Madrid’s circular economy hub takes top Eurocities award

Madrid has been recognised for its circular economy achievements at the annual Eurocities awards in Cluj Napoca, Romania.

The city won the ‘Innovation ecosystems: attracting and retaining talent’ award category for its Centre for Innovation in the Circular Economy (CIEC) – a hub that fosters innovation by supporting business entrepreneurship to help reduce waste and embrace sustainability.

“We knew we needed to bring in more small and medium-sized enterprises and that we needed to have the universities involved in the development of the centre,” said Cristina Sanabria Brassart, an Advisor in the City of Madrid’s Economy Department.

“We also wanted to have anchor companies and programmes to help start-ups to be developed. Nowadays, CIEC Madrid is a growing and replicable ecosystem of innovation and talent. It is based on collaboration, where companies, start-ups, universities, entrepreneurs, associations, citizens and the city council converge in a unique public-private partnership.”

The centre, which was launched in 2022, is managed by the City of Madrid in collaboration with innovation consulting firm Barrabes, Eurostar Mediagroup, engineering firm Sacyr, academic institutions such as the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and the Juan XXIII Foundation, which supports social and professional inclusion for people with disabilities.

Creative campaign

Gdansk won in the ‘Creative election campaigns: mobilising citizens’ category for its viral campaign ‘Don’t sleep, or you will be outvoted.’

The phrase, first used by the democratic opposition party in the June 1989 election in Poland, was reinvoked for the 2023 parliamentary elections in a bid to get more citizens to vote.

“The reality of 2020 has increased frustration and problems in voters’ lives,” said Dominika Dowgiert, who works in the City of Gdansk’s communications department. “Over the years we have observed the decrease of social involvement in Poland. Social, health and economic crises effectively distracted people from the elections.”

Sustainable food

The French city of Pau won the ‘Sustainable food systems: empowering people’ category, with its Green Belt project, which is shortening food supply chains and increasing local production of food and drink.

The project aims to settle 100 small farmers, providing them with technical assistance and access to city markets.

“The idea of building a company rather than a committee is at the heart of the partners’ commitment,” said Pierre Pezziardi, President of La Ceinture Verte Group. “Both the city, the agriculture chain, the partners and the citizens are committed to growing the share of local food through this non-profit agile startup.”

In total, nine cities were shortlisted for the awards across the three categories: Madrid, Aix-Marseille and Porto in the ‘Innovation ecosystems: attracting and retaining talent’ category; Bordeaux, Dortmund and Pau in the ‘Sustainable food systems: empowering people’ category; and Gdansk, Rotterdam and Zurich in the ‘Creative election campaigns: mobilising citizens’ category.

“The winners of this year’s Eurocities awards have shown their exceptional drive to create healthier, more prosperous futures for their residents and to stand up for the core European values of democracy and equality,” said Burkhard Jung, President of Eurocities and Mayor of Leipzig.

“Amid increasing political division in Europe, widening inequalities and the impacts of climate change, our cities are responding with innovative, inspirational projects that are transforming people’s lives and setting a compelling example for others to follow.”

Image: Simion Sebastian Tataru