Public debate: The Transition to a Circular Society in the Eurodelta

Topic
The transition to a circular society is intricately connected to the climate crisis, resource depletion, biodiversity loss, global supply chains, geopolitical issues, justice, well-being, ethics, technological advancements, consumer behaviour, urban development, infrastructure, and buildings. Unlike the mainstream circular economy, which focuses primarily on materials and resource cycles, technical solutions, and business models, the concept of a circular society expands towards comprehensive sustainability.

To kick off the event, A. Wandl used the seven interrelated socio-ecological cycles of the circular society framework of Friant et al. (2023) to highlight the crucial role the Eurodelta and specifically planning and collaborating at the mega-regional scale are relevant by illustrating both challenges and opportunities cycle by cycle. In short, these are:
• The Eurodelta has extremely disrupted biochemical cycles, the most prominent being the nitrogen cycle; nevertheless, because of its fertile soil, climatic conditions, and the spatial 
closeness of urban and rural areas, it also provides excellent conditions for regenerative agriculture that narrows and closes biochemical cycles.
• While biodiversity loss in the Eurodelta was extreme over the last century, its location, its inclusion of many ecoregions, and its status as a delta, where many ecological corridors converge, make it a great place to enhance ecological resilience.
• As one of the most important economic areas in Europe and beyond, the Eurodelta plays a significant role in the current global economy and its linear resource cycles. Under the right legal framework and economic conditions, this richness of infrastructure and economics can contribute to narrowing, slowing, and closing resource flows, making the Eurodelta a key player in the global sustainability movement.
• Regarding the political cycle of power, the euro delta faces great challenges as it is not an administrative unit. However, the Critical Raw Material Act asks municipalities to decide 
quickly on the permitting process for strategic infrastructure and calls for strategic planning and cooperation on a large scale.
• Because of the large accumulation of capital, knowledge and political power in the Eurodelta, it is crucial that actors in the Eurodelta do not use the shift towards a green economy as a cover to exploit areas and societies with less power when mining critical resources or growing regenerative material for example.
• The Eurodelta, with its excellent knowledge institution and the wealth of formal and informal knowledge within its companies and civil society on sustainable development, can 
play a crucial role in the technology, information and Education cycle.
• Establishing cycles of care, which include childcare, elder care, healthcare, and environmental stewardship, is important to achieving a circular society. Those cycles are crucial for Eurodelta, which asks for cross-scale collaboration and the inclusion of the quintuple helix in its planning and development.

See also here a short movie:

Public debate: The Transition to a Circular Society in the Eurodelta