HOOP

Hub of circular cities bOOsting Platform to foster investments for the valorisation of urban biowaste and wastewater

The HOOP Project helped to unlock bio-based investments and deploy local bio economies in Europe through a systemic and cross-cutting approach. The main objective of the project was to provide Project Development Assistance (PDA) to a group of eight lighthouse cities and city clusters in order to build their administrative, technical, economic, financial and legal expertise needed to unlock concrete investments and develop bioeconomy initiatives at a local level. Initiatives focused on obtaining safe and sustainable bio-based products from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste or urban wastewater sludge. Following the implementation of this project, results were translated into concrete investments in urban bioeconomy initiatives in the lighthouse cities.

Murcia (Spain), Bergen (Norway), Kuopio (Finland), Almere (The Netherlands), Albano-Laziale (Italy), Porto (Portugal), Kozani (Greece) and Münster (Germany) are the cities/regions that were selected to develop this ambitious project. These cities represent a variety of sizes, climates, and socio-economic contexts and are distributed all around Europe. The HOOP lighthouse cities acted as demonstrators to replicate circular bioeconomy models throughout Europe and beyond.

In order to capitalise on the project results, the HOOP Urban Circular Bioeconomy Hub was developed; an online platform that provides opportunities for a network of follower cities to replicate the models, experiences, and good practices developed in the lighthouse cities. This network is comprised of cities which show an interest in participating in replication and experience exchange with the lighthouse cities.

DRAXIS was responsible for the identification of new Circular Business Models behind successful solutions in the value chain of bio-waste valorization as well as for the provision of assistance to lighthouse cities, during the Project Development Assistance (PDA) elaboration process, in order to identify and ensure future implementation of the new business models in the cities. Furthermore, DRAXIS participated actively in the development of the HOOP Urban Circular Bioeconomy Hub (UCBH), a web-based platform, which provides opportunities for a network of follower cities to replicate the models, experiences, and good practices developed in the HOOP lighthouse cities.