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Press release

PPI4Waste project concludes with international conference in Brussels

29 September 2017 00:00 - Freiburg, Germany

After almost three years, the PPI4Waste project ended with an international conference in Brussels (Belgium) on 12 September 2017. Experts and participants concluded that more cooperation is needed to support public procurement of innovation (PPI) and help increase the uptake of innovative solutions for waste management.

Public procurement of innovation (PPI) is a powerful tool to foster innovation and leverage the market, but is still widely regarded as a complicated process by most public authorities. The PPI4Waste project, funded through the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, was established to address this through identifying common needs and state-of-the-art solutions, bringing together the demand and supply sides to gain a better understanding of ready-to-market solutions. The final conference brought together public procurers and suppliers committed to boosting innovation in the waste sector.

Identifying the need for more coordination for PPI in the waste sector, a roadmap for joint or coordinated PPI in waste management was produced by the project partners and will be made available on the project website. The project also recommends the continuation of cooperation on the topic of PPI, through the communities created during the project.

ICLEI‘s Procurement Forum will host a successor discussion group on Waste and Resources, open to public procurers, innovation experts and others. It will serve as a follow-on from the Interest Group and Purchasing Community established during the project. This will work closely with the UrbanWINS project partnership on resource efficiency and urban metabolism, and feature discussions on PPI in waste, circular economy, legislation and policy among others, and will continue to be aimed specifically at public procurers, researchers and innovators interested in galvanising public uptake of innovative waste solutions.

English

2017
Philippe Micheaux-Naudet
pmn@acrplus.org