HOOP D6.3 Report on the engagement activities implemented through the Biowaste Clubs in the Lighthouse Cities and Regions
Creators: name: Jungnickel, Meike
name: Ioannidou, Dimitra
name: Schumacher, Felix
name: Woo, Fiona
name: Diedrich, Anna-Carina
name: Escarrabil, Mar
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023

description: The HOOP project aims to provide Project Development Assistance (PDA) to eight Lighthouse cities and regions for the future implementation of biobased processes for the valorisation of the organic fraction of the municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and urban wastewater sludge (UWWS). The goal is to help unlock bio-based investments and deploy local bio economies in Europe. Facilitating this change requires multi-stakeholder engagement takes place in Biowaste Clubs.
From late 2021 and early 2022, each of the eight HOOP Lighthouse Cities and Regions (LH) has set up its own local or regional Biowaste Club and carried out its first stakeholder engagement activities through Biowaste Club meetings. In order to meet each Lighthouse's target groups and goals for engagement, each Biowaste Club's set-up, format and size vary. While some are built upon existing local initiatives, others bring stakeholders together for the first time. In six Lighthouses, Biowaste Clubs are accompanied by citizen science activities (consult D6.4 in the HOOP Library). The chapters below document the stakeholder engagement activities that have taken place between October 2020 to September 2023 and what can be expected next.
The first preparatory step for establishing the Biowaste Clubs was to assess the status quo of each Lighthouse's biowaste value chain (starting M2, November 2020). Secondly, stakeholder mapping identified key actors along the value chain and assessed their interest, relevance and influence in HOOP activities as well as their connections with each other (starting M2, November 2020). Thirdly, the CSCP developed a "How to Biowaste Club Playbook" (M8, May 2021) and provided training webinars (M8, May 2021) to Lighthouse partners on the concept, tools, set-up and execution of Biowaste Clubs.
The CSCP and WP6 partners organised bilateral "Welcome Talks" with each Lighthouse and facilitated an internal presentation series for them to present to and discuss with each other their biowaste value chain, previous related work, vision for HOOP as well as challenges, promising practices and envisioned pathways for stakeholder engagement. Additionally, bi-monthly WP6 jour fixes are being used to keep all Lighthouses and HOOP partners updated on current developments in each Lighthouse. As WP6 aims to facilitate exchange of learnings and promising practices across Lighthouses and Biowaste Clubs (task 6.2). For this purpose, HOOP study tours took place in June 2022 in Almere and Münster, in October 2022 in Porto and June 2023 in Kuopio.
While in the first project year, emphasis was mostly put on understanding the different actors and defining common goals, the subsequent years focused more on implementing concrete actions. These latter ones were usually linked to tasks 6.3 – citizen science initiatives – and 6.4 – pilot actions (see the HOOP Library). In the second half of the project, the Biowaste Clubs in the 8 HOOP lighthouses were and are also looking more and more into national replication and how to share their learnings and cooperate further across cities and regions. Hence, WPs 6 and 8 are working closely together here - using the WP6 Biowaste Clubs to implement the WP8 national replication activities and vice versa.
Throughout the first three years of the HOOP project, BCMs were attended by 790 stakeholders across all eight LHs and have focused on different stakeholder groups depending on the LH. One trend that emerges when looking at the engagement activities in the eight Lighthouses together is the focus on citizens as a key target group for stakeholder engagement. All Lighthouses want to improve their separate collection rates and quality by understanding and tackling the challenges citizens face in separating their biowaste. Some Lighthouses have and are still carrying out citizen science initiatives to gain more insights into those challenges. A second common theme among Lighthouses is the understanding that stakeholder engagement needs to accompany any scaling up of pilots or neighbourhood activities. A third key topic is the connections and potential conflicts between EU and national legislation and the potential barriers in national legislation and policies. These issues are tackled in the ROOTS initiative. In addition, there is the common challenge of creating acceptance of biobased products for the implementation of HOOP technologies to enjoy long-term success.