REFLOW

Co-creating circular and regenerative resource flows in cities.

The Challenge

To design and create regenerative cities working with citizens, businesses and governments.

Our Solution

Six pilot cities analysing different resource flows to co-create solutions for circular and regenerative cities.

Type of Project

Innovation Action for Societal Challenges in climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under Grant Agreement 820937.

Project Outputs

A digital project hub and suite of digital tools.

Cities currently consume more resources than they produce. This is significantly detrimental towards the planet when considering that 68% of the world’s population is predicted to live in urban areas by 2050 (U.N.). This linear model of production is otherwise known as PITO – product in, trash out. We buy cheap products, use them for a limited time and then throw them away at the end of a short life cycle. The resource management of these products creates a contradiction – these products may appear cheap for us, however, they are expensive for the environment when considering their effects of pollution, acidification and damage to ecosystems and landscapes.

The Project

REFLOW is creating the opportunity to change the way we produce and consume through studying urban resource flows in six pilot cities: Amsterdam, Berlin, Cluj-Napoca, Milan, Paris and Vejle. By building on what is termed as the urban metabolic concept (understanding the biological and technical processes in cities), REFLOW is actively addressing and documenting the methodology of the urban transitions to more circular economies, seeing the value in waste. REFLOW aims to make systematic changes in waste processes at a city level, creating a series of available resources and precedents for other cities to utilise, ranging from handbooks, toolkits, webinars, software and circular business models.

Our Contribution

This project works towards a different economic model – using blockchain technologies to incentivise circular practices to lead to a more circular economy. Fab Lab Barcelona contributes to the project with its reputable work in circular economy practices for human-scale and technological infrastructure development (most notably, the Fab City Dashboard, Fablabs.io and the Make.Works platforms). We are dedicated to the development of tools including supporting the development of the project’s technical architecture including the project hub reflowproject.eu and ‘weLoop’ a social platform for a citizen-led circular economy. Fab Lab Barcelona has key experience in the engagement and outreach to local and international communities of makers, citizens and policy experts and are also responsible for the communication and dissemination activities, supporting the upscaling of the REFLOW into global networks of practice.

Who is it for?

The REFLOW project is useful for Fab Labs to Policymakers.

Citizens, Fab Labs and Makerspaces

Interested in using REFLOW’s results in their daily operations and participating in the activities promoted by the project and be inspired by new ideas and applications.