Circular City Labs Tirana – Demo Day marks the culmination of a 4-month Acceleration programme, that aimed at designing solutions for reusable packaging systems in cities.
The spotlight is on 9 start-ups and business ideas developed during the Accelerator, with the goal of having an impact on reducing the greenhouse emissions in the environment while offering new economic opportunities.
The participants received inspiring speeches by Mr. Edvin Pacara, Programme Manager for Environment and Climate Change at Delegation of the European Union to Albania; Dr. Iven Schad – Head of Development Cooperation at German Embassy to Tirana; Mrs. Katja Suhr – programme manager at Circular City Labs Global and Mrs. Anuela Ristani – Deputy Mayor at Municipality of Tirana. All put emphasis on the global challenge of tackling climate change, by creating sustainable initiatives.
Panel Discussion
One of the highlights of the event was a panel discussion on the importance of collaboration toward circular and livable cities. The session gathered representatives from public, private sector and academia, who shared their insights on the topic.
Mrs. Julinda Dhame, General Director of Environmental and Sustainable Development, appreciated that Tirana is one of the cities selected to implement the Circular City Labs (CCL) project. Moreover, she stated that Tirana is the first Municipality to draft an action plan on Circular Economy. In the framework of the CCL project, with the support of ICLEI, the Municipality of Tirana is in the process of developing regulations for adapting Reuse in Green public events.
Mrs. Katja Suhr, Programme Manager of the CCL Global project, mentioned that Tirana was chosen as a city for implementation due to the existing reuse models and the increased number of business activities. Referring to the baseline study of Circular Economy in Albania, dating May 2022, Tirana is a leading city in innovation.
From the government perspective, Ami Çarçani and Nikolin Balli, representatives of Ministry of Economy, Culture and Innovation, and National Agency of Waste Economy respectively, highlighted the importance of the collaboration between public entities. Synergies are required in terms of policy development and alignment of instruments to foster innovation of start-ups and SMEs with a special focus on circular and green economy.
From an academic perspective, Dr. Eugen Musta, Head of Business Administration Department at Canadian Institute of Technology, shared some findings from his guidebook for start-ups towards Circular and Green Economy. Referring to the publication, he highlighted some of the challenges from the start-up and SME perspective on the topic of Circular Economy. Specifically, he mentioned that Recycling is perceived as the main principle of the Circular model, while Reuse is not known or developed as a concept.
The Women Economic Chamber in Albania (WECA), represented by Mrs. Sabi Osmani, applauded the opportunities offered by the Circular City Labs – Tirana project. She expressed interest in involving the chamber as dissemination channel of CCL solutions (reusable packaging), which goes in line with the objective of WECA to empower women entrepreneurs and actors in local circular economies.
Circular City Labs-Tirana is a joint effort of the European Union and Germany via (1) Circular City Labs Project (2) EU for Circular Economy and Livable Cities (3) EU4Innovation programmes in partnership with the Municipality of Tirana.
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