The CircularPSP project has recently launched a game-changing €5.64 million tender inviting suppliers to design, create, and test a pioneering ‘circular economy solution’. It is intended to empower municipalities, their staff, and local businesses to adopt circular practices with greater speed, frequency, breadth, and effectiveness. The tender submission is set on 1. April 2024.

In the dynamic landscape of public procurement for innovation, municipalities and suppliers are pivotal players steering the course towards a sustainable future. At the forefront of this movement is the CircularPSP project, uniting eight leading circular economy cities, representing a collective of 45 million citizens.

Together, they have committed €5.64 million to research and development (R&D) to address the common challenge of fast-tracking the transition towards a circular economy (CE) by addressing the challenge of developing tailored artificial intelligence (AI) tool and a public service platform. The deadline for the tender submission is on 1. April 2024.

Goals and a path of circular economies

The primary goal is to empower municipal staff as well as local businesses to embrace circular practices more frequently and effectively. Recognizing the need for advanced tools, CircularPSP is set to provide access to AI specialised in the CE domain, a public service platform, and a circular change framework aimed at transitioning from linear mindsets.

Acknowledging the crucial role of procurement in driving circularity, CircularPSP introduces a transformative workflow. Leveraging AI solutions, municipal staff will gain access to procurement indicators from across Europe, making it easier to translate ideas, criteria, and contract needs for sustainable solutions. The procurement departments will be able to utilise AI to assess tender documents against circular criteria, ensuring high-quality outputs and minimizing risks.

Why to participate in the tender

Individual users within municipal and business contexts can gain empowerment through facilitated access to information, knowledge, circular wisdom, guidance, and training. This aims to encourage them to embrace circular practices more consistently and meaningfully while transitioning to a CE mindset.

In this session, participants will find also a dedicated space for matchmaking. The complete Challenge description is available here.

Important dates not to be missed

Join the upcoming tender presentation event on 11. January 2024 at 11:00 CET.
Register for the presentation here.

The next events will focus on different aspects of the tender:

· 18. January 2024 at 11:00 CET: Technical part
Register here.

· 25. January 2024 at 11:00 CET: Admin and finance part
Register here.

The need for an innovative solution

CircularPSP and its network have been addressing their energies in finding the needs and barriers to make public demand and local economy circular in European cities, setting up the basis for the development of the upcoming tender procedure.

Indeed, they found different needs, covering the areas of information, operation, organisation, change and upskilling. Cities shared their issues on accessing and understanding CE knowledge, making circularity workable on city level and day-to-day basis.

Procurement experts need a single location for information and tracking, as well as customised capacity-building and training sessions. This results in the ideation of an innovative AI driven solution. Thus, the tender focuses on a platform underpinned by AI using CE taxonomies and Natural Processing Language (NPL) to support cities and local business.

Joining forces

CircularPSP has joined two communities on the Public Buyers Platform (DG GROW), which drafted Non-High Risk contractual AI clauses. They apply to CircularPSP and therefore were incorporated in its Framework Agreement.

Parallelly, the project established the CE taxonomy working group. The scope is to:

· identify a set of core terminology,

· identify a set of core data sources for AIs,

· document a core set of data standards and protocols.

This works as an open and continuous process enabling the project to update the requirements for the AI tool. The final work will be public, with intermediate results curated by the CircularPSP consortium, like the CE Taxonomy whitepaper. Any Follower partner interested in contributing to this activity, can easily access the working documents present in this page.

ICLEI, a Circular PSP Follower partner, released the European Circularity City Declaration (CCD) report of 2022, with the support of Ellen McArthur Foundation. Any interested municipality can sign the CCD declaration visiting this website.

For deeper information on the above topics, check all the resources on CircularPSP website.

Engagement opportunities

CircularPSP invites all interested parties, including cities, regions, government organizations, and projects, to liaise with consortium representatives and become part of the Follower Network. This network will receive insights into the project’s timeline, next steps, and opportunities for collaboration.

How to get involved

For those eager to be part of this transformative initiative, reach out to CircularPSP. Explore opportunities for collaboration and information exchange within the Follower Network.

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