C-VoUCHER will fund 24 SMEs to develop a business case for adopting a circular economy model

Submitted by William Fox on 03 August 2020

C-VoUCHER is the first pan-European initiative that will distribute a lump sum of €15k to SMEs developing business cases adopting the concept of Circular Economy. The goal is to reshape and redesign linear value chains into circular ones.

24 selected SMEs will be invited to a 3-month programme and will have access to the support of a Designer-in-Residence and coaching sessions with funding experts.

Warsaw, August 3rd – C-Voucher’s 2nd Open Call for Adopters launches today and is calling all SMEs active in Health, Blue Growth, Textile, Agri-Food and Manufacturing domains that want to develop circular business cases transforming their current linear value chains into circular ones. Open Call stays open until 30th of October 2020, at 17:00 (Brussels local time).

SMEs applying for this call will be stimulated to develop innovative circular solutions based in:

  • The Circularity Solutions developed within the both Circularity programmes of C-VoUCHER (in case that the applicant’s business profile and circular potential is aligned with one of the SMEs that are currently participating in the acceleration programme).

  • A new circular business model based on a circular building  block in Industrial Symbiosis, Material resource efficiency, Renewable energy and energy efficiency, Biological products, Product life cycle extension, Performance economy, Sharing economy and Platform economy).

24 selected SMEs will get  €15,000 (a lump sum to cover the costs of participation in the programme) and access to the Value Chain Replication Programme (up to 3 months in total length), which includes: 

  • Up to 1 month of Designer-in-Residence support for the creative phase of the development of the business case. 

  • Support in identifying further funding to implement that plan, through coaching sessions with public and private funding experts. 

SMEs interested in being adopters and creating their business case can APPLY for the 2nd Adopters’ Open Call before October 30th, 2020 at 17:00 CET (Brussels local time).

About C-Voucher

C-VoUCHER is the first pan-European initiative, funded by the European Commission, aiming at the adoption of the concept of the Circular Economy to transform linear value chains (cradle to waste) towards circular models (cradle to cradle®). The project is distributing a total of €4.2m to SMEs through 4 open calls. 

The project will leverage a total of €6 million of complementary funding for selected SMEs provided by private and public investors. A “Circular Design Toolkit for Regions” will also be produced to mainstream the methodology in other EU Regions.   

C-VoUCHER partners

C-VoUCHER consortium comprises 13 partners with different profiles from 6 countries (Poland, France, Spain, Denmark, Romania and Sweden): 

FundingBox Accelerator, BLUMORPHO, Foreningen MADE, Lifestyle and Design Cluster, Green Ship of the Future Initiative, FundingBox Communities, Axencia Galega de Innovación (Galician Innovation Agency), Agencja Rozwoju Mazowsza Spolka Akcyjna (Mazovia Development Agency S.A.), Agentia de Dezvoltare Regionala Nord-Vest (Regional Development Agency of Nord-West), SYSTEM@TIC PARIS REGION, Tillväxtverket (Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth), and Vejle Kommune (Denmark).

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under grant agreement No. 777773

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