HOOP

The HOOP Project will help to unlock bio-based investments and deploy local bio economies in Europe through a systemic and cross-cutting approach. It will offer Project Development Assistance (PDA) to a group of 8 lighthouse cities and city clusters - to build the technical, economic, financial and legal expertise needed to develop concrete investments to valorise OFMSW (Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste) or UWWS (Urban Wastewater Sludge) with the aim of obtaining safe and sustainable bio-based products. Each PDA will contain detailed implementation assistance and a defined Circular Business Model tailored to each participating lighthouse city, as well as financing mechanisms to be used for mobilising investment. Moreover, HOOP will launch stakeholder engagement and citisen science initiatives to allow for the co-design of an improved collection of OFMSW for its later optimum valorisation. It will promote behavioural change and acceptability of biowaste-based products, as well as food waste prevention.

The HOOP Project will also feature the HOOP Urban Circular Bioeconomy Hub (UCBH), an online platform that will provide opportunities to replicate the PDAs of the lighthouse cities in other follower cities (currently composed by 26 committed cities from all around Europe) – under the launch of the Network of Follower European Cities. HOOP continues the work of the projects VALUEWASTE, Scalibur and WaystUP!, funded under topic CE-SFS-25-2018 and coordinated by the three technical leaders of HOOP. The HOOP Consortium covers the whole value chain, from biowaste recovery to valorisation and characterisation of the final products and unites complementary stakeholders with the deep multi-disciplinary knowledge crucial to PDA creation and the achievement of project objectives. It includes partners from 10 EU member countries, 5 municipalities and 3 clusters of cities.

Reason for applying to HSbooster.eu services

The project is specifically applying for the HS Booster for one part of the project. The Bio-Circularity Label. This label is developed within the HOOP project.

The HOOP Bio-Circularity Label has the aim to play an important role in the mission to support cities and regions to boost their circular urban bioeconomy. The label has been developed to show to what extent cities and regions implement circular measures, policies, and initiatives. Thereby creating an environment to help encourage investments in circular technologies, projects, and companies, allowing the production and application of biowaste-based products.

Besides the status on the circular urban bioeconomy, the Label also detects areas cities can improve on in their local bioeconomy. Here cities and region can learn from real-life examples, aiming to stimulate the circular urban bioeconomy. So, the Label demonstrates the effectiveness of green policies.

The Label consists out of a list of indicators related to urban biobased waste streams including Organic Fraction Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) and Urban Waste Water Sludge (UWWS). The assessment covers the political ambitions, strategies and implemented policies, participation, awareness and initiatives of the society, consumption, and waste patterns as well as waste treatment. Cities and regions showing a high maturity in circular policies, programs, projects will be awarded with the HOOP Bio-Circularity Label.

The HOOP Bio-Circularity Label is based on a scoring system. Here the cities and regions are assessed on their circularity performance based on nine Circularity Levels (CL). Each level indicates the level of maturity of the circular bioeconomy on a European level. The higher the CL obtained, the better a city or region is performing. Where CL 5 is the European average. The distribution of the CL scoring and the Label can be seen in the image above.

Technically the label is completely finished, and it is published and ready to use on our project online HUB. The label is an online interactive tool that is easy to use.

The only challenge the project is facing is how to engage with cities to actually make use of the label, and how to make the label the standard practice in Europe. This is why it is applying for the HS Booster.