The IRISPHERE programme, coordinated by citydev.brussels, seeks to boost the development of the circular economy in the Brussels-Capital Region. Its ambition is twofold: to guide Brussels companies to improve materials cycles and to reinforce cooperation between companies on the regional level. The IRISPHERE team will assist you free of charge in setting up materials and services synergies.

Applying a tried and tested methodology, the IRISPHERE team will provide you with individual or collective guidance in order to identify, assess, and seize economic opportunities between companies on a local scale. That way, you’ll be developing sustainable partnerships for reusing materials or sharing facilities, resources, and services.

The IRISPHERE programme, which will run until 2021, is led by a broad consortium of Brussels actors who are circular economy pioneers. That consortium consists of citydev.brussels, EcoRes, Lateral Thinking Factory, Greenloop, BECI, La Ferme Nos Pilifs, Hub.brussels, Bruxelles Environnement, Bruxelles-Propreté, the Port of Brussels and the Communauté Portuaire Bruxelloise.

IRISPHERE receives support from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Brussels-Capital Region, and provides a free service to improve your company’s circularity.

 

Opportunities between companies

IRISPHERE is looking to experiment with industrial ecology on a city scale. Industrial ecology takes its cue from natural ecosystems in order to reorganize economic activities and the flow management for those economic activities. The starting point is setting up an industrial symbiosis between companies, simultaneously improving those companies’ bottom line and environmental performance.

IRISPHERE analyzed the symbioses present in nature and mapped out three which can also be applied in a (peri-)urban context, such as the Brussels-Capital Region.