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3.6 Bundling Circular Initiatives in Regions
Experiences in the Netherlands show that some circular initiatives
must, in order to be effective, transcend the city level and be
organised at a regional level. For example, investments in advanced
recycling technologies only lead to a viable business case when
enough volume of a particular resource stream can be created
and the commercial demand for recyclates and their quality can
be guaranteed. Similarly, when cities want to use their purchasing
power to increase the market for circular products and services,
they do well to join forces and align with other stakeholders willing
to establish circular procurement. Efforts are therefore also made
to bundle circular initiatives regionally in the Netherlands. I have
analysed six of those initiatives. 29 Spread across the country, they
scope about half of the Netherlands, including 174 municipalities
and over eight million inhabitants.
The six regions differ in various respects. Their size ranges in
scale, from one or more provinces to a region, a city or even
the bundling of a number of cities; the key actors who initiated
the regional approach drew these groupings. Moreover, each
region’s programme priority points are determined by its specific
socioeconomic and cultural strengths.
29 Cramer, J.M., The Function of Transition Brokers in the Regional
Governance of Implementing Circular Economy: A Comparative Case
Study of Six Dutch Regions, Sustainability, 2020, 12, 5015,
https://doi.org/10.3390/su12125015.