Cluj-Napoca
Circular Economy as 'Energy transition path'
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Circular Economy as 'Energy transition path'
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City/Country
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Initiative
Based on our analysis, there is no policy clearly focused on Circular Economy for the city of Cluj-Napoca. Thus, we have focused on the following policy documents: i. Integrated Strategic Plan for the Metropolitan Area of Cluj-Napoca; ii. Cluj-Napoca Development Strategy; iii. Energy Strategy of Romania for 2016-2030; and iv. Integrated National Energy and Climate Change Plan for 2021-2030.
Further, we have looked into two relevant legal entities, namely the “Institute for Research in Circular Economy and Environment “Ernest Lupan” and the “Circular Economy Club (CEC) Cluj-Napoca”. Lastly, we explored a related project titled “A Roadmap for Developing Romania’s Strategy for the Transition to a Circular Economy 2020-2030”.
Level
City/ National level
Period of
Implementation
2020-2050
Core vision
Cluj-Napoca is the most important city of Transylvania (NW region of Romania) with more than 410,000 inhabitants. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of festivals and various events, as the local authorities were extremely supportive for the assimilation of Cluj-Napoca with the collocation ‘a city of events’.
The creative industries and the university sector are Cluj-Napoca’s economic engines. More than 15,000 people work in the local IT sector, most of them in branches of large multinational companies. There are 1,300 IT businesses in the city and the European media refers to Cluj-Napoca as the ‘Silicon Valley of Romania’.
In the sector of energy, Romania has a balanced and diversified energy mix. The country benefits of important internal energy resources such a soil, natural gas and coal. Romania has invested and supported the development of renewable energy sources such as wind power, solar power, biomass and electrical energy generated in micro-hydropower plants. The renewable energy sources to be stimulated in Romania for the period 2030–2050 are: wind energy, hydropower, geothermal energy, biomass, and solar energy. As previous research has underlined, Romania has the potential for green energy production as follows: 65% for biomass, 17% for wind energy, 12% for solar energy, 4% for small hydropower plants, and 2% for geothermal energy.
Cluj-Napoca will build a local coalition around technology options for energy transition paths, which will ensure the creation and assessment of circular economy loops, involving all relevant actors (administration, providers and citizens). The aim is to introduce a 6-part platform tool capable of analysing the energy efficiency of existing and planned buildings and their environment, of delivering technical proposals for improvements, financial estimates of the investments and life cost cycles as well as developing a heat island map effect of the proposals.
Implementation & Governance
Romania’s integration in the European Union brought structural reforms at the core of the national, regional and local policies, and successive strategic documents have tried to generate the necessary changes. In the period February 2013 - December 2014, the Strategic Plan of Cluj-Napoca was developed. The Plan prioritized the future actions of the city in eight strategic dimensions: people and community, the creative city, urban regeneration and spatial planning, the green city, good governance, culture and local identity, healthy city and safe city.
The key factors that prioritize the future projects of the city and would influence the local community on the long term are: participation (association, social inclusion, multiculturalism, youth, public health, sports and community), creativity (economic regeneration, IT, culture and creative industries, tourism, territorial marketing, environment, safety) and university (higher university, historical identity), all being considered within the eight above-mentioned strategic dimensions. These factors are strongly connected to the local community linking tradition (the university city) to contemporary development through the actual and active involvement of the community.
Related to the Circular Economy, the “Roadmap for Developing Romania’s Strategy for the Transition to a Circular Economy 2020-2030” aims to define the pillars to support Romania’s transition to a circular economy by involving all relevant stakeholders and by attracting the necessary financial support. The key objectives are tied to the identification of the regional and local opportunities of the CE sector in Romania. For this purpose, IRCEM and the Romanian Ministry of Environment, in collaboration with the Department for Sustainable Development, as well as 12 other ministries and partners, will participate in 8 different working groups, one in each region of Romania. Several events took place between December 2018 and November 2019, including one on energy and one on circular cities.
Concerning policies related to energy, both local and regional strategies are following the guidelines of the National Energetic Strategy for 2030, which sets as main strategic objectives: energy security, sustainable development and competitiveness. The time period covered for this study was 2016-2050, with yearly basis analysis for the period 2016-2030, and on 5-years basis for the period 2030-2050.
The main elements considered in the Integrated National Energy and Climate Change Plan were the following: i. Economic growth and growth of revenue per household (until 2030); ii. The holistic approach to energy, economy, environment and climate change should be closely linked to the economic reality of the Member States, so as the macroeconomic and internal social balance is not affected; iii. Energy Security dimension: implementation of the projects included in the Energy Strategy of Romania 2019-2030, with perspective of 2050; iv. Reduction of the energy poverty and accelerated electrification of transport; v. Restructuring of the market framework in the context of transition-induced costs and the ability of the Member States to support these costs in terms of accessibility and competitiveness.
Instruments and Levers
The Strategic Plan of CLuj-Napoca refers to seven series of indicators (comprising 196 indicators) which are used as a basis for the future evaluation of the development strategy.
Governance
City of Cluj-Napoca / Romanian Government
Partners
The Strategic Plan of Cluj-Napoca was formed by 28 voluntary working groups from institutions, universities, NGOs and local administration. This experiment was possible due to three reasons: the nature of the local community with an extremely organized active civic and cultural sector; the high degree of cooperation and association between the public authorities and the private sector; the economic development potential which implies a significant local budget and economic resources available for the development of the city.
Also, the Institute for Research in Circular Economy and Environment “Ernest Lupan” (IRCEM) is an independent NGO established in 2012 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In 2017, IRCEM became the official partner in the Circular Economy Platform of Stakeholders (ECESP) from the European Economic and Social Committee, Directorate-General for the Environment, Directorate B - Circular Economy and Green Growth, European Commission.
Their research is based on: Waste management; Redesign materials and products in line with circular economy; Closed-loop, resource and energy efficient processes; Product life-extension, reuse, refurbishment and recycling, and substituting the use of recovered materials for virgin materials in manufacturing.
Lastly, Circular Economy Club is the largest international network of circular economy professionals and organizations with over 260 CEC local chapters in over 110 countries. The aim is to bring the circular economy to cities worldwide by building strong local networks to design and implement circular local strategies, embed the circular economy in the education system and help circular solutions scale. The CEC Cluj-Napoca network is open to anyone who is interested in learning more about and helping to support the transition towards a circular economy.
Indicators and
Monitoring system
No indicators or Monitoring systems are suggested
Budget allocated
Not specified
Results, impacts and learnings
No results have been published yet.
Link(s)