What are the views from entrepreneurs on the three Urban Circular Economy scenarios?
In the second expert meeting on Urban Circular Economy, the three perspectives were presented to a group of experts invited by BlueCity, Circularity Center, R'damse Nieuwe and the City of Rotterdam. The expert meeting focused on the applicability of these perspectives in the context of Rotterdam. For each scenario the main conclusions concerning the spatial impact in the city will be briefly described. The expert meeting took place on June 22, 2015 and was organised in collaboration with Circularity Center, R'damse New and BlueCity.
Scenario Business almost as Usual
The participants choose this perspective as it was most related to the here and now. This scenario raised important questions about the ownership of waste and the (spatial, political, economic and social) constraints to this perspective to reach full maturity. The participants agreed that in the area of waste separation and recycling there is still a world to win, especially in Rotterdam.
The waste problem can’t be tackled any longer from a central perspective. A transition from a centralized system to a decentralized district level system is needed. How can new models be developed in such a way that the neighbourhood level reuse can be organized? By defining the waste streams in a specific area small local businesses can use waste to power their businesses. There are already examples of this principle, but these entrepreneurs, however, run into a number of problems that make it difficult to develop a profitable system. These problems are mainly logistics. How will the waste be collected efficiently and find its way to the entrepreneur?
Scenario Sustainability as Pocket Money
For this perspective, buildings need to offer a multiple use of space for working, selling and living. For example in a house, the ground floor can be used as a depot or (work)shop. This scenario advocates thus a denser and mixed city. Bottlenecks are legislation and insurance, they are not adapted for mixed use or for do it yourself revenue.
Scenario Sustainability as Lifestyle
This scenario is a neighbourhood-oriented scenario as time to get the product or services is of the essence. Although the user does not own the products, he or she shall still want to use the product when they feel the need to do so. For some products or services users from the same area will cooperate, as that makes the product or service cheaper. This should be applied for products or services the users don’t need immediately.
There are currently many platforms that offer just a limited amount of products or services and finding the best product or service that fits your needs is time consuming. For this scenario to be successful, interconnecting these various sub-platforms (mobility, nutrition, and so on) is needed in order to create an easy to access platform for the users. Furthermore, by creating packages of products or services, the user no longer has to decide every single time again. This is also timesaving.