in urban spaces, including the implementation of specific pilot actions. In the first phase of the project, which will lay the groundwork for the pilots, good practices will be collected and evaluated, and a complex status quo analysis will be carried out in the pilot action sites. In the second phase, pilots will be implemented, monitored and evaluated based on the experience of the selected good practices, paying particular attention to the transferability potential of the Interreg Programme. Based on the experience gained from the pilot actions, policy recommendations will be prepared.

The primary task of the Department of Environmental Economics and Sustainability at BME is to provide scientific background, to lead the first workpackage (Workpackage 1) on the topic of circular economy, as well as to support the preparation of pilot projects, monitor their implementation and develop an indicator-based framework for performance evaluation.

SZM-KJ