Paper short abstract:

Looking at the dynamics and relations occurring through European Union policies in Greece, this paper explores the localisation of the global process of shifting towards circular economy in a suburb in Athens through a transnational collaboration resulted in an e-learning toolbox freely open to all.

Paper long abstract:

Looking at the dynamics and relations occurring through European Union strategies in Greece, this paper explores the localisation of the global process of shifting towards circular economy in a suburb of Athens where representatives from public and private sector (cities, companies, universities) from Spain, Portugal, Malta and Greece worked together for an e-learning toolbox freely open to all. The ethnographic data focuses on the ways people, politicians, administrators, educators, citizens attended seminars and workshops, reflecting and commenting on the circular economy during the CLEAR project funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Programme. The project promotes a "servitisation" business model as a way to encourage the Circular Economy, highlighting consumers' engagement. It also promotes the "citizen - consumer" approach and the concept of "collaboration", bringing in front a distinct sense of citizenship. Beyond business models and waste management analyses, we scrutinise the "circular economy" as a multi-level collaborative process, and seek to unpack the ways people understand it and respond to such "new" ideas. Recycling and reusing are well-known to previous generations and bring in front social justice issues. Collaboration is now promoted as the key concept for improving people's awareness and actions on reducing waste and raw material. However, a lot of people are very concerned about institutional bureaucracy and corruption that such projects can imply or the neoliberal ideas they vehiculate, questioning in that way their impact to society.