Lab on Sharing and Circular Economy Turin

Within the framework of Torino City Lab, a dedicated “Call for testing “on collaborative and circular economy was issued, to seize the potential underlying these issues and promoting initiatives oriented to co-development, testing and experimentation of new products, services, processes – also enabled by solutions and/or technological platforms
Among the 31 proposals, eight of them were selected and supported.

The experimentation are currently running on the following sectors:

• Biodegradable cutlery and detergent provider service;
• Homemade recycling and upscaling of plastics;
• Reuse of building materials;
• Food surplus recovery;
• Production of alternative soil for green public spaces;
• Platform of sharing of experiences for reuse operators;
• Recovery of textile materials;
• Alternative system of farming without soil consumption.

Key challenges:

• The enhancement of social exchanges, reuse of assets and resources and sustainable forms of consumption and local services provision
• The growth of communities of interest, collaborations between businesses, local organizations, citizens and public administrations
• Further stimulation of experimentation of initiatives and innovative solutions also in view of their market access
• Emerging of some key ingredients (networks, knowledge, funding) to build on to create a permanent “territorial hub” aimed at feeding and strengthening the experimentations as well as to promote a vision for “Torino Circular City”

Key learnings:

• 1. Political Engagement
  There is a need of building a long-term strategy based on specific political addresses. As a result of the Lab on circular and sharing economy we will encourage a multidisciplinary commitment (Green, Innovation, and Education City depts., etc.) by also setting up a cross-department unit/task force on Circular economy within the Municipality of Turin.
• 2. Ecosystem enabling
  The city will map and animate the local actors already engaged in Circular economy or interested in, ir to facilitate information and business opportunities, exchanges of knowledges, build alliances, and improve the collaboration within the local ecosystem. The actors and the experiences already ongoing are assets and resources to be valorized
• 3. Attract and accelerate
  We have to build an attracting environment for those who interested in innovate also in Circular economy fields. The first goal is to support the experienced but traditional entrepreneurial texture, composed and fragmented in SMEs with limited capacity in research and development. The second goal is to build open and fertile ecosystems that can productively host who is interested in carry on experiment and testing of circular economy. The challenge is to explore and set matching mechanisms that help in find solutions and opportunities for big player interested in financing and local exterminators in accelerating their ideas.
• 4. City innovative tools
  The need is to innovate the public financing tools in order to boost the partnership with private sector. Thus, the City is working on public procurement rules in order to foster circular economy activities within the system of public provision of services and products. At the same time through the Living Lab initiatives the City is testing new forms of agreement with companies to facilitate the testing (Experimentation agreement). Lastly, the City is assessing possible chains of supply to be fostered by circular economy, considering the sectors where the City has a relevant stake.

How long the project took from concept approval to implementation: 6  months.

How long has the project been operational: Nine months experimentation