CIRCO represents the Netherlands at the finals of the European Awards for Entrepreneurship Promotion (EEPA), in the category ‘Supporting the sustainable transition’. Together with second competent LaNSCO, CIRCO will compete against other EU public-private partnership initiatives in November.
Stimulating and rewarding innovation
The EEPA is an initiative from the European Commission and is intended to put initiatives that support or facilitate entrepreneurs in the spotlight. In doing so, the Commission recognizes and rewards the successes of parties that stimulate entrepreneurship with creative and inspiring initiatives. These are (local) governments, knowledge institutions, schools or public-private partnerships. The European Commission has been organizing the Awards for 15 years.
“Impressed by the drive and results shown”
Jury chairman Robert van der Zwan, Entrepreneurial Climate Manager at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate: “We have nominated these two inspiring projects, which show how important it is to pay attention to circularity and social entrepreneurship, now and in the long term. We are impressed by the drive and results shown by these organizations. We are delighted to give these projects the chance to present themselves at European level and we believe they have a great chance of winning in Europe.”
“We are very happy with winning this Dutch final”, says NL program manager Iris Grobben. “It is a great recognition for the impactful work of our CIRCO Hub partners in the Dutch regions and far beyond. And our growing ecosystem of trainers and companies that step by step develop future-proof business cases that make better use of scarce raw materials.”
Concrete guidelines for companies
In her final pitch, Iris emphasized how important it is that companies receive concrete tools to work in a circular manner. “The Dutch and European objectives are clear on paper. But the circular economy is not created on paper. This prize encourages us, together with all our partners, to let many more companies take their first circular step.”
Final in Spain
During the final in Bilbao on November 29, it will be announced whether CIRCO will also win an European Award. Iris is looking forward to it: “We are very curious whether the CIRCO method and scalable Hubs approach will also convince the European Commission (EC). Especially from Europe a lot comes down to companies in terms of regulations, such as Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation (ESPR) and EU Taxonomy. It is important for companies to get started and get the tools to deal with these challenges. We hope to convince the Commission that circular design has a guiding role in this.”