Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DECISO (DEVELOPERS OF CIRCULAR SOLUTIONS)
Reporting period: 2024-05-01 to 2025-10-31
The DECISO project leveraged the role of financing and investment to foster local Circular Economy initiatives in four European territories. These four pilots covered different sectors such as waste, water, energy and agri-food in Northwest Germany (DE), Hamburg (DE), West Macedonia (EL), and Alentejo (PT), respectively. DECISO supported the territorial actions for assisting circular economy promoters with small local financial frameworks, the Project Development Assistance (PDA), targeting two main goals: the first was mobilising relevant stakeholders and citizens to promote systemic solutions, and the second was fostering the interest of potential investors and create a favourable climate for the development of new and further circular economy projects.The DECISO three operational objectives can be summarised as follows:
1) Create multi-actor synergetic communities in four territories to develop a shared understanding of issues and objectives, co-create a commonly agreed upon and shared vision and action plan, and connect/exchange the pilot experience with European CE projects, communities, and CCRI.
2) Assist promoters in developing and launching circular economy projects and innovative financing schemes in terms of good practices' scouting, financing schemes' analysis, economic and legal expertise, and sustainability validation.
3) Validate scalability plans to ensure the replicability of the circular economy initiatives and ensure that guidelines, open data, open science policies, and communication campaigns will reach all the potentially interested European parties. https://www.decisoproject.eu/register(opens in new window)
1) Create multi-actor synergetic communities in four territories to develop a shared understanding of issues and objectives, co-create a commonly agreed upon and shared vision and action plan, and connect/exchange the pilot experience with European CE projects, communities, and CCRI.
2) Assist promoters in developing and launching circular economy projects and innovative financing schemes in terms of good practices' scouting, financing schemes' analysis, economic and legal expertise, and sustainability validation.
3) Validate scalability plans to ensure the replicability of the circular economy initiatives and ensure that guidelines, open data, open science policies, and communication campaigns will reach all the potentially interested European parties. https://www.decisoproject.eu/register(opens in new window)
DECISO carried out the activities to assess the state of circular economy awareness in the four pilot regions (Hamburg, Alentejo, Northwestern Germany, Western Macedonia).
The Comprehensive Analysis of the state of the market for CE was completed.The local Stakeholder Engagement was successfully implemented. GPs at different scales were identified and documented, providing a foundation for the development of circular economy programs in pilot areas.With the working groups involving stakeholder each pilot carried out a SWOT analysis related to its region, considering financial, demographic, technical, and social factors. Managing teams for making operative the PDA according to the operational services identified in the four pilot areas have been established. Each team includes experts with administrative issues, financial aspects, legal issues, risk mitigation, validation, evaluation, and monitoring; other specific expertise is included according to the needs of each pilot.
The project successfully formed multisectoral CE Ecosystems in all the four pilots. These ecosystems provided a stable governance and collaboration structure to support the development of business plans, financing schemes and programme implementation in subsequent work packages. Also private investors in several pilots were involved.
The project:
•A permanent digital platform was developed to support hybrid engagement, knowledge sharing and continuous stakeholder interaction—going beyond the originally foreseen engagement tools.
•Beyond pilot-level recommendations systemic barriers and proposing transferable governance and financing models applicable across regions and sectors were identified.
•formulated an integrated assessment of financial, legal and risk-related conditions, strengthening the feasibility of the PDA implementation models, the PDAs implementation models, operational services and financing schemes, the Potential risks and legal aspects of Programmes and PDA, the Sustainability and comparative analysis of pilots’ experiences were produced.
•Defined & implemented launch strategies.
•Defined Grant Agreements across pilot sites establishing the formal basis for funding and operational activities, enabling the pilots to advance their circular economy initiatives in alignment with DECISO’s overall objectives.
The Comprehensive Analysis of the state of the market for CE was completed.The local Stakeholder Engagement was successfully implemented. GPs at different scales were identified and documented, providing a foundation for the development of circular economy programs in pilot areas.With the working groups involving stakeholder each pilot carried out a SWOT analysis related to its region, considering financial, demographic, technical, and social factors. Managing teams for making operative the PDA according to the operational services identified in the four pilot areas have been established. Each team includes experts with administrative issues, financial aspects, legal issues, risk mitigation, validation, evaluation, and monitoring; other specific expertise is included according to the needs of each pilot.
The project successfully formed multisectoral CE Ecosystems in all the four pilots. These ecosystems provided a stable governance and collaboration structure to support the development of business plans, financing schemes and programme implementation in subsequent work packages. Also private investors in several pilots were involved.
The project:
•A permanent digital platform was developed to support hybrid engagement, knowledge sharing and continuous stakeholder interaction—going beyond the originally foreseen engagement tools.
•Beyond pilot-level recommendations systemic barriers and proposing transferable governance and financing models applicable across regions and sectors were identified.
•formulated an integrated assessment of financial, legal and risk-related conditions, strengthening the feasibility of the PDA implementation models, the PDAs implementation models, operational services and financing schemes, the Potential risks and legal aspects of Programmes and PDA, the Sustainability and comparative analysis of pilots’ experiences were produced.
•Defined & implemented launch strategies.
•Defined Grant Agreements across pilot sites establishing the formal basis for funding and operational activities, enabling the pilots to advance their circular economy initiatives in alignment with DECISO’s overall objectives.
The main DECISO results are:
•A consolidated and modular PDA framework, adaptable to different territorial, thematic and institutional contexts. (D3.2–PDAs implementation models, operational services and financing schemes) & (D3.3 – Potential risks and legal aspects of Programmes and PDAs).
•An integrated assessment of financial, legal and risk-related conditions, strengthening the feasibility of the PDA implementation models.
•The sustainability analysis and the benchmark analysis, including deliverable “D3.4-Sustainability and comparative analysis of pilots’ experiences”, were completed by the end of the project.
•A set of stakeholder-validated business models supporting the sustainability of the local pilots was developed.
•A set of recommendations on how to support the deployment of territorial PDAs was formulated.
•The launch strategies for the pilot regions and the planning of the operative steps to supporting the pilots in organising the activities for launching the programme were defined and included in the deliverable “D4.2-Launch strategies from the pilots”, while the reports are included in the deliverable “D4.3 – Reports from the pilots’ info-days”. “D4.4–Collection of grant agreements signed by each pilot” contains Gran Agreements.
•It has been produced and published the following conference paper: Kollatou, T., Krestou, A., Tsiamitros, D., Stimoniaris, D., Maropoulos, S., & Kyriakopoulos, K. (2026). Policy, Regulation, and Financing in the Transition to Renewable Energy: A Case Study from Western Macedonia. Proceedings, 134(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2026134004(opens in new window)
•Replication of DECISO’s experience in five replicating territories saw the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding.
•A roadmap to scale up the DECISO experience and knowledge (D5.7- Roadmap for DECISO scaling-up).
•Business planning guide, including business model selection and tailoring to their needs.
Each pilot:
•Set up dedicated PDA teams with clear governance structures, covering administration, finance, legal, technical, and risk management responsibilities.
•Comprehensive launch strategies were developed and implemented, in
•The signing of Grant Agreements across all pilot sites established the formal basis for funding and operational activities, enabling the pilots to advance their circular economy initiatives in alignment with DECISO’s overall objectives.
•A consolidated and modular PDA framework, adaptable to different territorial, thematic and institutional contexts. (D3.2–PDAs implementation models, operational services and financing schemes) & (D3.3 – Potential risks and legal aspects of Programmes and PDAs).
•An integrated assessment of financial, legal and risk-related conditions, strengthening the feasibility of the PDA implementation models.
•The sustainability analysis and the benchmark analysis, including deliverable “D3.4-Sustainability and comparative analysis of pilots’ experiences”, were completed by the end of the project.
•A set of stakeholder-validated business models supporting the sustainability of the local pilots was developed.
•A set of recommendations on how to support the deployment of territorial PDAs was formulated.
•The launch strategies for the pilot regions and the planning of the operative steps to supporting the pilots in organising the activities for launching the programme were defined and included in the deliverable “D4.2-Launch strategies from the pilots”, while the reports are included in the deliverable “D4.3 – Reports from the pilots’ info-days”. “D4.4–Collection of grant agreements signed by each pilot” contains Gran Agreements.
•It has been produced and published the following conference paper: Kollatou, T., Krestou, A., Tsiamitros, D., Stimoniaris, D., Maropoulos, S., & Kyriakopoulos, K. (2026). Policy, Regulation, and Financing in the Transition to Renewable Energy: A Case Study from Western Macedonia. Proceedings, 134(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2026134004(opens in new window)
•Replication of DECISO’s experience in five replicating territories saw the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding.
•A roadmap to scale up the DECISO experience and knowledge (D5.7- Roadmap for DECISO scaling-up).
•Business planning guide, including business model selection and tailoring to their needs.
Each pilot:
•Set up dedicated PDA teams with clear governance structures, covering administration, finance, legal, technical, and risk management responsibilities.
•Comprehensive launch strategies were developed and implemented, in
•The signing of Grant Agreements across all pilot sites established the formal basis for funding and operational activities, enabling the pilots to advance their circular economy initiatives in alignment with DECISO’s overall objectives.