Investment Package Manual for European Cities and Regions. Volume I - EU Taxonomy applied to circular bio-based activities

Circular bioeconomy needs to be deployed thanks to investments aligned with the green financing and funding to comply with requirements and goals from public policies and strategies toward a circular and carbon-neutral economy by 2050. Thanks to green finance, European cities, regions, their entrepreneurs and businesses will be able to accelerate their transition to a low-carbon, resilient and resource-efficient economy.

The Investment Package Manual was designed at first time as confidential for the HOOP project’s pilot cities and regions, called Lighthouse, supporting them with knowledge and tools in their circularity journey. The HOOP project [October 2020 - September 2024] aims to unlock bio-based investments and deploy local bio economies in Europe through a systemic and cross-cutting approach. It will offer project development assistance to a group of 8 Lighthouse Cities and Regions to build the technical, economic, financial and legal expertise needed to develop concrete investments to valorise biowaste and wastewater, with the aim of obtaining safe and sustainable bio-based products.

The manual demonstrated a practical utility over time, being extensible and valuable resource for other EU Member States and their cities and regions. For this reason, the authors propose a public version that was developed to be disseminated among Cities and Regions of the HOOP Network and others across Europe and offers an overview on funding and financing schemes and opportunities at European, National and Regional levels.

The Investment Package Manual was developed on three-step approach and the public version distributed through 3 respective volumes. This Volume I presents the description of the EU Taxonomy concepts, methodology, objectives, technical screening criteria and DNSH (“do no significant harm”) applied to economic activities linked to the circular bioeconomy technologies, processes, activities and bioproducts from biowaste and wastewater sludge feedstocks, and respective regulation package. These economic activities selected are related to the bio-based technologies and processes being invested in the HOOP project by the European Cities and Regions.

The second step (Volume II) guides the reader through the selection and inventory of funding and financing schemes, programmes, instruments and tools for investment projects on circular bioeconomy and bioenergy at European level. The third step (Volume III) presents a selection and inventory of funding and financing schemes, programmes, instruments and tools for investment projects on circular bioeconomy and bioenergy at National and Regional levels, under 8 European countries and regions case studies: Finland, Greece, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain and The Netherlands.

The Recovery and Resilience plans and Horizon Europe already included the DNSH principle from EU Taxonomy, i.e., no measure in the projects and investments should lead to significant harm to any of the 6 environmental objectives: climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, circular economy, sustainable use and protection of water resources, pollution prevention and control, protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.