 Hello and welcome to the Circular Metabolism Podcast. This podcast is hosted by the Chair of Circular Economy and Urban Metabolism held by Aristide de Tannassiades and Stefan Kanperman at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In this podcast, we talk with researchers, policymakers and different practitioners to unravel the complex aspects of what makes urban metabolism and economies more circular. This podcast is produced by the Chair of Circular Economy and Urban Metabolism at the Université Libre de Bruxelles held by Aristide de Tannassiades and Stefan Kanperman. In this podcast, we discuss with researchers, administrators and practitioners to clarify the different aspects that make the economy and metabolism of our cities more circular. In the sixth episode of the Circular Metabolism Podcast, we were able to discuss with Thierry Maréchal, in charge of development of circular economy in the city of Paris. Thierry is part of the Urban Ecology Agency. In other words, it is the environment service in the city of Paris which aims to pilot environmental plans such as the climate energy plan, the biodiversity plan, but also the circular economy plan, but also to ensure the coherence between all this as well as to mobilize the actors who make these plans operational. In this episode, we will have access to the course of an urban administration which aims to set up a strategy in circular economy. Indeed, as for many other cities, the path to circular economy begins with a strong political will and in the case of Paris, it is the mayor, Madame Anne Hidalgo, who initiated this movement. To operationalize this idea, Thierry's service was organized in 2015. The general stages of circular economy, gathering more than 200 actors and giving birth to the white book of the circular economy of Great Paris, which carried 65 recommendations. The challenge was to turn this white book into a municipal policy and an action plan of circular economy with a pilot, a calendar and means. In 2017, the first circular economy route of Paris flies away, with 15 actions focused on five axes. First, construction and management. Second, the reduction, the re-employment, the repair and re-use. Thirdly, the support to the actors. Fourthly, the public command is finally a fifth axis concerning responsible consumption. Today, the second circular economy route is set up, with all kinds of actions but focusing mainly on sensibility, education, responsible administration and how to loop flows at a very local level. We also discuss the particular role of Paris in terms of governance and flow management, since it is a territory that is both a municipality, a department and one of the 12 territories of the Metropolitan of Great Paris, freshly created in early 2016. Indeed, it is clear that it is necessary to collaborate between the different scales since Paris is obviously very dependent on its interland and the actors who transform and loop the flows often find themselves at the Paris Ferry. One of the ways to collaborate between different territories and cities is to communicate the best practices between administrations and the different economic actors. For example, Paris collaborates in a narrow way with another of the 12 territories of Great Paris, called Plaine Commune, because they share very similar issues but also different actors who are active in the two territories simultaneously. Finally, I could not stop myself and I asked Thierry how he saw the interaction of operational plans such as the circular economy with the academic world. He explained to me that according to him, although the academic world may have a much longer time, this can, for example, allow a longer-term reflection and help to reflect on future trends. Research also allows us to be able to project the results and impacts of the solutions in place today, in the future, in order to avoid the false ideas and offer a better help to the decision for the different actors. Take advantage of this episode and don't forget to go to our website circularmetabolism.com for the rest of our productions. To help us improve our podcast and take advantage of the next episodes, subscribe to your favorite app like YouTube, to Tunis, Spotify or Stitcher and don't hesitate to leave a comment. I would like to make sure that between the municipal or environmental plans there is a cohesion between the actions and the latter is to mobilize the actors of the territory. So, although we are located in the direction of the environmental space, we still have a rather transversal mission to the city on these issues, even if it is most of the time, the directions that are operational on the actions that have been voted within the different environmental and municipal plans. So how did we manage to talk about circular economy? First of all, what you have to know is that in Paris, it is a municipal and political will, since Annie Dalgo, in her mandate project, had very clearly placed circular economy within the projects she wanted to carry during her mandate. By the way, it was confirmed since she named it an adjoint in charge of the social and social economy, of social innovation and of the circular economy, which is Antonin Gull. So in the direction of Antonin Gull, it was clearly inscribed that it was necessary that she put in place the general states of the circular economy. So as a city-based environmental service, and in fact, since there are environmental issues to be launched in a circular economy policy, especially on resources, the Urban Ecology Agency has in 2015 led the general states of the circular economy. So we launched in 2015 the general states of the circular economy, which has gathered about 240 different actors and which has allowed to develop the white book of the circular economy of the Great Paris, which includes 65 actions or 65 recommendations of action. So these are actions that have been ... that have been addressed by the different actors present at the workshops, because we have been at the workshops for six months with the different actors. And so it's really something that has come back from the field, that has come back from the different actors. The challenge then was to transform this white book into a municipal policy and therefore into a plan of circular economy action. So the choice has been made to work on different route sheets, which each behaves between 10 and 15 actions to be able to advance by package and to be able to advance in an operational way. So the first route sheet has been adopted at the same time as the strategic flight of the circular economy plan in 2017. It behaves 15 actions around large themes such as construction and cleaning, reduction, re-employment and repair, support to the actors, sustainable consumption and a fifth. And so we worked again with the actors to make an operational definition of these actions. So the idea was to make them as operational as possible with an identified pilot, with identified work sequences, with a calendar, with means. So we can find all of this in the 2017 route sheet. Today we are working on the second route sheet, as it was planned. So what is the difference between the first and the second one? So on this second route sheet, we will be on actions on other themes. We will be on issues of sensitization, for example education, we will be on issues of responsible administration. And on another theme that will be rather online, a little with the industrial and territorial ecology and with the flows, it is how, at a very local level, to do the re-employment, not the re-employment, but the valuation of the rain water, for example, or the recovery of energy, and this at a very local level. You have to know that the idea of the circular economy plan is not to lead a policy, it is to lead a global policy, but it is a complementary policy of other policies of the city of Paris. So on energy issues, for example, we have the climate plan, which is a certain number of actions on renewable energy issues. So the idea in this future route sheet on energy is to work in addition to other municipal route sheets and to bring a circular economy dimension or relationship between the actors on the definition of these new actions. That's how the circular economy policy has been led, it is in a complementary way with other municipal policies. And so you talked about the white book, which was rather at the level of Grand Paris, but your road sheet, which is rather at the level of Paris, I do not understand. Absolutely, that is to say that between the stages of the circular economy that took place in 2015 and the road sheet that was adopted in 2017, the Grand Paris was created, to know on 1 January 2016. So indeed, what happened was that during the General States, we also anticipated the creation of the metropolis of the Grand Paris by opening our workshops to the actors of the Grand Paris. And it is important because the metropolis scale, in terms of circular economy, in terms of flow, in terms of actors, is really important because all the actors who act on the Parisian territory are not necessarily strictly based in Paris either. We know that the fund in Paris and the pressure of the fund is important. So some actors, for example, from the USSR are obviously forced to have rear bases on less expensive funds. So it was important to work with the actors of the metropolis. Even if we look at the Mirobin metabolism, the flows, we know that Paris is completely dependent on its close environment. So that's why it made sense to work with all the actors of the metropolis in Paris. And how do we ensure that there is a coherence, whether it is at the level of governance, but also at the level of the actions, the flows, on the two scales simultaneously, because we too in Brussels, there is this question of metropolis, but which is also on other regions. Here it remains in the region and in France. But how do we manage this type of governance? It is a very good question. In fact, everything is in the process of writing today. Nothing is still engraved in the marble. For the good reason, it is that for example, the region of France is developing its waste plan. The metropolis is being built. The metropolis identified this because in fact it encourages a network of referent circular economy on different territories. So suddenly, and the different communes. So suddenly, I think there are 142 communes who are present in their work group. With each time a political referent, there is a technical referent, which allows also to have a little exchange of experiences between the different territories. So the metropolis has already identified this question. The city of Paris, we have a particular position because we are both a commune, both a department, and at the same time a territory of the Great Paris. So we also have, of course, our role to play in terms of return to experience and exchange of good practice. And we play it very voluntarily. We work in a more narrow way with some territories. For example, the commune, which also has a method of urban metabolism that could perhaps focus more on the question of field materials and construction and management, which is logical compared to their territory. And suddenly we work in a fairly narrow way because we identified that we had the same issues and that we worked with the same actors. So it was important that we also unify a little bit our actions. So suddenly, we have created groups of work to exchange together on these questions. So here I would say that things are building and stabilizing little by little. In the region, we are still on a side, because we are going beyond the metropolis or even the metropolitan air. So suddenly, I think that at the level of the government, there is not too much concern or question to be asked, I would say, between the region and Paris. It is perhaps more at the metropolitan level, really, where we see that there are depressions that are much more important. And in this exchange of good practice, whether it is between Paris and its metropolis, I also think that's why I'm here, by the way, it is for a good exchange of practice between the city, for example, between Paris and Brussels. We have a little different approaches, even if they are quite similar. We have similar issues, like all European cities. We are very dependent on certain flows, on the territory, in the clave, but also we have talked about social and solidarity economy. What kind of good practice or how can we exchange between cities? Is it between actors, between administrations? What is the best way to make these good practices circulate? I think it's a bit at all levels. It is indeed between administrations because we bring public policies. So it is also important to be able to feed the experience of each other. After, in terms of concrete action, I think it is very important that there is an exchange between economic actors. There are certainly, there are many things that are reproducible from one country to another. I will give a concrete example. There are exchanges at the moment between the Netherlands and France. There is a exchange in court at the level of the two countries, but more particularly the embassy of the Netherlands in Paris also makes a circular economic approach and organizes exchanges between the Netherlands and the Netherlands and France. Not later than last week, there were meetings where we see that it is also very interesting that the economic actors are present to explain what they do, what they propose as a solution. One of the really important issues for the territories is to accompany the economic actors, is to offer them the field of experimentation, to offer them the means, to offer them the conditions so that they can deploy their solutions. It seems primordial indeed, they will not be able to do that without the economic actors who will be able to develop solutions. And you have to be also listening to their needs, that is to say that there can be great actors like the smallest actors, they can be traditional actors like the SS actors, who have different needs. So it is important to also exchange with them. It also allows us as buyers to do sourcing, that is to go and see the actors, to see what they do, to be able to integrate that in our charging cases, in our public markets. That is to say that we can sometimes have false ideas, to say that we could immediately put very strict obligations in our markets, for example under the field of expertise to say, ok, tomorrow we spend 70% of the value, and then finally behind there is not the market. So it is really important to work together, that's how these solutions are born. And the borders today between the administrations, the associations or the companies are more and more strict and we are forced to work together. I think that exchanges must be done at all levels. Let's talk about another actor who is the one I am part of, the academic actors. You have talked about the link between Metabolism Urban and Circular Economy. What is the link between perhaps a more academic discipline which is Metabolism Urban, which is rather the monitoring of the flows and the understanding of the dynamics with action of Circular Economy which rather mobilizes administration and association with entrepreneurs. So how can we link the two in a city like Paris or Brussels? Well, I don't know too much actually. But it's the same, it's a fairly global issue, so I think at a lot of different levels. What, for example, do you need an academic sector to provide you, to have a better idea of what kind of market you would like to have or which flow would be more interesting? Is it a continuous accompaniment? Is it rather, by the time, what type of exchange should be favored to make the benefit? I think it's true that we are in a very operational vision of our actions. Sometimes, the academic time is not the same as in the illustration, the time is very long. But we are not necessarily on the same level of time. Nevertheless, I think we really need research to work on the new economic models, for example, on the new flow exchanges, on the new flow exchanges, on the new city logistics modes. And I tend to, but maybe I'm wrong, to place a gap a little further, but at the same time, if we don't integrate the possibilities of the city's organization, for example, or the city's management, in our current policies, then maybe it won't be quite efficient. So I think we really need this research to be able to anticipate the future and to be able to propose solutions or actions that are being projected in time. So I think it's interesting, too, this look, it's different. If I take, for example, the recent research that Vincent Giseau had done on the stock of materials in the city, well, for us, it's super interesting to have these data available, to have this knowledge available to be able to already integrate that into our reflection. So, as I said earlier, the study that Sabine Barle did, if the study was not available at the time when we launched our approach to the urban metabolism, we wouldn't have a public policy launch as we launched it at the beginning. These data on urban metabolism wouldn't have been able to feed our approach on the circular economy. So I think it's complementary. It's important. There may also be more precise or more specific studies. I think, for example, our action on the development of industrial synergies on the riverfront, on how to accompany the actors and on how, in the long term, to synchronize the synergies that could be put into place between the actors, we also have, I think, a need for research to anticipate the next step. So it's both to compare what is done, to evaluate what has been done, but I also think especially to anticipate the future and to imagine where we are going to go to be able to project ourselves. We may not always have this ability, at least at this time, to be able to project ourselves quite extravagantly. And to project ourselves in the results that could give our actions or in the impacts that it could give. And the last point, I think it's in the end of the impact, it seems necessary to me. If we didn't have data on the impacts of the projects, we couldn't make the right decisions. That's also why, for example, in the last year, we took the time to evaluate the so-called metabolism projects, at least for six of them, because we can also sometimes do it with false ideas, to know what kind of project it is, because it's circular economy, it will have a positive impact, it will have less impact on the environment. We are not 100% sure, now with our study, we are able to say yes or no, and in what measure. Because it depends on the scales, it's not always the same. And it's a help to make the decision. For example, the study that we took allowed the economic actors to say to them, well, it's better to orient yourself towards such a solution, you will decrease by two your impact, and you will be able to favor the local lamp, and for your image of Mars it will be better. But if you didn't have this time to look for studies around the evaluation of the projects, we could not have had this retreat. So it allows a certain retreat also on the actions.