Zoom in on one of our newest members, Centre-Val de Loire Regional Council

The Centre-Val de Loire Regional Council was created in 1986, in compliance with the decentralisation legislation in France. Like all French regional authorities, its mission is to steer regional public policies in a variety of fields. These include fostering innovation and economic development, encompassing agriculture; managing vocational training initiatives; overseeing territorial planning and transport systems; driving energy and ecological transition, which involves the coordination and facilitation of waste collection and prevention efforts; enhancing culture, heritage, and sports; addressing health and solidarity matters; and managing education at the high school level.

We asked Lola Boulanger, Task Officer for Circular Economy, a few questions. 

ACR+: You joined ACR+ at the turn of last year, what motivated you?

L.B.: The Centre-Val de Loire Regional Council has joined ACR+ to share and benefit from best practices in sustainable resource management. The circular economy roadmap will be adopted in June 2025, this partnership will then strengthen our actions in favour of the circular economy and facilitate synergies with other members of the network. We expect this collaboration to provide us with opportunities to co-develop innovative projects.

ACR+: As a regional authority, do you cooperate often with the other levels, especially local authorities?

L.B.: We work closely with local authorities, departments, inter-municipalities and cities to implement regional policies tailored to the specific needs of each area. This includes participative processes (especially during the elaboration of the roadmap) and funding for local projects.

ACR+: We can imagine that the roadmap is quite a big project (which we will closely follow, as we did with its consultation process, and report on for other ACR+ members). Does it leave you time to work on something else?

L.B.: The elaboration and operational implementation of our regional circular economy roadmap is indeed one of the main projects on which we are focusing for the coming year. In addition, we are working on the launch of an Interreg project dedicated to exchanging experiences and sharing best practices for structuring circular economy sectors in rural areas.