We are pleased to inform you that we are starting a 3 year project “Exploring Plausible Circular Futures” (ExPliCit) , funded by the EU under the Horizon Europe program, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchanges.
The aim of the project:
Circular Economy (CE) represents a new paradigm that is capable of pushing the frontiers of sustainable development by transforming the relationships between ecological systems and economic activities. Such a new paradigm is expected to repair economy-society-nature interactions, replacing the current linear economic model with a new one that is restorative and regenerative by intention and design. However, there is a lack of discussion about how a truly circular economic system should be organised. Most of the current literature on CE fails to recognise this, presenting the transition towards a CE as a straightforward, neutral, and apolitical process, implicitly characterised by a techno-optimistic and eco-modernist stance.
Within this context, this project calls for opening up a debate to deconstruct the increasingly hegemonic discourse of CE based on a technocratic approach and reconstruct it by:
- embedding normative and political dimensions,
- looking at a plurality of plausible CE futures, and
- discussing their implications in terms of the organization of production and distribution networks, also involving a wide set of stakeholders.
As such, the project will involve a plurality of disciplinary perspectives, in order to devise future supply chain configurations that could be implemented in specific industrial sectors under specific CE scenarios.
A wide array of non-academic beneficiaries ensures that the project will be capable of realizing relevant knowledge transfer through secondment mechanisms.
The project includes 10 partners:
- academic partners the coordinator: Universita Degli Studi di Napoli Parthenope (coordinator), University of Vigo, Universita Degli Studi di Catania, University of Sevilla, University of Scheffield and
- non-academic partners: CAN Campania, Federco, AAEL, Revertia and ABIS.
For an overview of the activities and tasks managed and delivered by ABIS during the first secondments at the University of Vigo (UVIGO)'s Post-Growth Innovation Lab, you can read more here.
