Coming from all over Europe, ACR+ members converged in Leeuwarden on 11 June for their annual General Assembly, hosted by ACR+ member Provincie Fryslân. The event coincided with the Circular Summit Fryslân 2025, creating a dynamic space for knowledge-sharing and collaboration toward one common goal: emphasising the crucial role for regions and cities in accelerating the transition to a circular economy with lasting benefits for the environment and public well-being. 

ACR+ members reaffirmed their commitment to advance sustainable material resource use and to embrace their responsibility to drive forward policies reflecting the priorities and needs of local communities, keeping as a guiding thread the idea of sufficiency. During the General Assembly, members also began shaping their collective input into the forthcoming EU Circular Economy Act, identifying top priorities such as extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes and circular public procurement. Insights will be formalised in an official ACR+ position paper to be released in September 2025. The network’s work across its five thematic areas, alongside project outcomes and members’ concrete examples, will form the basis of its recommendations.

With its strong expertise in supporting public authorities in their transition to circularity, ACR+ welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to revise the EU Bioeconomy Strategy. This revision is a key opportunity to fully harness the bioeconomy’s potential in building sustainable and resilient economies aligned with EU climate and environmental goals. To be effective, it must be supported by technical and financial assistance for regional authorities and build on existing best practices across Europe. 

Drawing on its members’ experience, ACR+ contributed to the Commission’s public consultation, submitting recommendations based on real-world cases, for examples from FADI (RO), Zero Waste Scotland (UK), Fryslan (NL), Pays de la Loire (FR), Region Wallonie (BE), Lipor (PT), but also stemming from EU-funded projects. Our position paper highlights the need to apply the waste hierarchy to bioeconomy, improve data transparency on regional resources, integrate bioeconomy into education and training, promote stakeholder engagement, and provide better support for financing regional bioeconomy initiatives. 

From April to May 2025, the European Commission launched a call for evidence for its "EU Agenda for Cities" initiative, aiming to streamline support for cities by assessing existing EU tools and enhancing their role in future policymaking. The agenda will reinforce related efforts such as the European Affordable Housing Plan. ACR+ responded to the consultation, highlighting the need to better integrate cities into EU strategies. 

In its feedback, ACR+ stressed the importance of a territorial approach, placing local and regional governments at the heart of the transition toward decarbonisation, competitiveness, and social cohesion. This requires flexible regulation, bottom-up planning, and capacity building through peer-learning, such as EU Taiex. ACR+ also called for stronger cross-border cooperation and urged cities to embrace the circular economy as a driver of climate action and resource independence. 

Between each conversation about climate and competitiveness, ACR+ has busily promoted circularity as a key driver for the European Union’s goals – both in terms of environment and economy. Beyond publishing position papers and engaging directly with the European Commission, ACR+ works with other progressive organisations to advocate sustainable policies in Europe.  

The Local Alliance, a coalition of local and regional governments including ACR+, published position papers on competitiveness, multilevel governance in the EU multiannual financial framework, and better public reforms. The Local Alliance also wrote a briefing concerning the omission of local and regional authorities from national Social Climate Plans. With other civil society groups, ACR+ prepared a paper highlighting the importance of sufficiency.  

Through the Buy Better to Build Better coalition, ACR+ is setting a bold vision for green public procurement and the future of construction in Europe. The coalition engaged with the European Parliament Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) committee as it prepared the Parliament’s position on public procurement before voting in favour on 7 July. 

We are also part of the CISAF Circularity Coalition, which fought to ensure the inclusion of circular economy measures for State Aid under the Clean Industrial Deal. On 25 June, the Commission unveiled the new text which explicitly mentions the validity of circular economy projects for State Aid and commits to prioritising them, thanks to the united efforts of the CISAF Circularity Coalition.  

ACR+ dived into the world of behaviour, from the perspective of applied solutions, practices, processes and operations, during a four-episode webinar series prepared by its Circular Lifestyles thematic area in partnership with various EU-funded projects. The goal was to understand how production and consumption practices can be reshaped to reinforce circular economy principles. 

Aligned with ACR+’s broader commitment to help members assess behaviour and rethink product placing, marketing, and consumer engagement, as well as social acceptance, the series explored how various processes and operations can be rethought, reshaped and redefined to allow  key policies, targets and strategies to be embedded into the ways we buy, consume, enjoy and exploit various goods and services – including events, textiles, circular business models, and more. 

• Sharing municipal insights on mattress recycling
• ACR+ shares insights on textile and kitchen waste in Bucharest
• Maximising resilience through repair/reuse and beyond – Solutions from Textiles and Electronics
• Closing the loop for European city life with open managed systems for reusable takeaway packaging
• ECODAYS: Conference on "Circular Economy and Waste Management"