3rd Interregional meeting in Lahti on 3-4 September 2024

On September 3^rd and 4^th  LAB University of Applied Sciences held CEI BOOST project, Interreg Europe 2021-2027 Programme, 3^rd interregional Partner Meeting in the beautiful Lahti, awarded by the European Commission to be the European Green Capital 2021, the first awarded city in Finland.  The award is proof of Lahti's persistent environmental work as Finland's leading environmental city.

During the two-days event partners and stakeholders, amongst which representative of associated strategic partners, from 9 regions and cities across Europe have been working together on finding new ways of boosting the application of circular economy solutions through disruptive technologies identification.

The seminar has been open by Mr Thomas Hartman, Director External Relations and Strategic Place Management in the administration of Region Västerbotten, Sweden, Lead partner of CEI BOOST project.

Mrs Paula Eskola, Senior Expert, Circular Economy, in Motiva, has presented the Finnish way of promoting Circular Economy and the role of digitalisation.

Mr Juha Hertsi, Director of Development in the Regional Council of Päijät-Häme, partner in the project, has explained to partners how the Regional strategy & Smart specialization is supporting the green transition in the region. 

Next, Mrs Aino Vepsäläinen, Chief Specialist in LAB University of Applied Sciences, RDI has introduced several regional and national projects enhancing digitalization and sustainability.

The sessions have been enriched with many examples, in presentations and visits on site, for the regional green mobility development.

After that a workshop has been held on discussing the results from the Interregional thematic analysis, exploring the current landscape opportunities for harnessing regions’ full potential for the transition to a circular economy.

This state of play study presented regionally and at interregional level the linkages between digitalisation and the circular economy, the opportunities created by data and digitally enabled solutions, and the challenges associated with harnessing their full potential for the transition to a circular economy. The report identified existing and emerging innovative applications, technologies, and companies impacting the Circular Economy on regional level and their relationship with the RIS3. The responsible partner’s IRCEM, Romania, project manager Mrs Simina Lakatos, has accentuated the most important findings from all countries’ regional context assessments, including how the existing policy instruments meet or predict the needs for further boosting circular economy implementation. She summarized the main challenges and needs for policy instruments’ improvement and support to meet the needs and the available technologies in the regions. Partners have discussed how to use the report to plan project’s possible pilots in next semesters.

All partners reported their achievements in the policy improvement progress locally, regionally and nationally.

On the next day partners focused on good practices collected, working proactively in a dedicated workshop, that started with a rich programme of presenting Finnish good practices. Details have been given about Purkutori, Recycling and trading site for building materials, Voglia Clothing impact calculator, Hukka.ai Reducing food waste with AI.

Partners got into new ideas of cooperation and transfer and finally possible policy improvements scenarios started to arise.

The inspiring meeting ended with a very engaging study visit to Kempower and the facilities of LUHTA to get acquainted with Luhta Re-Use initiative.