Grand Chambéry is an urban community bringing together 38 municipalities and 140,000 inhabitants. Grand Chambéry is located on the border with the Alps, in the heart of the Alpine valley.

From Callosa de Segura (Spain), a city with a long and rich history in the fiber industry, we are spearheading the creation of the URBACT CROP-CIRCLE network. The network's name is a play on words combining "crop" and "circle" (circular economy), reflecting our goal of addressing a common European challenge: overcoming regulatory barriers to replace plastics and synthetic materials with biomaterials derived from traditional crops.

The "Daya Vieja Circular Waste Living Lab" project stems from the need for rural municipalities to overcome the inefficiencies of current waste management models. In the case of Daya Vieja, although a door-to-door collection system with user identification and a smart emergency area is already in place, the locality remains dependent on distant, centralized treatment plants. This results in a high carbon footprint and unsustainable logistical costs.

The project will deliver a forward-looking Smart City solution that directly tackles two pressing urban challenges: inefficient parking management and deteriorating air quality. By deploying in-ground parking sensors, cities will gain real-time visibility of available spaces, significantly reducing congestion caused by parking search and improving the overall flow of urban traffic.

Monóvar (Spain) is a municipality facing a significant territorial challenge: bridging the mobility gap between its main urban core and five dispersed settlements (low-density/peri-urban areas). This territorial fragmentation generates a high dependency on private vehicles, which increases economic costs, carbon emissions, and social inequality. Specifically, it creates a "mobility divide" that isolates vulnerable groups who lack access to a private car, particularly the youth, the elderly, and women.

Alcanena is currently advancing an ambitious local housing agenda, combining social housing, affordable housing and collective housing solutions, with a pipeline of more than 300 dwellings and over 40M€ in planned investment. This creates a strong policy entry point for a network focused not only on housing delivery, but on the quality of the wider living environment in which housing is embedded.

Alcanena is currently advancing an ambitious local housing agenda, combining social housing, affordable housing and collective housing solutions, with a pipeline of more than 300 dwellings and over 40M€ in planned investment. This creates a strong policy entry point for a network focused not only on housing delivery, but on the quality of the wider living environment in which housing is embedded.