CATALY(C)ST

Project 2020 - 2022 Closed

Youth Change makers as catalysts for a transition to a sustainable circular economy.

Bringing best practice from the research world, the maker communities, the youth movements and industry into one strong initiative. The main aim is to maximize value by increasing resource productivity, enhancing energy efficiency, lowering resource consumption and decreasing waste.

The CATALY(C)ST project brings together four main elements

Accelerating Nordic companies' transition to a sustainable circular economy by engaging students, manufacturing companies to speed up their circular economy (CE) transition by a collaborative approach for CE development projects by activating resources from; a talent-mass of students, world-class researchers and mentor experts, Nordic innovation hubs and organizations.
Impactful minds of tomorrow for circular economy champions and innovations: Competency and experience building of the youth and the industry champions within existing companies to become change makers.
Mobilizing a Nordic change community for CE: Alignment within already existing communities to establish a new Nordic youth community.
Industry & research - partnership-based program: Bringing expert knowledge to companies’ CE-development projects.

The aim of the CATALY(C)ST project

The main aim is to maximize value by increasing resource productivity, enhancing energy efficiency, lowering resource consumption and decreasing waste. Overall mantra; decoupling value creation from resource consumption. Bringing results from the CIRCit research project to the next level by including the findings from:

CE readiness & opportunity mapping
CE Business models creation & servitization
CE products by Eco-design
CE enhancement by digitalization
CE close the loop strategies.

Background

The Nordic Prime Ministers have decided on a new vision for Nordic cooperation. The Nordic countries are to become the most integrated, sustainable region in the world by 2030, emphasizing green (circular and biobased), competitive and socially inclusive societies. The Nordic countries have the strongholds needed to be frontrunners in the circular economy. However, there are still issues to resolve in order to reach the climate targets and Sustainable Development Goals, especially number 12 (Sustainable production and consumption) and 13 (Climate Change).

The call the project was funded under, was designed to enable cooperation actions that can turn strategies into concrete solutions to help reduce the CO2 footprint, reduce and optimize material use, promote innovations and implement new business models. The call for proposals addressed two of the four action areas that currently make up Nordic Innovation’s Nordic Sustainable Business Transformation program.