The Systemic Design of Politecnico di Torino As a support of Piedmont regional policies

A smart, sustainable and inclusive project able to foresee the reduction and valorization of outputs for each part of the life cycle of products in order to reduce waste, exactly like Nature does, can transform everything it creates. This is the concept at the basis of Systemic Design and RETRACE project (“A Systemic Approach for Regions TRAnsitioning towards a Circular Economy”), one of the 64 projects funded by the Interreg Europe programme and that will benefit from more than 1,5 MLN € of financing in four years.

RETRACE officially started in these days and will connect five different Regions of European countries – Italy, Spain, France, Slovenia and Romania. The partners of the project will aim to define specific territorial policies, a process that, in the case of Italy, will involve the support of Piedmont Region (partner of the project) that will cooperate for the implementation. RETRACE project strengthens a virtuous political-decisional understanding between Politecnico and Regione Piemonte that last year signed an Agreement for the promotion of local development through Systemic Approach and Circular Economy. The first two years of the project will focus on the research and selection of best practices, while the last two years will be devoted to the implementation phase in the various territories involved.

Silvia Barbero, from the Department of Architecture and Design at Politecnico di Torino, coordinator of the project explained: “RETRACE represents a great opportunity to promote, disseminate and apply in practice the Systemic Approach, that has always characterized the Master Degree “Aurelio Peccei” in Systemic Design at Politecnico di Torino, and it is in line with the need expresses by European Commission in European Agenda 2020 to lead Europe towards a circular economy that tends to zero waste production, an ambitious project that can however be realized starting from regional policies and development plan”.