CIRCONOMY project – Unlocking the Potential of Circularity with Smart Indicators – is a three-year Horizon Europe project coordinated by UnitelmaSapienza. It aims to accelerate Europe’s transition towards a sustainable circular economy (CE) by developing a harmonised, operational framework of micro-level CE indicators. While macro-level frameworks provide valuable aggregated data, they lack the level of detail needed for municipalities, companies, and households to make informed decisions and to support behavioural change and investment strategies.
To bridge this gap, CIRCONOMY will develop a modular, user-focused monitoring framework and an intuitive digital tool that combines scientific rigour with practical usability. The project adopts a participatory, interdisciplinary approach, integrating life cycle thinking, environmental footprint methods, social sciences, and digital innovation to develop a robust, inclusive, and adaptable framework across diverse socio-economic and territorial contexts.
A key innovation of CIRCONOMY lies in its multi-scale and multi-actor approach, enabling the assessment of circularity performance at municipal, industrial, SME, and household levels. The system is developed through iterative co-creation, piloting, and replication activities to validate its usability, scalability, and transferability across diverse European contexts.
Beyond technical development, CIRCONOMY advances capacity building and stakeholder engagement through targeted toolkits, training resources, and communication strategies. These are designed to facilitate uptake by municipalities, industry actors, SMEs, and citizens, supporting the integration of circularity metrics into both operational and strategic decision-making.
Policy alignment is ensured through continuous alignment with key EU policy frameworks and initiatives, including the Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU Taxonomy, and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The project will deliver actionable policy briefs and recommendations to support institutional uptake and harmonisation efforts.
By bridging circularity measurement with governance, financial decision-making, and citizen participation, CIRCONOMY translates circular economy principles into practical, context-specific, and socially inclusive practices, strengthening Europe’s monitoring infrastructure for the circular economy transition and supporting the implementation of the European Green Deal objectives.