Luxembourg takes part in the EU COST Action CIRCULAR CITY

The meetings were hosted by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (BOKU), which is also the coordinator of the action, and gathered over 120 participants from the 38 countries, having signed the Memorandum of Understanding. COST stands for European “Cooperation in Science and Technology” and is a funding organisation for bottom-up research and innovation networks (see https://www.cost.eu/ for more information).

The COST action CIRCULAR CITY (see also www.circular-city.eu) intends to tackle the challenges linked to resource depletion, climate change and the degradation of ecosystems caused by the growing urbanization worldwide. Nature-based solutions (NBS) can provide a range of ecosystem services beneficial for the urban biosphere such as regulation of micro-climates, flood prevention, water treatment, food and material provision, etc. By adopting the concept of a circular economy and combining these solutions in a holistic way resource cycles within the urban biosphere can be closed and socio-economic and environmental benefits generated.

At the Vienna meeting, Luxembourg was represented by the University of Luxembourg (Prof. D^r. Jo Hansen), LIST (D^r. Benedetto Rugani) and +ImpaKT (D^r. Paul Schosseler), gathering thus both competences from research and practice. The discussions in the five Working Groups (WG) of the action are dealing with the built environment, urban water, resource recovery, urban farming and transformation tools and related socio-economic impacts. The main objective of the COST Action CIRCULAR CITY is to build an interdisciplinary platform for connecting city planners, architects, system designers, economists, engineers and researchers from social and natural sciences.

We would, therefore, like to invite Luxembourg stakeholders who develop or work on nature-based solutions in the urban landscape to get in touch and exchange knowledge and best practice, both at national and European level through the COST network. For more information on activities related to Ecosystem Services in Luxembourg, please visit also the recently created National Network of the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP, see also https://www.es-partnership.org/comm...).

Contact : pschosseler@positiveimpakt.eu