ROADMAP TOWARDS CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN CHILE AND CIRCULAR CHANGE COLLABORATION IN LATIN AMERICA

"Implementing changes is an ongoing process and should be viewed as work in progress. Today, when faced with the Covid-19 crisis, a circular economy roadmap can serve as one of the guidelines toward greater resilience and a prosperous future."

Each circular economy roadmapping process is unique. We cannot just simply “copy paste” the methodology and lessons learned in one country to another environment. That is what makes every single circular economy journey exciting. At Circular Change we feel privileged having the opportunity participating in the process of building circular economy roadmap in Chile. Our main role is to contribute with experience and expert knowledge on Circular Economy and roadmap elaboration during the consultancy. Sharing concrete experiences, we have gained while working on the Roadmap Towards the Circular Economy in Slovenia (2016/17), CE Roadmap for Serbia (2019) and kick-off activities for the CE Roadmap in Montenegro (2020), as well as while contributing to several studies and researches on circular economy roadmapping processes in Europe, is what we are bringing in the project developed by Fundación Eurochile for the MMA.

Enabling space for discussions and engaging different stakeholders, coaching and orchestrating the process, co-creating recommendation for the roadmap design, and at the very end supporting communication and implementation of the document is what we have worked on.

Since we are talking about the circular economy roadmap, the principles of circular economy have to be “the compass” while establishing objectives. For sure we have to consider to what kind of investments are we going to say yes, and to which no. By implementing systemic approach, we can better understand and manage different sectors, since they are all interdependent. Agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, mobility, energy, construction, mining – whatever we address, it is related to other sectors. Objectives will define our future – and it has to be an alternative, sustainable future, providing us a good livelihood. 

In Latin America we can already recognize kind of a “movement” inspired by the circular economy roadmaping process in Chile. Brazil is also very active and Circular Change is honored to be a part of this “circular community”, collaborating with Exchange4Change in Brazil and Eurochile in Chile. Slovenian Ambassador, Gorazd Renčelj, is great supporter of circular transition and is also contributing to the recognition of different initiatives and activities. Mutual synergies and active collaboration are regularly on the agenda of LAC (Latin America and Carribean) events (in cooperation with EU LAC) – most recently LAC days 2021 – conference where circular economy had been in the focus.

Fundacion Eurochile published an interview with Ladeja G. Košir in which she shared the experiences of Circular Change with the process of co-creation of circular economy roadmaps in different countries, including Chile. Full article (in Spanish/English translation available) here.

You can also check the full post-event report prepared by Fundacion Eurochile based on two previous events (2019 in Madrid and 2020 in Chile/virtual).