Jesús M. Lasarte-López (p), Tévécia Ronzon, Walter Rossi Cervi, Myrna Van Leeuween, Robert M’barek, Bartlomiej Rokicki, Nicola Grassano

Justyna Trippner-Hrabi

Rural areas are the stronghold of the bioeconomy, which comprises the sectors producing and converting biomass into food, bio-based products and bioenergies. The analysis and monitoring of the bioeconomy at the regional level is a cornerstone in the design and evaluation of EU rural policies, such as the Long-Term Vision for the EU's Rural Areas 2040 (European Commission, 2021a). It also aligns with policies aiming to a reduction in the use of fossil-based materials and energies (e.g. Sustainable Carbon Cycles communication, European Commission, 2021b). Although some studies already provided estimates of the size and/or regional distribution of the bioeconomy in some countries, there are no homogeneous data allowing the analysis of the regional dimension of EU’s bioeconomy.
We describe a methodology to estimate employment and value added of the bioeconomy sectors at the NUTS2 level in the EU (see Lasarte-López et al., 2022). This approach consists of a systematic combination of national bio-based shares from the publically available JRC-Bioeconomics database with Eurostat regional statistics for allocating employment and value added of the bioeconomy sectors amongst regions. National bio-based shares are calculated following Ronzon et al. (2020)’s approach. When missing from Eurostat data sources, regional series are estimated by applying various criteria to regionalise national statistics. Finally, a range of missing data estimation algorithms are executed in order to complete the dataset.
Preliminary results evidence that the proposed methodology manages to fill in the majority of missing series and data in the initial raw datasets. Therefore, we are able to extract some key figures and trends for the regional bioeconomies in the EU. We then discuss our results through the comparison with available official statistics, other previous estimates and expert feedback to identify potential future improvements.

Bartlomiej Rokicki (p), Raul Silveira Neto, Magdalena Miśkowiec

Jesús Miguel Lasarte-López

In 2013 Poland has introduced compulsory domestic garbage collection managed by municipal authorities. Since then, local authorities have to ensure that household waste is removed by a contractor chosen through competitive tendering. They are also allowed to apply different collection service price for sorted and unsorted waste.
The introduction of the new garbage collection system had to lead to an increase in recycling through the selection of domestic garbage. It was also supposed to cover all households with compulsory waste removal services and avoid the situation when some property owners were dumping the garbage anywhere rather than contracting removal services. However, while the environmental impacts of the new law have been not fully assessed yet, the introduction of new system led to a gradual increase in costs related to the garbage removal services for each municipality.
This paper aims at identifying the factors that influence the costs related to garbage removal services (e.g., private or public service delivery, local income, market competition, population density etc.) and the effectiveness of the waste management in particular areas. We also assess the impact of the new garbage collection system on market competition and the possible emergence of spatial monopoly patterns. As a consequence we are able to issue policy recommendations that could be applied in order to improve the existing garbage collection and removal system.

Francesca Mazzoni (p)

Bartlomiej Rokicki

A successful transition towards a more circular economy requires adoption and diffusion of Circular Innovation (CI), a subset of Eco-Innovation (EI) that aims to maximize resource efficiency and minimize waste production. The proposed article investigates whether and to what extent different types of agglomeration economies – specialization, related and unrelated variety – matter for the adoption of CI and EI by Italian manufacturing firms. By combining literature on economic geography, the geography of eco-innovation and industrial ecology, we hypothesize agglomeration economies to be relatively more important for the adoption of CI than EI. In fact, CI, particularly those applied at firm level, rely greatly on physical exchanges of materials, waste, energy and by-products among different actors. Proximity, co-location of firms, and agglomeration economies are expected to enhance potential resource pathways and facilitate input-output matches, therefore promoting material exchanges and circularity. Using a dataset of more than 60.000 Italian manufacturing firms, obtained combining two different databases (the permanent census of enterprises and the ASIA database) provided by the Italian Statistical Institute (ISTAT), we find that both specialized agglomeration and unrelated variety are positively correlated to CI adoption, while related variety has no significant impact on CI. On the other hand, no agglomeration indicator appears to be significantly correlated to EI adoption. The findings suggest the need for a place-based approach in the designing process of circular economy policies, that takes into account spatial and local characteristics, such as the industrial fabric of the area.

Justyna Trippner-Hrabi (p), Zbigniew Przygodzki

Francesca Mazzoni

The transition of economies towards a circular economy is a necessity. To facilitate the implementation and transition of assumptions of Circular Economy in regions, there is a necessity to introduce a new way of managing circular territorial clusters, by applying the CircuPuncture model. Participants involved in the circular territorial cluster are partners (institutional or individual) with varying degrees of autonomy and their own objectives. The autonomy of individual partners fosters innovation and experimentation. The cooperation between them is renewable and long-term. The traditionally understood organizational hierarchy loses its importance and the dominant structure is flat. By moving away from formally independent units, better conditions for cooperation are created. The form of coordination between parties is negotiation and agreement, rather than competition. There is a higher level of flexibility and adaptability of individual organizations as well as the entire circular territorial cluster. Circular Regional Cluster (CRC) is a kind of locally embedded economic network. Embedding in this case has a strong link to the existence of short supply chains for raw materials and goods. In this network, besides the classical actors for Helix models (Triple, Quadruple, Quintuple Helix), citizens (Society) play an important economic role. Here, society is seen as a co-producer, who is an active, economic market participant. The CRC is a multi-sector network due to the thematic scope of the Circular Economy (CE). The aim of our research is to describe the main assumption of a framework for the management of the CircuPuncture model that supports the implementation of circular economies in traditional economies.