Periodic Reporting for period 2 - REFLOW (constRuctive mEtabolic processes For materiaL flOWs in urban and peri-urban environments across Europe)
Berichtszeitraum: 2020-12-01 bis 2022-05-31
REFLOW is an EU Horizon 2020 research project running from 2019 to 2022, aiming to enable the transition of European cities towards circular and regenerative practices. REFLOW uses FabLabs and grassroots organisations as catalysers of systemic change in urban and peri-urban environments. The project has provided best practices aligning market and government needs to create favourable conditions for the public and private sector to adopt circular economy (CE) practices. REFLOW has created new CE models and practices and has devised indicators for the assessment of the ongoing performance and impact assessment under a social, environmental, and economic perspective within six pilot cities: Amsterdam, Berlin, Cluj-Napoca, Milan, Paris, and Vejle and has assessed their social, environmental, and economic impact, by enabling active citizen involvement and systemic change to re-think the current approach to material flows in cities.
REFLOW focuses on three overall objectives:
1) to implement a common strategic vision of circular and regenerative cities by tailoring it to the different urban areas;
2) to create a set of digital sustainable tools to implement the vision of circular and regenerative cities;
3) to ensure replication and sustainability for the long-term governance transition of European cities towards CE.
REFLOW focuses on three overall objectives:
1) to implement a common strategic vision of circular and regenerative cities by tailoring it to the different urban areas;
2) to create a set of digital sustainable tools to implement the vision of circular and regenerative cities;
3) to ensure replication and sustainability for the long-term governance transition of European cities towards CE.
The consortium worked to strengthen the REFLOW Platform that gathered all the project-level resources in REFLOW that supported and enabled the development, prototyping, and implementation of innovative solutions in the pilot cities. The platform incorporated tools, resources, and methodologies (such as Theory of Change, Social Return on Investment (SROI), REFLOW Framework, MFAs, REFLOW OS, REFLOW Academy, Collaborative Governance Toolkit, CE Business Modelling, Capacity Building Toolkit, Value Flow Modelling, pilots’ prototypes) that were both created by project members or selected by them from existing frameworks and deployed in the project to support the development of pilot solutions.
To ensure replication and sustainability for the long-term governance transition of European cities towards Circular Economy (CE).
To reach this third goal, the consortium organised the work in the second half of the project to pursue O3:
• Solution Level (microlevel): On the solution level, we look at those exploitable assets with a business potential that might continue operating as stand-alone solutions. Some assets were judged to have the potential to scale from the pilot level to full scale, sustainable businesses after the end of the project. These solutions might continue to work, detached from other assets, or partner organisations. This is thereby on the micro-level, looking at the potential exploitation of the individual solutions one by one.
• Organisational level (meso-level): On the consortium level, we look at all the tools and models developed by the project to support the transition towards circular economy at the urban level and to how all Reflow partners can continue the collaboration in a new format to exploit the project outputs collectively. This concerns the business models, tools, methodologies, and frameworks as well as general experience and learning from the project. Including exploitable assets that do not have business potential. This is thereby on a meso-level, looking at how an organisation can exploit the project results either individually or in combination.
• Consortium level (macro-level): On the consortium level, we look at how all Reflow partners can continue the collaboration in a new format to exploit the project outputs collectively. This new format is named the Reflow Consortium, which will be a network of Reflow partnering organisations, coordinated by a non-profit organisation named the Reflow Consortium Hub. The Hub can bring in and bring forward, all exploitable assets from the Reflow project. This is thereby on a macro level. The Hub will focus on how to exploit the complete reflow toolbox and use “the Reflow experience” to develop new solutions in other cities across Europe.
Together, these three levels constitute the Reflow Legacy.
In terms of communication of the project activities, the consortium worked on the REFLOW website with blog and resources, on Social Media channels management, and more than 7 press releases have been produced.
In the last part of the project focused on the dissemination of the project results, as several initiatives have been implemented. Among these:
• the Knowledge Hub, a dissemination tool hosted on the REFLOW website. It provides public access to basic information about the public reports of the project with the purpose of disseminating the project outputs and findings.
• hundreds of events have been organised in the six pilot cities that overall reached more than 16,000 people among citizens, the scientific community, policymakers, investors, and civil society.
• Seven podcasts.
• Three webinars.
• The REFLOW Final event, called Circular Cities Conference: Reflow & Beyond, with the goal of sharing the results of the project and insights about key methodologies used in Reflow, as well as contributing to the public discussion on circularity in cities.
To ensure replication and sustainability for the long-term governance transition of European cities towards Circular Economy (CE).
To reach this third goal, the consortium organised the work in the second half of the project to pursue O3:
• Solution Level (microlevel): On the solution level, we look at those exploitable assets with a business potential that might continue operating as stand-alone solutions. Some assets were judged to have the potential to scale from the pilot level to full scale, sustainable businesses after the end of the project. These solutions might continue to work, detached from other assets, or partner organisations. This is thereby on the micro-level, looking at the potential exploitation of the individual solutions one by one.
• Organisational level (meso-level): On the consortium level, we look at all the tools and models developed by the project to support the transition towards circular economy at the urban level and to how all Reflow partners can continue the collaboration in a new format to exploit the project outputs collectively. This concerns the business models, tools, methodologies, and frameworks as well as general experience and learning from the project. Including exploitable assets that do not have business potential. This is thereby on a meso-level, looking at how an organisation can exploit the project results either individually or in combination.
• Consortium level (macro-level): On the consortium level, we look at how all Reflow partners can continue the collaboration in a new format to exploit the project outputs collectively. This new format is named the Reflow Consortium, which will be a network of Reflow partnering organisations, coordinated by a non-profit organisation named the Reflow Consortium Hub. The Hub can bring in and bring forward, all exploitable assets from the Reflow project. This is thereby on a macro level. The Hub will focus on how to exploit the complete reflow toolbox and use “the Reflow experience” to develop new solutions in other cities across Europe.
Together, these three levels constitute the Reflow Legacy.
In terms of communication of the project activities, the consortium worked on the REFLOW website with blog and resources, on Social Media channels management, and more than 7 press releases have been produced.
In the last part of the project focused on the dissemination of the project results, as several initiatives have been implemented. Among these:
• the Knowledge Hub, a dissemination tool hosted on the REFLOW website. It provides public access to basic information about the public reports of the project with the purpose of disseminating the project outputs and findings.
• hundreds of events have been organised in the six pilot cities that overall reached more than 16,000 people among citizens, the scientific community, policymakers, investors, and civil society.
• Seven podcasts.
• Three webinars.
• The REFLOW Final event, called Circular Cities Conference: Reflow & Beyond, with the goal of sharing the results of the project and insights about key methodologies used in Reflow, as well as contributing to the public discussion on circularity in cities.
In REFLOW it has been carried out a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the social, environmental, and economic impact of the CE practices implemented within the pilot cities to support the business case for the adoption of CE strategies by other European cities. The task was made by three main activities: the pilot cities’ Theory of Change, the Social Return on Investment (SROI) for six of the solutions developed in REFLOW – one solution for each pilot city, and the KPIs analysis (collection of the data to analyse the KPIs results).
The Theory of Change methodology has been used across all six pilot cities to create a baseline for the assessment of social and economic impact. This methodology has provided an evolutionary view of the pilot cities’ scenarios and their interventions toward becoming circular and regenerative.
In terms of quantification of the social impact, Social Return on Investment (SROI) was used to describe the social impact of the business or non-profit's operations in monetary terms, relative to the investment required to create that impact and exclusive of its financial return to investors. SROI tells the story of how the impact is created by measuring social, environmental, and economic outcomes and ascribing monetary values to represent them. In REFLOW, the implementation of the SROI had the goal of demonstrating – for the first time since this methodology was developed, the social impact of the CE practices implemented within the pilot cities and of supporting the business case for adoption of CE strategies by other European cities.
The SROI social and economic impact assessment adapted and implementd by the coordinator and her research team enabled REFLOW’s pilots to measure how much change has been created by tracking relevant social, environmental, and economic outcomes. By the end of REFLOW, the partners who have prototyped solutions with a strong social dimension have been able to quantify in monetary terms the positive changes experienced by key stakeholders beyond the project.
The Theory of Change methodology has been used across all six pilot cities to create a baseline for the assessment of social and economic impact. This methodology has provided an evolutionary view of the pilot cities’ scenarios and their interventions toward becoming circular and regenerative.
In terms of quantification of the social impact, Social Return on Investment (SROI) was used to describe the social impact of the business or non-profit's operations in monetary terms, relative to the investment required to create that impact and exclusive of its financial return to investors. SROI tells the story of how the impact is created by measuring social, environmental, and economic outcomes and ascribing monetary values to represent them. In REFLOW, the implementation of the SROI had the goal of demonstrating – for the first time since this methodology was developed, the social impact of the CE practices implemented within the pilot cities and of supporting the business case for adoption of CE strategies by other European cities.
The SROI social and economic impact assessment adapted and implementd by the coordinator and her research team enabled REFLOW’s pilots to measure how much change has been created by tracking relevant social, environmental, and economic outcomes. By the end of REFLOW, the partners who have prototyped solutions with a strong social dimension have been able to quantify in monetary terms the positive changes experienced by key stakeholders beyond the project.