On 24 and 25 January, 12 organisations from 5 Alpine countries (Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Slovenia) met in Verona to officially launch the international ECOLE project, co-funded by the Interreg Alpine Region Programme.

The ECOLE project focuses on industrial parks, which suffer from an image as polluters and rising energy costs but lack knowledge about circular economy principles and how to integrate them into their working processes. The ECOLE project aims to change this and accelerate the transition to a circular and resource-efficient industry in the Alpine region. To achieve this goal, the project will create a model of a systemic-thinking community, recommendations for policy makers and action plans for the integration of circular economy in local industrial areas. The ECOLE project will thus contribute to the transformation of industrial parks in the Alpine region into more circular, resilient, and sustainable eco-industrial parks that are better prepared to face climate and economic crises.