CARE - Circular consumption Activities to tRansform households toward material Efficiency

Informazioni relative al progetto

CARE

ID dell’accordo di sovvenzione: 101135141

DOI

10.3030/101135141

Data della firma CE 21 Novembre 2023

Data di avvio 1 Gennaio 2024

Data di completamento 31 Dicembre 2027

Finanziato da

• Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Costo totale

€ 5 517 061,25

Contributo UE

€ 5 517 061,25

Coordinato da

TAMPEREEN KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR
Finland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CARE (CARE - Circular consumption Activities to tRansform households toward material Efficiency)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2024-01-01 al 2025-06-30

Sintesi del contesto e degli obiettivi generali del progetto

CARE is an Innovation Action Project, which aims to empower consumer-citizens in European households in the transition to a circular economy (CE). The objective of CARE is to transform a total of 100 households in five European countries (Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Estonia) to circular model households.

In CARE, two pilots are developed in co-creation with citizens, non-governmental and civil society organizations, municipalities, researchers and CCR regions to facilitate the transformation of households to circularity. One of the pilots is related to food and one to clothing. Both of these material flows represent critical areas for change in consumption from the point of view of their environmental effects. Both CARE pilots consist of two different key parts: interventions and advisory services. In the pilots, households are engaged in changing their everyday practices with the aim to reduce food waste (in the food pilot) and to achieve more sustainable clothing practices (in the clothing pilot). The interventions target the areas of food purchasing and planning, cooking and storing as well as clothes’ washing, repair and redesign, and planning a sustainable wardrobe. In addition, households will receive customized advisory services to support the changes they make in their everyday life. The CARE pilots will be tested and validated in five regions - both urban and rural - that are part of the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI): Tampere, Asker, Gothenburg, Berlin, and Lääne-Harju. Impact assessment is a key part of the project. CARE will assess the improvement in material efficiency, living conditions, and sustainable wellbeing of participating households. At the end of the project, the effectiveness of the pilots for reducing environmental impacts will be calculated using life cycle assessment, especially the Product Environmental Footprint method.

CARE will make a strong contribution towards accelerating fair, inclusive and sustainable consumer-based transition to CE. Furthermore, CARE will ensure the replicability and multiplication of its results through easy-to-use communication and dissemination tools, in collaboration with CCRI and other European circular economy initiatives.

Lavoro eseguito dall’inizio del progetto fino alla fine del periodo coperto dalla relazione e principali risultati finora ottenuti

During the first 18 months, the CARE project has focused on co-creating the CARE pilots including design for advisory services and a plan for the interventions. To support this work, a review of previous interventions has been made, several workshops have been held with different stakeholder including citizens. The local implementation of the pilots has also been designed, taking into account local infrastructures, cultures and previous experiences of partners. Furthermore, the basis for assessing the impact of the pilots has been created through an assessment method and data collection protocol (including environmental and sustainable wellbeing assessment) that started by reviewing current state-of-the-art knowledge on the topic. As one of the key activities, recruitment of households to the pilots has been completed successfully.

Progressi oltre lo stato dell’arte e potenziale impatto previsto (incluso l’impatto socioeconomico e le implicazioni sociali più ampie del progetto fino ad ora)

The first key results of the project have been achieved. The assessment method and data collection protocol designed in CARE can potentially be used by other research and innovation projects as well as by various stakeholders in assessing the impact of interventions targeting households.

The CARE approach for empowering consumers for the circular transition in European households.