Within this line of work, for some years now, it has been exploring how the circular economy is facilitated through public policies in the region. Around this, a first publication was made “Economía Circular y Políticas Publicas” seeking to know the state of the art and the challenges for the construction of a political framework in the region. Then, the scope of the work was expanded to include the academic contribution and communication issues through the publication “Políticas públicas, academia, comunicación y conversaciones digitales en torno a la economía circular en América Latina” where 196 initiatives were identified in the region.
This result of the mapping in the region showed us that there is work that is being carried out in each country and an opportunity to make it known to enhance collaboration and accelerate the circular transition from our region.
Thus, with this background work and now, taking an important step by integrating the Caribbean countries, the "Platform for Visualization of Public Initiatives in Circular Economy in Latin America and the Caribbean" was created seeking to guide the monitoring of public initiatives, evidencing progress and serving as a reference for new initiatives to arise. This platform, to date, has identified 387 initiatives in the region.
The platform has different dynamic features that make it a useful tool for all users. It gives us an overview of all the initiatives in the region where they can find out what type of initiative it is (for example, if it is a program or a regulation or an agreement) as well as its scope (for example, if it is an initiative implemented at the national, regional or local). It also shows how the initiatives have been developed over time since it records the information since 2010.
The platform allows access to a regional map, where when entering each country you can find the information already mentioned (territorial scope, type of initiative, evolution over time) and additionally there is a map of words that specifically indicates what topics are the addressed, which allows knowing, for example, the initiatives related to waste in a country.
This important tool was presented on May 24 at a virtual event together with our allies for the development of the tool: Celare, the Central University and the Technological Center for Circular Economy. In this event, the tool was presented by Luis Martinez, an academic from the Central University of Chile, who highlighted its characteristics as well as answering questions and queries from the audience. You can relive the event here: https://fb.watch/dt_RzywpTJ/
Explore the platform available at this link: https://survey.lesphinx.es/tiny/v/pVcU6BnM3O
From EKLA we hope that it will be a useful tool to promote more actions on the subject, to strengthen those that already exist and to generate collaborations between the actors already involved in this challenge of promoting the circular economy.
